Animal Farm

[che-Rabbi]

Animal farm is one of the best political interpretations that heve ever been written...
If you have read it then please , post your opinion and explain why people should or should not take a peak at this book.....

[DaCuBaN]

It's a set-text in UK schools - I think (certainly in Scotland) that every child aged thirteen is forced to read this one - and quite rightly.

Orwell's "Down and out in London and Paris" (or was it Paris and London?) is a much better book though. I would strongly recommend this one. If nothing else, it gives a glimpse into why Orwell wrote such books as 1984 and Animal Farm.

[socialistfuture]

i think sadly tho schools use it to demonize socialism and don't explain that Orwell was one - and how he tought in the Spainish Civil War. There are definatly lessons in that book.
I like the book - i think it would be great to make a comic of it.
There is a dead Prez song about Animal Farm.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

I think it's a shit book for shit capitalists. I don't care what Orwell called himself, he was a reactionary ****. Consider the conditions under which the book was written. It was an attack on socialism. Even if you don't agree on the outcome of what happened, it was still only a trial and should be respected by socialists as such. Fuck Orwell and his badly-written propaganda.

What is the theme of this book? What is the lesson? That popular revolutions necessarily result in the inevitable class society? Fuck that shit.

Imagine somebody living in a monarchist state during the French revolution and writing something similar. Isn't it terribly counter revolutionary. Orwell was whipped by the capies.

[DaCuBaN]

Man, read his autobiography.

You'll come out with a totally different impression of the man: He was a socialist, and the books he wrote outlined his fears of such societies - they were never intended in the way they were taken.

He knew all to well the situation, and watching the USSR I feel he made a pretty fair judgement on how things turned out.

Read his autobiography ;)

[Urban Rubble]

I think it's a shit book for shit capitalists. I don't care what Orwell called himself, he was a reactionary ****. Consider the conditions under which the book was written. It was an attack on socialism. Even if you don't agree on the outcome of what happened, it was still only a trial and should be respected by socialists as such. Fuck Orwell and his badly-written propaganda.

What a suprise, a Leninist missed the point of the book. The point was not that Socialism results in Dictatorship, the point was that when individuals have the chance to grab power they will take it, and abuse it.

I highly repsect the Soviet experiment, that doesn't mean I lie to myself about it's flaws and refuse to point them out and discuss them.

[FatFreeMilk]

This political satire on the Russian revolution was awesome. It was required reading for my honors English class freshman year (the essay test shit on this book was the only one that I got a good grade on). It would've been better if they made us read it while taking world history cus most of the kids just thought it was a book about power hungry barnyard animals.

[wet blanket]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2004, 01:59 AM
I think it's a shit book for shit capitalists. I don't care what Orwell called himself, he was a reactionary ****. Consider the conditions under which the book was written. It was an attack on socialism. Even if you don't agree on the outcome of what happened, it was still only a trial and should be respected by socialists as such. Fuck Orwell and his badly-written propaganda.

What is the theme of this book? What is the lesson? That popular revolutions necessarily result in the inevitable class society? Fuck that shit.

Imagine somebody living in a monarchist state during the French revolution and writing something similar. Isn't it terribly counter revolutionary. Orwell was whipped by the capies.
It was based on the USSR under Stalin. Goddamn, do you even bother to THINK while you read?

Fuck YOU and your inability to interpret literature. Orwell was a fine writer and his works were grand.

[Essential Insignificance]

It was based on the USSR under Stalin. Goddamn, do you even bother to THINK while you read?

Fuck YOU and your inability to interpret literature. Orwell was a fine writer and his works were grand

It seems that you have misinterpreted this Orwellian "masterpiece".

Ask yourself: Why would the ruling class permit this book to be taught, to such great numbers of kids in high school.

"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas..." -- Karl Marx

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

What a suprise, a Leninist missed the point of the book. The point was not that Socialism results in Dictatorship, the point was that when individuals have the chance to grab power they will take it, and abuse it.

What happens in the story is that the vanguard party fails, but the message that is given is that popular rebellion, not only ones involving a vanguard party, are simply a bad idea and will result in the same thing or something worse. It clearly suggests that an oppressive ruling class is inevitable.

And judging from the material conditions under which the book written, it was a form of advising people against popular rebellion, was it not?

And the book is very mediocre in terms of the quality of literature. Simplism at its worst.

[Kez]

Orwell was a writer, not a politician, and therefore, we cannot assume he was politically sound.

The farm is supposed to be the USSR, but Orwell fails to recognise that the reason the USSR failedd was because it didnt have enough of a working class, and therefore had to have party members (the pigs) to make the decisions.

Orwell misses this point (or just doesnt show it) and instead, one is led to believe that one ruling class always carries on from another. This cannot be the case. What would have been interesting is to see what the animals did after they overthrew the pigs.

Ive seen remakes of it where they go get some "nice" farmers to exploit them, all happy music and shit, fuckin disgusting.

Its a good read, but one cannot base any political standings on this book, rather one should only be entertained with this book.

[Essential Insignificance]

Orwell was a writer, not a politician, and therefore, we cannot assume he was politically sound.

Maybe, but Orwell himself, would properly refute that -- if he could.


The farm is supposed to be the USSR, but Orwell fails to recognise that the reason the USSR failedd was because it didnt have enough of a working class, and therefore had to have party members (the pigs) to make the decisions.

The "objective" material conditions, just would not allow, anything else to materialize.

Silly old Orwell, should have read Marx.

He may have meant well -- just like the characters depicted -- but he just didn't understand, why.

