Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Before he was George Orwell, he was Eric Blair, police officer

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 73 posts

Re: Before he was George Orwell, he was Eric Blair, police officer

#61

Post by nonrandomstring »

mejutoco wrote: post #59
nonrandomstring wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's inspiring to imagine subversive writers bravely speaking truth to power, when the reality is they're just observing the mundanity of their own time, then later as world shifts into insanity their commonplace objections to ordinary injustice look like unspeakable challenges.

Not saying that does not happen sometimes. In this case, Orwell was a volunteer in the Spanish civil war. I think that places him pretty strongly in the speaking truth to power and not hypocritically.

Definitely not hypocritically. I would never say that of Orwell who was the real deal.

Just saying that most of us cannot see the implications of our thoughts in our own epoch. Most dystopian authors playfully hope they're wrong. So I think when Orwell penned his best anti-fascist works the world was already on an optimistic post-war trajectory, seeing an "arc of history that bends toward justice". Nobody had anticipated technofascism is its emerging forms.

Re: Before he was George Orwell, he was Eric Blair, police officer

#62

Post by nyokodo »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #61
mejutoco wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not saying that does not happen sometimes. In this case, Orwell was a volunteer in the Spanish civil war. I think that places him pretty strongly in the speaking truth to power and not hypocritically.

Definitely not hypocritically. I would never say that of Orwell who was the real deal. Just saying that most of us cannot see the implications of our thoughts in our own epoch. Most dystopian authors playfully hope they're wrong. So I think when Orwell penned his best anti-fascist works the world was already on an optimistic post-war trajectory, seeing an "arc of history that bends toward justice". Nobody had anticip…

> his best anti-fascist works

Fascism has no false pretense of equality across races and peoples, which is clearly what Animal Farm was referring to, but Communism does. Orwell deliberately doesn’t name the ideology but clearly Fascism isn’t the only authoritarian ideology that Orwell was criticizing in his body of work.

Re: Before he was George Orwell, he was Eric Blair, police officer

#63

Post by acatnamedjoe »

vinceguidry wrote: post #16

This takedown of 1984 and Orwell in general was really good IMO: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-overrated-novel-of-th...

So many critiques of 1984 seem to boil down to "I'd really like 1984 to be a political treatise in favour of my ideology, but it isn't!"

All of the things this article says are bad about 1984 are the things that make it a good novel:

- It has a complex main character who is deeply flawed and far from an ideal revolutionary. - It isn't especially concerned with accurately modelling a plausible political system, and instead describes an emotive representation of the author's fears for the future. - Many of it's themes are aesthetic or subjective. - It doesn't try to offer a concrete alternative, giving the whole thing a sense of hopelessness.

Re: Before he was George Orwell, he was Eric Blair, police officer

#64

Post by nonrandomstring »

nyokodo wrote: post #62
nonrandomstring wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not hypocritically. I would never say that of Orwell who was the real deal. Just saying that most of us cannot see the implications of our thoughts in our own epoch. Most dystopian authors playfully hope they're wrong. So I think when Orwell penned his best anti-fascist works the world was already on an optimistic post-war trajectory, seeing an "arc of history that bends toward justice". Nobody had anticip…

> his best anti-fascist works Fascism has no false pretense of equality across races and peoples, which is clearly what Animal Farm was referring to, but Communism does. Orwell deliberately doesn’t name the ideology but clearly Fascism isn’t the only authoritarian ideology that Orwell was criticizing in his body of work.

Absolutely right. But what I've noticed is, it's acceptable to characterise technological authoritarianism and anti-humanism as "technofascism". Because we "all hate fascists" right? It's almost de rigueur. But naming it as "techno-communism" [0] or mentioning the Cosmist connection to techno-utopianism normally gets me marked down in these parts. Odd what waters flow underground.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fully_automated_luxury_communi...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cosmism

Re: Before he was George Orwell, he was Eric Blair, police officer

#65

Post by mistermann »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #38
mistermann wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not necessary for beliefs or stories about it though!

I believe the observation is that a counterculture is preceded by a culture to be countered. OP is drawing observations that this is a counterculture which is rising in popularity. As such, they claim that one or more current prevalent cultures must be those of which Orwell has written in opposition. At least, that’s my interpretation.

Right, but that is only true to the degree that it is true. History is filled with humans fighting/worshipping imaginary things. At the level of realtime reality (especially, but not exclusively), the epistemic status of a proposition is often 100% irrelevant.

Neuroscience, consciousness, culture, etc seems simple but they are actually the opposite, that is a key part of why the illusion is so convincing.

