“..in searching for a common enemy to unite us…”
Posted on 19 October 2009
1.
“…The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, just to keep people frightened…” -George Orwell, in 1984
2.
Page 75. “The common enemy of humanity is man.
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
- Club of Rome Report. The First Global Revolution: A Report to the Club of Rome
” (The wording differs slightly between the 1991 edition, and the 1993 reprint) by Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider
For more information on The Club of Rome the following links should be helpful. There are many other resources, of varying degrees of objectivity (as if Wikipedia was an objective source) but the following should be helpful.
- Wikipedia’s entry on The Club of Rome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome
-Alexander King, at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_King_(scientist)
-Aurelio_Peccei, at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurelio_Peccei
The Club of Rome itself: http://www.clubofrome.org/eng/new_path/
33 responses to “..in searching for a common enemy to unite us…”
[...] “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote. [...]
[...] “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote. [...]
[...] “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote. [...]
[...] “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote. [...]
[...] “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote. [...]
[...] “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote. [...]
[...] “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote. [...]
[...] “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote. [...]
[...] “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote. [...]
Are you aware that the following two sentences that you’ve put in sequence actually appear on different pages in the original docuemnt?
“… or else one invented for the purpose. New enemies therefore have to be identified. New strategies imagined, new weapons devised.”
Would you like to set the record straight?
please see:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/13160503/The-First-Global-Revolution-Club-of-Romes-1991-Report
Yes.
Hence the ellipse ..
A good point however, this is sloppy of me. And could be construed as intellectually dishonest, though this is not my intent.
i’ll fix it by adding page numbers. Thank you.
Thanks for being honest.
The ellipsis were NOT in your blog, I added them. Your (mis-)quote blatantly spliced together to passages on different pages.
Let me quote you in full:
“..It would seem that humans need a common motivation, namely a common adversary, to organize and act together in the vacuum; such a motivation must be found to bring the divided nations together to face an outside enemy, either a real one or else one invented for the purpose. New enemies therefore have to be identified. New strategies imagined, new weapons devised.”
Now, the part starting with “New enemies therefore ..” is in a different chapter from the rest of the quote. But the way you’ve placed the two sentences together gives the impression that one thought follows from the other. In point of fact the two sentences are completely unrelated.
Can you offer a reason as to how and why you sliced these two passages together. It reads awful sinister the way you’ve put it, wouldn’t you agree?
No Charlie, in response to your veiled accusations of sinister intellectual dishonesty, there is nothing sinister about it. It is a result of sloppy cut and pasting from on-line sources of dubious quality.
This is due mainly to, I honestly admit, laziness. I am not often afflicted with laziness, at times it happens, with all of us. I am sure you have experienced it yourself.
Since I have both the 1991 and 1993 print editions in hand I simply didn’t bother proof checking what I’d - I admit - cut and pasted from online sources in interest of time. I have read the print versions, the quote stuck out in my memory so when I realized there were online sources of the quote I simply copy/pasted them to avoid the tedium of typing the quote since I had previously typed roughly 15 pages from another book, which I will post later. It should have dawned on me to proof-check things with the two print versions I had in my hand. I did not. And I honestly admit this.
You will also notice that I excised one quote and tightened up things a bit - I will further tighten things up later adding that quote with original page numbers again.
On the side I will not delete or edit your comments - something that one who really had a sinister intent or agenda would do, now dontcha think.
My snarkiness aside you were perfectly in the right to call me out on this, but throwing around accusations of sinister intent is a wee bit rude. That said, you were right, I was in error, I have now corrected this error.
On the side, irony suspended, this leads to another blog that I will post later on the dubious nature of on-line sources and the need to refer to print sources. I recently had to spend a good chunk of time transcribing by hand a couple of chapters of Carrol Quigley’s “Tragedy and Hope” because the web/html sources of a few quotes from it, and the pdf copy that I checked those web pages against, had all been heavily edited in a way that butchered a good deal of the author’s intended meaning in many places.
This annoyed me highly because in my vast naivete it never really dawned on me that the wonderland that are on-line sources should be laden with mindfields. There are several other blog articles that I haven’t published over the last few weeks because i found that the sources of many quotes were dubious.
All of which should have caused me to exercise more discipline with the quotes on this page. I did not, I admit it, and probably should take better care in the future lest such slips make me look excessively like an ass online.
[snark mode off]
Well done Camel, you’re an honest bloke.
I was forwarded that quote from someone who thought it was devastating and demonic and was perhaps even the key to the universe.
I read the (spliced-together) quote and thought it seemed just a little on the implausible side that a couple of liberal humanists would write something so bizarre sounding. I went to google books and tracked down the passage and, sure enough, the two sentences were spliced together for maximum effect — maximum grist for the paranoid mill. Either sentence read alon is entirely innocuous, even banal (i.e. of course famine and water-shortages are the common enemy of man!)
Where did you cut-and-paste your quote from? I also found it on an anti-semitic hate-blog called “Under the Radar” and indeed the passage seems relatively ubiquitous.
thanks for correcting the record.
I found it on several sites actually, the quote is sort of plastered all over the place.
What caused me to post it was the fact that I had read the book from which the quote came, the original struck me strongly. Since I did read these words, with my own eyes, in the print text, and the second quote in particular “In searching for an enemy..” stuck with me strongly, I really didn’t have a reason to suspect the order of the wording, since the substance stood out in my mind.
Anyway, again, thank you for the correction. It was needed.
[...] “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote. [...]
[...] “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote. [...]
[...] “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote. [...]
[...] “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote. [...]
[...] “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote. [...]
[...] “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote. [...]
[...] “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote. [...]
[...] attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote in a report entitled “The First Global [...]
[...] attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote in a report entitled “The First Global [...]
[...] attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote in a report entitled “The First Global [...]
[...] attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote in a report entitled “The First Global [...]
[...] attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote in a report entitled “The First Global [...]
Interesting discussion going on here. What I take from it is that I had never heard about this report before and will now be buying a copy of it to see for myself.
Nancy
Do read it, you can find it on Amazon.com and at some used bookstores.
I recommend the first version if possible.
To really grasp the authors’ intent and worldview it is best to read it twice, once breeze over it, and then a second time read it slowly, with focus, and reflect on each chapter and its themes.
[...] attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote in a report entitled “The First Global [...]
I’m 54, so I remember Julian Simon’s bet against Ehrlich (Club of Rome) in 1980 about future prices of raw materials. The amount was $1,000 of raw materials and the payout would be in 1990. If doomsayers were right, population increases would increase demands of scarce raw materials and prices would increase, Simon would have to pay the difference. If Simon was right, humanity would use its ingenuity, the raw materials would be more abundant and prices lower.
Population increased in the intervening 10 years. Guess who won the bet. Google it.
[...] “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote. [...]