[Archpremier]

Orwell was a writer, not a politician, and therefore, we cannot assume he was politically sound.
He didn't have to be politically sound, he was logically sound. How capitalists have influenced people to interperet the book is idiotic, but this was not George Orwell's doing. He was just trying to write a cautionary tale about what went wrong in the USSR. Personally, I like the book, because I like to think that I have a fairly good idea of what he really meant.
P.S. RZ, don&#39;t call George Orwell a reactionary anything, or an anything ****. <_<

[Valkyrie]

I think it&#39;s a brilliant, I wish I wrote it, even better than 1984, in my opinion.

The story surpasses the confines of the Soviet Union to illustrate what happens in any subordinate/insubordinate labor relations. You don&#39;t even have to know anything about the Soviet Union to understand the story. He was writing it from the historical perspective of what had happened up to that point in time. It&#39;s a story about any place at any time in history. The whole allegory IS "all animals are equal, but some animals more equal than others." still relevent. It&#39;s more a denouncement of hierarchial power, Capitalism and slave labor, that of humans reduced to animal labor, and their bosses slothful pigs, than it is of communism or the Soviet Union.

No, I don&#39;t see it was a form of adivising people against popular rebellion.. but advising them to rebellion.

[DaCuBaN]

Its a good read, but one cannot base any political standings on this book, rather one should only be entertained with this book.

I totally agree: It&#39;s literature and fiction at that: It&#39;s meant to be entertaining, not enlightening.


The farm is supposed to be the USSR, but Orwell fails to recognise that the reason the USSR failedd was because it didnt have enough of a working class, and therefore had to have party members (the pigs) to make the decisions.


It&#39;s been a number of years since I read this book, but is the tale of the Horse - the only labourer of any real value on the farm - not indictive of the struggles of the working class? Continuous toil without any real acclaim, penultimating in his death

Or was that the donkey... You get my point ;)


Orwell misses this point (or just doesnt show it) and instead, one is led to believe that one ruling class always carries on from another. This cannot be the case. What would have been interesting is to see what the animals did after they overthrew the pigs.


Well, he certainly was cynical: I always perceived the message more akin to this:

Popular revolt will attempt to be hijacked by it&#39;s enemies; we must remain vigilant to prevent this. If I remember correctly, there were several occassions that the pigs - who contributed nothing to society (another accurate observation) - could have been overthrown.


Ive seen remakes of it where they go get some "nice" farmers to exploit them, all happy music and shit, fuckin disgusting.

The most depressing rendition I&#39;ve seen was a crappy cartoon they had us watch on it after reading the book; They invitied the old farmer back&#33;

Now that is sick&#33;


I don&#39;t see it was a form of adivising people against popular rebellion.. but advising them to rebellion.

Right on :D

[Kez]

Originally posted by Essential [email protected] 13 2004, 11:45 AM
Silly old Orwell, should have read Marx.
that he should.

But we cant make out that he was a great socialist thinker, he wasnt.

He was a brave human, who fought for justice in Spain, was keenly interested in politics, was a "socialist", and was an excellent writer. but thats it. not someone we should say "hes a great political thinker"

[Urban Rubble]

And judging from the material conditions under which the book written, it was a form of advising people against popular rebellion, was it not?

No, I don&#39;t think Orwell was advising that at all. I think the ruling classes saw that it could be interpreted that way and ran with it. I think Orwell simply intended to write a satire of the Soviet Union.


And the book is very mediocre in terms of the quality of literature. Simplism at its worst.

I&#39;d say simplism at it&#39;s best, but I don&#39;t quite mean that. It was simplistic, but I think it&#39;s a step or two above mediocre.


The farm is supposed to be the USSR, but Orwell fails to recognise that the reason the USSR failedd was because it didnt have enough of a working class, and therefore had to have party members (the pigs) to make the decisions.

Do you really believe that is why the Soviet Union failed ?

Funny.


What would have been interesting is to see what the animals did after they overthrew the pigs.

I agree. I think that would show alot more about Orwell&#39;s intentions.


Has anyone seen the new version of the book that Ralph Steadman illustrates ? He&#39;s the guy that drew all the weird drawing of Hunter S. Thompson for Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas.

[FlyTheFlag]

I&#39;d have to agree. I read it in English class an enjoyed it.

[Kez]

"Do you really believe that is why the Soviet Union failed ?"

Why else did it?

[Essential Insignificance]

He was a brave human, who fought for justice in Spain, was keenly interested in politics, was a "socialist", and was an excellent writer. but thats it. not someone we should say "hes a great political thinker"

"An excellent writer" -- I would have to disagree, rather "robustly".

He was a poor writer, a very poor writer at that... in my opinion. :lol:

[Pawn Power]

I enjoyed Animal Farm, the book itself is an easy read but it is the concept behind that is hard to grasp for some.

[socialistfuture]

why does the book have to be about all revolution? or some general comment by Orwell? can it not simply be one tale about a revolution gone wrong?

there are lessons to be learnt from the book - just like there are lessons to be learnt from failed revolutions. personally i have a lot of respect and like his writing - i have only red animal farm and a bit of down and out in paris and london.
i want to read 1984 soon. he came up with some great phrases and ideas.

prehaps the utopia ideal is dangerous and ulitmatly leads to a dictatorship that removes rights. capitalism sucks and so does a totalitarian communist state - we need something better than the both of them.

[Kez]

how come?

the reason i like it is the way he so clearly can transport you into your imagination into the characters surrounds, their thinking and the general atmosphere.

Also the general upredictability of the storyline, although some of this may be attributed to the fact that many of his works were political.

[Don't Change Your Name]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2004, 12:59 AM
I think it&#39;s a shit book for shit capitalists. I don&#39;t care what Orwell called himself, he was a reactionary ****. Consider the conditions under which the book was written. It was an attack on socialism. Even if you don&#39;t agree on the outcome of what happened, it was still only a trial and should be respected by socialists as such. Fuck Orwell and his badly-written propaganda.
?


What is the theme of this book? What is the lesson? That popular revolutions necessarily result in the inevitable class society? Fuck that shit.

