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15 comments to The devil wears red |
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Lest we forget.
For me the most horrific bit is not the military whose function was the imposition of evil but rather the crowds of “happy workers” with an officially mandated rictus of joy on their faces.
Given that was the display from the ideology of peace, can you imagine what the military displays and blatant saber rattling were like amongst the belligerent and aggressive warmongers of capitalism?
Anyone care to describe the displays of advanced weaponry paraded in the streets of London and New York in those days?
Red can be used to indicate such things as the blood of Christ (hence the red cross of England), but it more generally just meant blood thirsty (savage) – and even to signify that no prisoners would be taken (pirates used the Red Flag for this purpose). It also had a meaning connected to magic (a violent and evil use of magic).
Hollywood and popular literature get it wrong when the have a “black knight” as a sign of evil. Black signified being constant (which could mean mean being constant in a good cause). If any colour armour signifed evil it would be red armour (although, as poited out at the start, not always so).
Blue (for those interested) signified loyality (such as the loyalty of the Virgin Mary). Which makes the flag of Estonia (blue and black) an extreme statement (although not a bad statement).
If there was a merchant colour (or at least a colour for those interested in commerce) it was orange (although this colour was rarely used in these islands) – this was the colour of “benevolent ambition”.
I have not used the formal names for the colours above – in order to minimize confusion.
A change of subject:
A British person (at least this British person) is always reminded of “Daleks” (from the science fiction show “Doctor Who”) when he sees Soviet tanks – perhaps it is the shape of the turrets.
I apologize if this comment seems in bad taste to those who have sufferered under Soviet oppression.
Paul, the headline is a play on the title of a film recently out – The Devil Wears Prada… no more, no less. 🙂
Paul, while I don’t doubt your erudition it would have been helpful if you had pointed out in exactly which cultures these cultural colour references applied to. In Russian (such is my understanding) the word for “red” is the same as the word for “beautiful”.
I have heard of the film. Although, I admit, I know very little about it.
As for Nick’s point:
Well I know that red is luckey in the far east and was used by Tolkien’s fictional hobbits for important documents. And that it is used to indicate Republican supporting States in the United States (I am told that this was a random thing that dates back to television network history, rather than being a hint at “Redneck”).
As for what culture I was wrtiting about – our culture (I would have thought the words “these islands” would have indicated that). Of course the colours went beyond heraldry (part of the reason I did not use the formal names for the colours) and went far beyond Western Europe.
When a pirate in the Caribbian raised the Red Flag people did not say “that does not count because this is not Europe”. Any more than a coat of arms loses its meaning if taken to New Zealand (or the planet Zog for that matter). The colours (in coats of arms) meant the same in Finland or Estonia as they did in Ireland or Iceland.
I had not heard that Russia had its own colour code. I was under the impression (perhaps mistaken) that the Russians had the same basic system as other Europeans (at least in later centuries). If they do not then they really are aliens.
Red can indeed be a jolly colour (hence the colour of the costume of Father Christmas). But to use it as a main colour in a flag (as opposed to in balanced combination with others) is making a strong statement – and not a good one.
When the French Republican poet Lamartine insisted that the Red Flag was one of “blood and death” and therefore must not be the new flag of France (after the revolution of 1848) he was not making a shallow point.
Lamartine was making a point founded in the history of Western Civilization.
It is fine to use red as a one of several colours in a flag – but it should not be the main colour, to make it the main colour is not good. I say again that when people raise the Red Flag (as a matter of choice, not part of a family or ethnic tradition) they are making a clear statement – and a bad one. This was true centuries before Karl Marx was born (although it was well known to him). When people raise the Red Flag (again as a choice – not because of some historical or ethnic reason) or sing a song about it, they are making a statement.
This statement is that they intend to destroy the lives and goods of other people – unless they themselves are destroyed. Although (I fully accept) that many members of (for example) the British Labour party may not have understood the meaning of the song they sang so often, or read clause four of their own constitution (even though it was printed on all Labour party membership cards). Logically someone who sang such a song and carried such a card was declaring themselves to be an enemy of civilization, no more to be trusted than a dog with rabies. However, people are often not logical (it is difficult question to know “which Reds really mean it and which do not”, but that does not mean the reply “it is too late to wait till they act, one must assume that they all mean it” is the correct one).
