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George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

gutenberg.net.au

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Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#421

Post by Barrin92 »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #417
Barrin92 wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's too charitable. It's a rhetorical tool that Orwell uses to invoke a sort of comradery with the reader because it lends itself to the largely anti-establishment points he tried to get across. It's the old Etonian going "I'm one of you guys" which has a long tradition in British political rhetoric.

So? You say it like it’s a bad thing to use rhetoric. But even pg has his own sharp set of rhetorical tools.

it's a bad thing to mistake rhetorical skill for profundity. The same is true for pg. Most of what he writes is trite but he's popular because he's mastered the skill of talking to his audience in a tone that has convinced them they're all secret geniuses with access to forbidden knowledge. If Orwell was alive today, he'd probably have a thriving substack.

In reality much of Orwell's output was the result of his personal feud with Stalinism, deeply conventional and elitist, and not that deep, and it's not surprising that he is today probably the most mindlessly-quoted writer around.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#422

Post by _Algernon_ »

jvalenzu wrote: post #217
notRobot wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any recommendations for other writings and analyses by Orwell?

Homage to Catalonia is his highly personal analysis of the events of the Spanish Civil War. It isn't at all comprehensive, but very plain spoken and perceptive and helps frame all of his fictional work.

Read that recently. I'd advice anyone who reads it and isn't familiar with the time period to at least get an overview of the factions involved. Worst part of the book IMHO (though it wouldn't be fair to blame Orwell for that).

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#423

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

dalbasal wrote: post #315
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #240

Orwell omitted a few details: Hitler never had a majority in the Reichstag/german parliament - he benefited from the enmity between the Social democrats and the Communist. I mean a popular front, like in France of 1936 would have stopped them. The German soial dems and communist were mortal enemies, because the social dems shot a lot of communists in the aftermath of the Kapp putsch. Also Hitler had the massive suppo…

IDK if I'd call that an "omission." There was a political system, and Hitler came to power within it. France still has a political norm of banding together to defeat populist far right parties, and an electoral system that lends to it. The fact remains that Fascism, Hitler, and Nazism was popular and that was key to achieving power . This is essay is about that. Why, despite promising burdens and hardship, was Fascis…

> For example, I think this gives us clues about Russian communism's decline (also in the West, ideologically) after Stalin.

The decline only started well after that, even after the 1968 Prague Spring debacle. Only a few of the faithful in the west were put off by it.

I'd put it at late 1970s, maybe really sinking in with Poland's Solidarnosc turmoil around 1980.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#424

Post by orf »

anigbrowl wrote: post #399
orf wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not a fan of this description because it’s reductionist to the point of stupidity. It can be applied to any empire, from the Romans to the USA.

Empires do tend to have a lot of features in common and run into the same difficulties. I recommend The Fate of Empires by John Bagot Glubb for a concise statement of the problem.

Thanks! I’ll check it out

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#425

Post by smackeyacky »

robocat wrote: post #409
lostlogin wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His description of trench warfare and hand to hand combat is horrifying. I understood his views on communism better after reading the book.

The words “communism” and “socialism” have particularly slippery modern meanings - they depend where you are internationally, in time, and your partisanship. I have read a lot of what he wrote, and I am still unsure what he exactly meant by socialism. I find his essay ‘On Nationalism’ difficult to follow, although very interesting. I love all his writings about his own experiences, because his observations are so exc…

The US is the only place where the word "Socialism" isn't used properly. The rest of the world understands it perfectly well.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#426

Post by robocat »

j3s wrote: post #260

this is tangentially related, but i've always loved reading this critique of orwell & 1984 by asimov: http://www.newworker.org/ncptrory/1984.htm i've always thought it a valid critique, and it makes me think less of orwell's writings

Wow - awesome! Asimov’s review reads like every engineer’s nit-picking arguments (including my own!). In this case they are almost all strawman arguments, seemingly painting 1984 as a work of science and prediction. Asimov saying Asimov’s writing is great, and another style is bad.

Big Brother was not a person, but an immortal simulcrum of the party. Asimov ignores that and assumes that Big Brother is just an individual dictator that will die.

Pick a sentence in the second half, and think about whether Asimov is critiquing like an engineer or not.

1984 is not a book written as a coherent hard sci-fi novel, it is more akin to a allegorical fairytale where you need to pick up the concepts by implication.

Asimov is annoyed 1984 uses Stalin as a setting. That is like being annoyed that Asimov uses starships as a setting. The story is not the setting.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#427

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

"Suppose that Hitler’s programme could be put into effect. What he envisages, a hundred years hence, is a continuous state of 250 million Germans with plenty of ‘living room’ (i.e. stretching to Afghanistan or thereabouts), a horrible brainless empire in which, essentially, nothing ever happens except the training of young men for war and the endless breeding of fresh cannon-fodder."

That bears reading twice.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#429

Post by anigbrowl »

smcl wrote: post #97
ixtli wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh come on. You know well that the interparty collaboration to take down Corbyn was far from due to earnest concern about Jews safety. On the contrary, they are once again using us as a rhetorical cudgel to achieve their ends.

I'm still shocked that nothing really came of the report that the anti-Corbyn activities within the Labour party. It should've rocked the party to the core and caused heads to roll.

Which means your institution has been captured.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#430

Post by littlestymaar »

robocat wrote: post #409
lostlogin wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His description of trench warfare and hand to hand combat is horrifying. I understood his views on communism better after reading the book.

The words “communism” and “socialism” have particularly slippery modern meanings - they depend where you are internationally, in time, and your partisanship. I have read a lot of what he wrote, and I am still unsure what he exactly meant by socialism. I find his essay ‘On Nationalism’ difficult to follow, although very interesting. I love all his writings about his own experiences, because his observations are so exc…

> I have read a lot of what he wrote, and I am still unsure what he exactly meant by socialism.

Depends what you mean by “exactly”. Having a precise vision of everything Orwell puts under the “socialism” umbrella, is of course impossible, but at the same time, there are things that are clear: when he says socialism he definitely means means no capitalism, that is no bourgeoisie sitting atop the society by the virtue of being the owning class.

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