No, that the "vanguard" sucks.

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2004, 01:59 AM
I think it&#39;s a shit book for shit capitalists. I don&#39;t care what Orwell called himself, he was a reactionary ****. Consider the conditions under which the book was written. It was an attack on socialism. Even if you don&#39;t agree on the outcome of what happened, it was still only a trial and should be respected by socialists as such. Fuck Orwell and his badly-written propaganda.

What is the theme of this book? What is the lesson? That popular revolutions necessarily result in the inevitable class society? Fuck that shit.

Imagine somebody living in a monarchist state during the French revolution and writing something similar. Isn&#39;t it terribly counter revolutionary. Orwell was whipped by the capies.
I disagree, it was not an attack on socialism, you only get that impression if you fail to read into the story properly, its actually an attack on authoritarianism and the abuse of socialism.

A story about a great idea, but how power is abused.


Fuck Orwell and his badly-written propaganda.

I can forgive all the other critisisms but sorry, Orwell was not a poor writer, his books are some of the best I&#39;ve ever read, and I would think i&#39;ve read more than most.

The Seven Commandments

Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill another animal.
All animals are created equal.

The story is about how these principals are broken and corrupted by the pigs.

[Palmares]

Well said Enigma.

I think the book is quite good, however my only the problem is not with the author or infact the book itself, but rather the way inwhich the bourgeois capitalists use it as why communism &#39;failed&#39;.

So many things are over looked: Orwell was a socialist; it was about how power can corrupt (rather than how communism &#39;failed&#39;); etc.

[PRC-UTE]

Orwell is certainly not above criticism, but I don&#39;t agree with his critics in this discussion.

Orwell fought the fight for socialism and was a consistent socialist most of his life. He nearly died for his beliefs. I don&#39;t see how anyone can fault the man.

Personally I feel that 1984 and Animal Farm were hard to read. I thought they were poorly written.

Homage to Catalonia is one of the best books ever written. There&#39;s some very nice literary sensibilities to it, especially how he ends the book.

[Poop]

Originally posted by Essential Insignificance+Sep 13 2004, 06:12 AM--> (Essential Insignificance &#064; Sep 13 2004, 06:12 AM) It seems that you have misinterpreted this Orwellian "masterpiece".

Ask yourself: Why would the ruling class permit this book to be taught, to such great numbers of kids in high school.

"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas..." -- Karl Marx [/b]

"George Orwell"
The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.Why I write (http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/index.cgi/work/essays/write.html)

The ruling class permits lost of socialist authors to be read: Ernest Hemingway, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Koestler, Jack London, Aldous Huxley, Henry David Thoreau are among the socialist authors I&#39;ve read in school. Teachers usually distort their works, so they can use them all they want.

I can&#39;t find the exact quote backing me up, but I believe Orwell has explicitly said that the point of Animal Farm was to show that USSR under Stalin was not socialism. Do the animals ever reach the society described by Old Major? The problem is not that Animal Farm is socialist, the problem is that it&#39;s the same as it was before.

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by Essential [email protected] 13 2004, 07:12 AM

It seems that you have misinterpreted this Orwellian "masterpiece".

Ask yourself: Why would the ruling class permit this book to be taught, to such great numbers of kids in high school.

"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas..." -- Karl Marx
It seems that you have misinterpreted this Orwellian "masterpiece".


It rather seams you have. If you care to read the novel it shows socialism in a very posertive light, but its leadership in a very negative light. i could start quoting for you... but I cant be arsed, read it your self.

Ask yourself: Why would the ruling class permit this book to be taught, to such great numbers of kids in high school.

Simply because it critisises Stalin, and the USSR, who are percived to be the enemy far more than the mere idea of socialism. It is also considered to be a work of great litterary skill, and as such is beneficial for that purpose as well.

If you are true about leftwing authors being scilenced then how do you explain the likes of Dickens entering the class room?

[captain anarchy]

i read it and saw several versions of the film a few years ago and i liked it alot i need to see and read it again though so i can fully understand parts that were confuseing to me then .

[redstar2000]

I am with the "critics" on this one.

Orwell may or may not have "considered himself" a "democratic socialist"...people can consider themselves lots of things.

But Animal Farm and 1984 are both very poorly written and politically reactionary.

In Animal Farm the animals allow a new ruling class (pigs) to "take over" without any resistance. The obvious implication is that any attempt by humans to establish an egalitarian social order is "doomed to fail".

In 1984, the "proles" are a bunch of "louts" capable of riot but never of revolution.

Both books imply that as bad as things are now, any attempt to significantly change them "will only make things even worse".

That&#39;s reactionary...and is very much the reason why those two books began to be taught in high schools in the McCarthy era and continue to the present day.

You see, if Orwell had merely wished to "attack Stalin", there were many ways he could have done that. His real target was revolution itself.

Before those two books, he was a pretty decent writer; then he decided to become a capitalist hack.

Has he lived a few years longer, I think he would have written one of those nauseating "I choose the West" (capitalism) pieces that polluted the public discourse in the 1950s.

As to their "literary" merits, I think his characters were "cardboard" and his plotting contrived and simplistic. They&#39;re most suitable for episodes in "Godless Commies" (see the comic book thread in History).

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Poop]

In Animal Farm the animals allow a new ruling class (pigs) to "take over" without any resistance. The obvious implication is that any attempt by humans to establish an egalitarian social order is "doomed to fail".
How does the fact that the animals offered little resistance lead to the conclusion that all attempts to establish an egalitarian social order are ""doomed to fail""?


In 1984, the "proles" are a bunch of "louts" capable of riot but never of revolution.
It wouldn&#39;t be much of a dystopia if the proles overthrew the government, now would it? Neither 1984 nor Animal Farm are meant to show the path to equality or that all attempts to find the path are doomed to fail. Animal Farm was an attempt to show that the Bolshevik path to equality failed in Russia. 1984 criticized a lot of aspects of our current social order (manipulation of language, whitewashing the past (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/index.htm), etc.)