The depth of human ignorance has long ceased to shock me. For example, some people prove unable to describe a house in which they have lived for years – their eyes may be able to see, but their minds are blind.
The above is not intended to insult any nation that has, for historical reasons, red as the main colour of its flag, just to point out that it is not a colour (in the Western tradition) one should not choose to make the main colour of a flag. As to do so sends out a bad message.
One of my aunts once caused major consternation in the little inland jungle village where she lived on the island of Borneo for almost fifty years. (She was a nurse)
She grabbed a bandana a random and tied up her hair to go for a ride on her motor bike. It was a red bandana. They wanted to know who she was going out to kill. Since nobody had the nerve to approach her, she didn’t find out the problem right away.
In Russian (such is my understanding) the word for “red” is the same as the word for “beautiful”.
The two words are very close, but not the same.
Red = краÑный (krasnii)
Beautiful = краÑивый (krasivii)
They probably share the same etymological root, and it is believed that the name of Red Square derived from an original meaning of Beautiful Square, but in modern Russian the two words have completely different meanings.
Morpheus: Were you listening to me, Neo? Or were you looking at the woman in the red dress?
Neo: I was…
Morpheus: [gestures with one hand] Look again.
[the woman in the red dress is now Agent Smith, pointing a gun at Neo’s head; Neo ducks]
Morpheus: Freeze it.
[Everybody and everything besides Neo and Morpheus freezes in time]
Neo: This… this isn’t the Matrix?
Morpheus: No. It is another training program designed to teach you one thing: if you are not one of us, you are one of them.
Traditionally, in the US blue was the color of the incumbent (loyalty) and red the color of the challenger (change).
Then someone wrote a book (circa 2000ish) called “Red America, Blue America”, and the colors became associated with specific parties.
Personally, I suspect certain types were delighted to find a way to associate red (which is considered to be associated with communism) with a party other than the Democrats.
Thanks for the correction, Tim!
Is it true that Russian doesn’t have a single word meaning “blue” and instead have words for “dark blue” and “light blue”?
Yes, pretty much. From what I can gather from my wife’s not-so-clear explanation (hey, it is Woman’s Day in Russia tomorrow!), the Russian word which translates to “blue” in English does not encompass light blue, only dark blue. Light blue is considered a different colour, hence it has a different word.
At the beginning of the clip, note the two convertibles with the clowns standing in the back. The way the one was circling around reminded me of the shriners on motor scooters in parades here.
Also, did anybody else see phallic imagery in driving missile trucks down the street? Why is it that the communists felt the need to display surrogate genitalia in a military parade? Were they trying to claim to be better-endowed than the decadent West?
Seriously, they need better parades. Why tanks and soldiers when you could have circus animals, dingbat local politicians (walking the whole route to prove their populist credentials, natch’) and jail-bait local beauty queens with titles like “Queen of Wheat?”
And not a hot dog, beer, pop, or peanut vendor to be seen. Peanut shortage that year, I guess?
I think I could happily live with the crowds of “happy workers”. Its those effing great nuclear missiles that gave me the willies … speaking strictly as one who sat on the East German border during Able Archer 83 doing artillery OP with ‘happy’ memories of listening to the MiGs bouncing the border hoping for us to retaliate.
I’ve always found it ironic, enlightening and quite entertaining to see that those in the West who are A) most prone to call themselves “peace” advocates, and B) most prone to call the USA “imperialist” or “war monger” also nearly to the last have a special place in their heart for the former Soviet Union (or Cuba, China, even North Korea, and of course the fast rising cause celebre Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela) yet who have been the nations throughout the previous 50 years who were conducting endless parades of their most deadly weapons, even brandishing their nuclear weapons up and down the capital city square and issuing endless fire and brimstone speeches of “burying” or “destroying” anyone who is against such nations? Not the US, but instead the very same Soviets, Cubans, North Koreans…