Re: Before he was George Orwell, he was Eric Blair, police officer

#66

Post by nortonham »

bardan wrote: post #58
nortonham wrote: post #54

https://exiledonline.com/big-brothers-george-orwell-and-chri... "That’s the thing about Orwell’s Imperialism: it’s perfectly ordinary stuff, distinguished only by the socialist persona he invented to speak it. As an example of literary dissembling, Orwell belongs with the great forgers. But as a man of ideas, he is truly beneath contempt. His ideas are simply the hatreds of his nursery, hidden by an elaborate self-gl…

"Ah, but what about Spain? Orwell put his life fighting for POUM in the Spanish Civil War. He got himself shot in the neck-pretty high risks for a phony socialist. How do I explain that one? Actually, it’s simple. Orwell went to Spain to fight for his most deeply held belief, yes. Unfortunately, that belief wasn’t socialism but the nastiest, most puerile of the tribal hatreds English babies learn in the cradle: anti-…

> Did he write this at the time the Exiled staff were smashing each other in the face with horse semen pies? Seems like a lot of edginess and projection.

Chronologically I think this comes after the horse semen pies.

It's not a stretch to think a middle class Englishmen from the early 20th century hates catholics, and that this bigotry (along with his other pet hates) pop up in his writing.

As far as Orwell being a socialist....don't forget he ratted out British socialist to British intelligence.

Re: Before he was George Orwell, he was Eric Blair, police officer

#67

Post by nortonham »

acatnamedjoe wrote: post #60
nortonham wrote: post #54

https://exiledonline.com/big-brothers-george-orwell-and-chri... "That’s the thing about Orwell’s Imperialism: it’s perfectly ordinary stuff, distinguished only by the socialist persona he invented to speak it. As an example of literary dissembling, Orwell belongs with the great forgers. But as a man of ideas, he is truly beneath contempt. His ideas are simply the hatreds of his nursery, hidden by an elaborate self-gl…

I don't think Orwell was ever a "man of ideas" and I don't think he would have seen himself as such either. His writing is partly journalistic, partly literary.He's never really trying to assemble a coherent ideological or philosophical argument. He's reporting what he sees and reflecting on the world he lives in and his place in it. He can see profound problems and injustices, but is deeply skeptical that any of the…

> Judging him on not being "properly" socialist or anti-imperialist or whatever is completely missing the point.

But there are people who put him on the pedestal. His claimed by the left, and western leftists love to argue over who is "more socialist" than the other. His time in Spain, books like Animal Farm and 1984...they're held up as examples of Orwell being a better leftist than others.

Re: Before he was George Orwell, he was Eric Blair, police officer

#68

Post by coldtea »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #45
alliao wrote: post #9

Literature's power lies in it's low cost and broad viewpoints. And whatever topic became popular because they reflect the times. We must be in trouble, given Orwell became so popular. Extra so if powers that be deemed worthwhile to character assassinate someone who writes "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". It should have never gotten as popular as it did.

It's inspiring to imagine subversive writers bravely speaking truth to power, when the reality is they're just observing the mundanity of their own time, then later as world shifts into insanity their commonplace objections to ordinary injustice look like unspeakable challenges.

There are authors who wrote about common sense things about ordinary injustices or follies of their time, which because of today's brand of insanity come to appear uniquely poignant and prophetic. But Orwell wasn't that, or wasn't mainly that.

Orwell had lived through a hell of a lot of non-mundanity (British colonialism, Spain's civil war, Nazism and World War II, Stalinism) whose injustices he wrote about.

It's not like he just wrote about 1940's common places against ordinary injustices.

Re: Before he was George Orwell, he was Eric Blair, police officer

#69

Post by coldtea »

norir wrote: post #40
nonrandomstring wrote: post #35

Just put it out there, If you love Orwell then Christopher Hitchens on Orwell is like the whole pudding, coffee and after-dinner mints. He's my fave Orwell scholar and throws a lot of light on the life, thoughts and implications of the writer.

Hitchens had an arrogant and chauvinistic side that spoils his writing for me.

Arrogant, chauvinistic, and know-it-all, when he was just of mediocre education at best (compared to much more substantial public intellectuals - yes, he went to Oxbridge, but he just had a run-of-the-mill degree and grades, like thousands of others every year). His takes on literature and other subjects were too shallow.

He did put on a good show, which TV and the press loved.

Re: Before he was George Orwell, he was Eric Blair, police officer

#70

Post by vinceguidry »

acatnamedjoe wrote: post #63
vinceguidry wrote: post #16

This takedown of 1984 and Orwell in general was really good IMO: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-overrated-novel-of-th...

So many critiques of 1984 seem to boil down to "I'd really like 1984 to be a political treatise in favour of my ideology, but it isn't!" All of the things this article says are bad about 1984 are the things that make it a good novel: - It has a complex main character who is deeply flawed and far from an ideal revolutionary. - It isn't especially concerned with accurately modelling a plausible political system, and in…

It's a terrible novel. It's iconic, I'll give you that, but there are lots of badly-written, yet iconic books. (Looking at you Bukowski) The main character isn't complex at all. There's no depth at all to Winston. He's not a revolutionary in any fashion whatsoever. I didn't realize the extent to which he was a complete author-insert until I read Johnston's essay though. I wasn't expecting a political treatise, but I would have liked a better thought out world with characters that have actual motivations. The only character with any kind of motivation at all in the whole book is O'Brian.
Post reply on HN