Both books imply that as bad as things are now, any attempt to significantly change them "will only make things even worse".
I don&#39;t see how either book implied that any attempt to change things "will only make things worse." AF implied that after the Bolshevik attempt to change the social order, things were the same, except pigs were in charge instead of humans. Even if he had argued that things were worse, it wouldn&#39;t necessarily follow that he was arguing that any attempt to change anything would end up with the same results.


You see, if Orwell had merely wished to "attack Stalin", there were many ways he could have done that. His real target was revolution itself.
In AF, how did he attack the idea of "revolution itself"? By saying that the Russian Revolution hadn&#39;t resulted in socialism? Do you think the Russian Revolution resulted in socialism?

PS What&#39;s with all the quotation marks?

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by poop
I don&#39;t see how either book implied that any attempt to change things "will only make things worse." AF implied that after the Bolshevik attempt to change the social order, things were the same, except pigs were in charge instead of humans. Even if he had argued that things were worse, it wouldn&#39;t necessarily follow that he was arguing that any attempt to change anything would end up with the same results.

I think you are being excessively literal here; he didn&#39;t actually have to say "give up; it&#39;s hopeless" or "revolutions just make things worse".

An implication is exactly that. If you present a sequence of events in such a way as to invite the reader to draw a certain conclusion, you don&#39;t actually have to "spell it out".

Nor, as a writer of fiction, could Orwell take refuge in the historian&#39;s reasonable defense -- "I&#39;m just reporting what actually happened in the Bolshevik revolution". The writer of fiction can alter events as he pleases...but it pleased Orwell to offer gloom and despair.

Note further that Orwell offers no explanation for the events in either book. The pigs and "Big Brother&#39;s" party are "just evil"...that&#39;s the way people "really are".

Yet another reason to "forget that revolution stuff".

I don&#39;t think you can find so much as a line in either book that suggests any reason to hope for, much less fight for, a "better" world.

Moreover, insofar as both books caricature the "USSR" as "the 9th level of Hell", the obvious conclusion one is "pointed towards" is to defend capitalism as it stands.


Do you think the Russian Revolution resulted in socialism?

No, I think the best term for Russia, China, etc. is "state monopoly capitalism."

But whatever terminology one wishes to employ with regard to the USSR, I don&#39;t think Orwell had much interest in that sort of thing. I think his real message is that "resistance and revolution are just wrong...especially if they win".

And that, as I said, is a reactionary message.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Rasta Sapian]

I really liked it, and you can read it in a day it is so short&#33;

I remember napolean, why are the pigs so gready

I had alot of respect for the horse, he represented the hard work of the proles

read it
4 sure

[Red Heretic]

Why don&#39;t you guys read Homage to Catalonia before you guys make assumptions about him? He sided with anarchism over state socialism, big deal. So do I, along will lots of members on this board.

He fought, and took bullets for the working class. Some of his more direct opinion in Homage to Catalonia is just plain amazing.

[Poop]

An implication is exactly that. If you present a sequence of events in such a way as to invite the reader to draw a certain conclusion, you don&#39;t actually have to "spell it out".
So how did the way that Orwell presented a sequence of events invite you to reach the conclusion that revolutions are bad and shouldn&#39;t be attempted? If he had meant to portray revolution as good, but the degeneration of the Russian revolution as bad, in what way could he have done this that differed from what he did?


Nor, as a writer of fiction, could Orwell take refuge in the historian&#39;s reasonable defense -- "I&#39;m just reporting what actually happened in the Bolshevik revolution". The writer of fiction can alter events as he pleases...but it pleased Orwell to offer gloom and despair.
AF and 1984 weren&#39;t intended to offer hope. Descriptions of totalitarianism tend to offer gloom and despair. Do you think he should have put a positive, not-so-gloomy-and-desperate spin on Stalinism and another form of totalitarianism? Wouldn&#39;t that have made the satire slightly less effective?


Note further that Orwell offers no explanation for the events in either book. The pigs and "Big Brother&#39;s" party are "just evil"...that&#39;s the way people "really are".
There you go with your quotation marks again... The point of AF was not explain why things turned out they did. The point was to show that things turned out really shitty. And while 1984 doesn&#39;t go into the specifics of the transformation from capitalism to "oligarchical collectivism," many of the aspects of 1984 are aspects of Orwell&#39;s own society (and ours, too). A lot of the mechanisms the Party uses in 1984 are aspects used by people in power here and now, so yes, it does offer some explanation for why things are the way they are.


I don&#39;t think you can find so much as a line in either book that suggests any reason to hope for, much less fight for, a "better" world.
That&#39;s not a criticism of what those books are. It&#39;s a criticism of what they are not. If he had wanted to add a line in either book that suggests hope for a better world, he would have.


Moreover, insofar as both books caricature the "USSR" as "the 9th level of Hell", the obvious conclusion one is "pointed towards" is to defend capitalism as it stands.
Only AF is even about the USSR, and even if they are critical of the USSR, how does that lead one to the conclusion that capitalism as it stands ought to be defended?

1. The Stalinist government is bad.
2.
3. Therefore capitalism should be defended.

What&#39;s number two that is so obvious to you, but escapes me?


I think his real message is that "resistance and revolution are just wrong...especially if they win".
Unfortunately, you haven&#39;t provided any real evidence for this thought, aside from unsubstantiated assertions and leaps of logic.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by makhno+--> (makhno)Why don&#39;t you guys read Homage to Catalonia before you guys make assumptions about him?[/b]

Because we&#39;re talking about Animal Farm and 1984...the last things he wrote and the ones that are virtually compulsory reading for kids today.

He was a pretty decent writer prior to those two books; then he became a hack.


Poop
So how did the way that Orwell presented a sequence of events invite you to reach the conclusion that revolutions are bad and shouldn&#39;t be attempted? If he had meant to portray revolution as good, but the degeneration of the Russian revolution as bad, in what way could he have done this that differed from what he did?

Since he was writing fiction, he could have easily introduced characters that spoke in favor of the revolution&#39;s original purposes and pointed towards a future in which revolutions did not "degenerate".

That is not what he wanted to do.


AF and 1984 weren&#39;t intended to offer hope.

Precisely my point&#33; And precisely why bourgeois educational systems love those shitty books&#33;


Do you think he should have put a positive, not-so-gloomy-and-desperate spin on Stalinism and another form of totalitarianism?

1984 is also "about" Stalinism.

And it&#39;s not simply a matter of a less gloomy "spin" on Stalinism, it&#39;s a matter of his denial of the possibility of effective resistance.


The point of AF was not [to] explain why things turned out [the way] they did.

Then what&#39;s the point...other than to invite the reader to draw the conclusion that "this is what happens when revolutions win"?


The point was to show that things turned out really shitty.

Music to the ears of the bourgeoisie.


...many of the aspects of 1984 are aspects of Orwell&#39;s own society (and ours, too).

Only the "official" corruption of political vocabulary ("Newspeak") is paralleled in our own time or in his...and even that is very far from what he envisioned in 1984.

I know that some Orwell fans attempt to justify 1984 by saying that it&#39;s "also" about capitalism...but that won&#39;t work.

All the "totalitarian" cliches clearly point in the direction of the USSR...so, in the last analysis, we "must" defend capitalist "freedom" from "communist tyranny".


It&#39;s a criticism of what they are not. If he had wanted to add a line in either book that suggests hope for a better world, he would have.

Again, you&#39;re just repeating what I have already said.

The only difference is that you think their anti-revolutionary gloom doesn&#39;t necessarily make them shitty books.

I do.


1. The Stalinist government is bad.
2.
3. Therefore capitalism should be defended.

What&#39;s number two that is so obvious to you, but escapes me?

2. This is what always happens when you try to overthrow capitalism.


Unfortunately, you haven&#39;t provided any real evidence for this thought, aside from unsubstantiated assertions and leaps of logic.

Unfortunately, you wish to ignore the message of the two books for your own reasons...none of which you&#39;ve put forward.

Perhaps you agree with the message?

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Pawn Power]

But Animal Farm and 1984 are both very poorly written and politically reactionary.

yay, someone finally decried Orwell

[DaCuBaN]

it&#39;s not simply a matter of a less gloomy "spin" on Stalinism, it&#39;s a matter of his denial of the possibility of effective resistance.

In both Animal Farm and 1984 there are (presumed, 1984 is less clear) succesful revolutions. It&#39;s about what happens next. It&#39;s a stark warning (certainly in the case of Animal Farm) to allowing other people to take the reigns.

If anything, it&#39;s simply an attack on totalitarianism - &#39;Capitalists&#39; use this as a means attack communism. It&#39;s the common misconception/myth that totalitarianism=communism that is &#39;bad&#39;, not Orwells&#39; books. Personally, I take it as an attack on political apathy as well: The problems in Animal Farm were a result of the pigs control and subversion of the system.


hen what&#39;s the point...other than to invite the reader to draw the conclusion that "this is what happens when revolutions win"?

As you can see above, this is only one way that you can perceive it. I took the above as my outline for my RPR (last year at scottish high-school set-text), and given that I aced that particular part of English, I would assume that the conclusion holds some weight...

... that or my tutor was a closet-commie :D


All the "totalitarian" cliches clearly point in the direction of the USSR...so, in the last analysis, we "must" defend capitalist "freedom" from "communist tyranny".

That&#39;s a perception I believe we should be fighting. On a side note, do you really feel you need to defend the USSR? It&#39;s not exactly a shining example of even socialism (at the time that Orwell was writing the books in question, particularly 1984) let alone communism.

Why not simply decry it? His comparisons were, in my mind, quite valid. I guess that must make me a &#39;reactionary fuckwit&#39;...


The only difference is that you think their anti-revolutionary gloom doesn&#39;t necessarily make them shitty books.

I do

Again, I wouldn&#39;t consider it anti-revolutionary - revolution is pretty unlikely to be a barrel of laughs, and neither book actually makes out either revolution to be a failure - that comes later.

That is the message I believe Orwell wishes us to receive - that is the message that I try to broadcast: Revolution may well be revolutionary, but if those who bear the burden of power in the intermediate stage (if any) are lacking at all in integrity then the whole thing is doomed to failure.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by DaCuBan
On a side note, do you really feel you need to defend the USSR? It&#39;s not exactly a shining example of even socialism (at the time that Orwell was writing the books in question, particularly 1984) let alone communism.

The USSR is certainly not what I want...ever again.

Nevertheless, I balk at capitalist ideologues (like Orwell) who portray it as "the lowest circle in Hell".

Most Russian workers led far better lives under Stalin than they would have under the Czar...or under Karensky. Not to mention the fact that Russia would have utterly collapsed under the Nazi boot if either of those charming and refined gentlemen had been running things.

In fact, "defending" the USSR under Stalin is very much like what we do now in defending Cuba against U.S. imperialism and the gusanos.

We don&#39;t want to "imitate Cuba"...but we recognize the fact that the vast majority of Cubans have materially benefited under the revolution -- something that would not have happened under Batista and his logical successors.

You know as well as I that there were material reasons why communism was impossible in Russia then or Cuba now.

Orwell was not interested in that sort of thing; he saw a "world" run by "villains"...and successful revolutionaries were, in his view, the worst of the lot.

Consider: if Orwell had wanted to write a work on "how to get it right", could he not have done so?

Even in the form of fantasy, would it have been so difficult to portray a sequence of events where the Stalin-wannabes were defeated in their efforts? Where the "proles" were not "stupid louts" but fully capable of running a modern classless society?

Perhaps his declining health and the hardships of war-time Britain deepened his gloom to the point where he no longer was capable of imagining a better world...only a worse one. That&#39;s understandable.

What&#39;s so hard for me to understand is why "lefties" should praise these reactionary books?

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Vinny Rafarino]

The USSR is certainly not what I want...ever again.



Come on man, all that marching will do you some good&#33;

[apathy maybe]

That was a pointless comment.

Now onto the topic

Animal Farm is a book that was written to warn against the type of things that happened in the USSR. The pigs were the leadership and theoreticians (Marx, Trotsky and Stalin plus company). The sheep, well they were the sheep who blindly followed the pigs.
The book was not an attack on communism or socialism, but an attack on what the USSR had become. (I think that Orwell also didn&#39;t like Trotsky, but I&#39;m not sure about that.)

1984 was a warning against totalitarianism in general. Orwell saw movements with in both Britain and the USA towards the type of totalitarianism that could be seen in the Soviet Union at the time. It was a mirror for our times. He was saying, "here is what is possible, do something before it happens". He was not saying anywhere that socialism was a bad thing.

redstar2000 I disagree with what you filled in
" 2. This is what always happens when you try to overthrow capitalism."
What Orwell really thought was,
1. The Stalinist government is bad.
2. Don&#39;t try and emulate them.
3. Attempt Socialism some other way.

[DaCuBaN]

Most Russian workers led far better lives under Stalin than they would have under the Czar...or under Karensky.

...or Putin


Orwell was not interested in that sort of thing; he saw a "world" run by "villains"...and successful revolutionaries were, in his view, the worst of the lot.

I&#39;m not sure where this conjecture comes from: Orwell didn&#39;t write on the revolution at all in 1984, and in Animal Farm he had nothing but praise to give to such characters as Old Major and the Horse (whose name eludes me) who held their integrity, and in the case of the former perished as a result. His criticisms only ever fell on those who were, (after the revolution) to fearful to stand up to their convictions, or retained the mindset of "ruler and subject".

Especially given his time in Spain, I fail to see how you conclude that he thought poorly of all revolutionaries.


Perhaps his declining health and the hardships of war-time Britain deepened his gloom to the point where he no longer was capable of imagining a better world...only a worse one. That&#39;s understandable.

This is the reason I assign to the tone of his later books, as I too can imagine finding it difficult retaining even a glimmer of optimism. Hell, I don&#39;t even need declining health nor war to be in such a mindset :lol:


Even in the form of fantasy, would it have been so difficult to portray a sequence of events where the Stalin-wannabes were defeated in their efforts? Where the "proles" were not "stupid louts" but fully capable of running a modern classless society?

In the case of Animal Farm, with a smaller number of characters there was less depersonalisation, but in 1984 I must concur: Although my own interpretation was that this was the main characters opinion of the Proles, rather than a statement of the authors belief.

Surely a man who helped the anarchists in Spain wouldn&#39;t seriously think such things? Perhaps; we shall never now know.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Apathy Maybe+--> (Apathy Maybe)The sheep, well, they were the sheep who blindly followed the pigs.[/b]

Is that what people are really like?

"Blind followers"?

In that case, wouldn&#39;t revolution be an exercise in futility?

And isn&#39;t that exactly what the ruling class wants people to believe?


He was saying, "here is what is possible, do something before it happens". He was not saying anywhere that socialism was a bad thing.

That "something" was, by implication, defend capitalist "freedom".

It&#39;s true that the word "socialism" never occurs in either book (to the best of my memory).

But both books are so clearly meant to refer to the USSR that he hardly had to spell out the word.

Ask yourself this: if either work had been targeting capitalist totalitarianism, do you think for a second that any high school kid would have ever even heard of those books?

It would have been "easy" for Orwell to re-cast both of those books in that fashion had he wished. There&#39;s a closing scene in Animal Farm where the pigs are shown walking on two legs and having dealings with humans...why not insert a clearly pro-capitalist conversation between them?

And in 1984, why not mega-corporations instead of a "party" and "Big CEO" instead of "Big Brother"?

You know why.


What Orwell really thought was,
1. The Stalinist government is bad.
2. Don&#39;t try and emulate them.
3. Attempt Socialism some other way.

Number 3 is completely speculative; there&#39;s nothing in either book that even hints at such a "possibility".


DaCuBaN
His criticisms only ever fell on those who were (after the revolution) too fearful to stand up for their convictions, or retained the mindset of "ruler and subject".

I don&#39;t know about that one; I think his implication is that both despotisms were "inhumanly strong"...simply "too powerful" to resist.

At best, I think you could say he pitied those who were crushed (the horse, the couple)...but I don&#39;t detect any critical attitude towards those who submitted.

I mean, what else could you expect from "sheep"?


Especially given his time in Spain, I fail to see how you conclude that he thought poorly of all revolutionaries.

Well, those two books were written after he was in Spain...where the anarchists were defeated and the communists were despotic and incompetent.

He expresses some sympathy for "Old Major" (Lenin?) in Animal Farm. There are no revolutionaries "on stage" in 1984 at all, just the despotic "party".

And, of course, there are no anarchists in either book.

So, broadly speaking, I think his equation was: successful revolutionaries = Stalinists = despots.


Although my own interpretation was that this was the main character&#39;s opinion of the Proles, rather than a statement of the author&#39;s belief.

As I recall, the "marketplace riot" scene actually caused a brief stab of hope in the protagonist...he seemed to have had some fuzzy kind of faith in the proletariat. It&#39;s the author&#39;s narrative -- it was only a meaningless riot -- that drives home the message of despair.


Surely a man who helped the anarchists in Spain wouldn&#39;t seriously think such things?

History is rich in examples, unfortunately, of people who "couldn&#39;t possibly" think or do this or that...and who nevertheless did think or do exactly that.

I think that&#39;s why Marx thought it was so important for revolutionaries to concentrate their attention on what people actually do instead of concerning ourselves with their self-descriptions or their rhetoric of convenience.

What Orwell did was write two books in service to the capitalist class.

When communism revives to the point that it becomes a serious factor in public discourse, both will be made into Hollywood "blockbusters".

Bet on it&#33;

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[DaCuBaN]

I mean, what else could you expect from "sheep"?

This is what I was intimating when I said:


His criticisms only ever fell on those who were (after the revolution) too fearful to stand up for their convictions, or retained the mindset of "ruler and subject".

With the example of the Sheep in Animal Farm, shortly after they&#39;ve run the farmer out, they write out the &#39;commandments&#39;, foremost of which is "Four legs good, two legs bad&#33;". This in itself was in my opinion an attack on the sectarian nature of many &#39;socialists&#39;. Furthermore, later on in the book the Pigs &#39;change the rules&#39;, and the chant of "Four legs good, two legs better&#33;" gets picked up by the Sheep.

A message of warning about blindly following those who show a greater intellect than yourself? I certainly would rather believe that than to think he was so disheartened in his later years to think this of the &#39;masses&#39;.


He expresses some sympathy for "Old Major" (Lenin?) in Animal Farm.

I&#39;ve always taken Old Major to be either Lenin or Marx; more likely the former, if you&#39;re drawing a historical comparison to the book, the latter if you take it from the basis that the revolution was spawned from his "grand plan".


broadly speaking, I think his equation was: successful revolutionaries = Stalinists = despots.

I disagree: Ignoring 1984 (there&#39;s no revolution in it, after all) and taking Animal Farm, their revolution was lead by Old Major, who was usurped by the &#39;evil&#39; pigs. That&#39;s very much a counter-revolution, would you not agree? A stark warning that I&#39;m sure you yourself would give to anyone in a position to start a revolution with any possibility of success.


History is rich in examples, unfortunately, of people who "couldn&#39;t possibly" think or do this or that...and who nevertheless did think or do exactly that.

I think that&#39;s why Marx thought it was so important for revolutionaries to concentrate their attention on what people actually do instead of concerning ourselves with their self-descriptions or their rhetoric of convenience.

What Orwell did was write two books in service to the capitalist class.

He also assisted the anarchists in Spain though, who were quite literally betrayed, just like the animals on the farm were by the pigs. As you yourself said, it&#39;s an understandable attitude given the circumstances he endured. I haven&#39;t partaken in revolution (obviously) and I consider myself incredibly fortunate that I haven&#39;t personally witnessed a failed revolution in my lifetime: If I had, I too would share his pessimism.

On a side note, I&#39;m not actually a fan of Orwell&#39;s writing - I find him to be a rather dry read. Not painfully so, but it&#39;s hardly "toilet reading"... ;)


When communism revives to the point that it becomes a serious factor in public discourse, both will be made into Hollywood "blockbusters".

I do not doubt it: For that reason alone, surely it is best that we try to paint the best possible picture, using the very tools they wish to use against us?

[YKTMX]

In fact, "defending" the USSR under Stalin is very much like what we do now in defending Cuba against U.S. imperialism and the gusanos.

That&#39;s an incredible statement Red. Earlier in this thread you said that the best term for the USSR was "state monopoly capitalism". So, what do we call the Soviet Union&#39;s adventures in Eastern Europe then? Imperialism, the state on the march, obviously. Therefore, you suggest that we should "choose" one imperialism over another. Absolutely not. Russia was a superpower, an imperialist power. The Cold War was an Imperialist struggle, not an ideological or historical one.

Now, the reason we "defend" Cuba has nothing to do with the nature of Castro&#39;s regime, which is itself almost identical to the old Stalinist states, it&#39;s because we oppose Imperialism.

Here&#39;s a nice bit of Trotskyist rhetoric for you Red:

Neither Washington nor Moscow but international socialism&#33;

Ahh, the old one&#39;s are th best

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by YouKnowTheyMurderedX
Earlier in this thread you said that the best term for the USSR was "state monopoly capitalism". So, what do we call the Soviet Union&#39;s adventures in Eastern Europe then? Imperialism, the state on the march, obviously. Therefore, you suggest that we should "choose" one imperialism over another. Absolutely not. Russia was a superpower, an imperialist power. The Cold War was an Imperialist struggle, not an ideological or historical one.

No, I didn&#39;t say we should "choose" the USSR but that we should defend it against U.S. imperialism...and in particular against the capitalist ideologues (like Orwell) who deliberately painted it in the grimmest colors for the purpose of making capitalism look "not so bad" and "worth defending".

Here&#39;s another parallel: we both know that there are legitimate criticisms of Cuba that can and should be made "from the left".

But when Cuba is attacked by gusano ideologues, do we bring that stuff up? Or do we respond with an attack on the gusano&#39;s position that Cuba is "a hellhole"?


Here&#39;s a nice bit of Trotskyist rhetoric for you Red:

Neither Washington nor Moscow but international socialism&#33;

Unfortunately, that&#39;s waffling. The question back in those days was "who is the main enemy?" as it is now, for that matter.

The main enemy was not Stalin...it was and remains U.S. imperialism.

A Russian or Eastern European revolutionary could (in those days) legitimately take the position that Russian imperialism was the main enemy -- he would be correctly opposing the imperialism of his own ruling class.

But for revolutionaries "in the west" (as most Trotskyists were), being "neutral" between U.S. and Russian imperialism amounted to de facto support for "their own ruling class".

It was, admittedly, a "messy" period politically...I, for one, am glad I was too young to participate in those questions.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[DaCuBaN]

No, I didn&#39;t say we should "choose" the USSR but that we should defend it against U.S. imperialism...and in particular against the capitalist ideologues (like Orwell) who deliberately painted it in the grimmest colors for the purpose of making capitalism look "not so bad" and "worth defending".

You surmise his intent to be to make capitalism look "not so bad", but I don&#39;t see this myself. Following Animal Farm again, the animals had it shit under the farmer. They remove him, and for a time it was good. The pigs start to concentrate the power in their hands, and the situation reverts to like it was under the farmer. With this in mind, I surmise that his intent was to show that without real democracy, socialism is nothing.

I wholeheartedly agree.

[PRC-UTE]

You surmise his intent to be to make capitalism look "not so bad", but I don&#39;t see this myself. Following Animal Farm again, the animals had it shit under the farmer. They remove him, and for a time it was good. The pigs start to concentrate the power in their hands, and the situation reverts to like it was under the farmer. With this in mind, I surmise that his intent was to show that without real democracy, socialism is nothing.
I wholeheartedly agree.

well said, that&#39;s what I also took from the book. socialism is possible but watch out for vanguardists and would be rulers.

ultimately, this discussion is a draw between those who feel the book is counter-revolutionary and those who don&#39;t. Art (yes, even bad art&#33; ;) ) can be interpreted many ways.

[socialistfuture]

I&#39;ve just started reading 1984 and I have read Animal Farm. I think 1984 is great at showing a revolution gone wrong - A utopia which destroys all deviance from the party line. A state that acts in the name of the people but does not act from the will of the people - after a time they no longer have their own will.

I think Orwell was expressing guinine fears and thought on what could possibly happen if it is counter-revolutionairy to think independant of the party line. I find 1984 conparable to Judge Dredd ( I&#39;m sure some of you have read it ). In Judge Dredd he says such lines as &#39;I am the law&#39; and the police/state have full power to do anything they want in the name of protecting the citizenry.

I agree with those who say without democracy socialism is nothing. I take the line of neither Washington or Moscow that many socialists have taken in the past. I think the clash summed it up quite well in a couple of their songs.

Revolution for the people by the people&#33;

[apathy maybe]

The sheep are not the majority of the population, they are a segment. There are the ones who believe that the leader (whoever it is) is always right. You see the same sort of thinking in Germany in the 30&#39;s and in western "liberal democracies", generally life doesn&#39;t change too much for these people.


What I&#39;d really like to see redstar2000 is proof of what Orwell thought. I can only offer what he said previous to writing these books and what he said after.
"The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." This was written in 1946.


It would have been "easy" for Orwell to re-cast both of those books in that fashion had he wished. There&#39;s a closing scene in Animal Farm where the pigs are shown walking on two legs and having dealings with humans...why not insert a clearly pro-capitalist conversation between them?
Here is the conversation (taken from <http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/animalfarm/10/>)

"If you have your lower animals to contend with," he said, "we have our lower classes&#33;" This bon mot set the table in a roar; and Mr. Pilkington once again congratulated the pigs on the low rations, the long working hours, and the general absence of pampering which he had observed on Animal Farm.


And in 1984, why not mega-corporations instead of a "party" and "Big CEO" instead of "Big Brother"?[QUOTE]
Because the book was written as a warning against all forms of totalitarianism. If you read it closely you will see that there are three super states which rule the world. While not much is said about the others, it is obvious that they are all totalitarian states as well. It gets to a point where it doesn&#39;t matter if the totalitarianism is "socialist" or "capitalist" they are both the same.

[QUOTE=redstar2000] Number 3 is completely speculative; there&#39;s nothing in either book that even hints at such a "possibility".
It is even more speculative to believe that this isn&#39;t what he meant.

edit: fixed my quotes :) or not :(

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Orwell in 1946+--> (Orwell in 1946)The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.[/b]

Where&#39;s the "for democratic socialism" part?

Where&#39;s the "animal soviet"? Where&#39;s the resistance movement in 1984 fighting for democratic socialism?

Good grief, there was an active resistance movement (several of them, in fact) even in the 3rd Reich&#33;

Why isn&#39;t that stuff in those books?

Did his publishers or his heirs or both fuck with the manuscripts? Did they remove the parts that "wouldn&#39;t sell"?

In fact, that statement of his in 1946 is quite...odd, when you actually think about it.

He doesn&#39;t oppose "democratic socialism" to undemocratic capitalism.

Instead, he opposes it to "totalitarianism"...and what the hell is that supposed to mean?

Since he used the word in 1946, it must have already been in common usage...at least among intellectuals.

But why did he choose that particular word?

Was he already aware then that "totalitarianism" was a new "buzzword" coined to equate fascism and Stalinist "socialism" as the common enemy of "democratic" capitalism?

Was he confused? (It was a confusing time.)

Or had he made what he thought of as a "strategic" decision?

Did he "reason" thusly? Under Stalin and his like, there&#39;s "no hope" for "democratic socialism". On the other hand, under "democratic capitalism" it&#39;s still possible that "democratic socialism" might be re-born. Therefore, I&#39;ll pound the Stalinists as hard as I can and leave the capitalists alone.

If so, it&#39;s a sad illustration of what always happens when lefties try to "outsmart" the capitalists at their own game.

The capitalists are professionals at the manipulation of public opinion; lefties are bumbling amateurs by comparison.

So guess who wins?

Orwell&#39;s "strategic" books have been used to teach anti-communism for more than a half-century...and there&#39;s no sign that the practice will end any time soon.

Without so much as a hint of "democratic socialism".


Originally posted by Animal [email protected]
"If you have your lower animals to contend with," he said, "we have our lower classes&#33;" This bon mot set the table in a roar; and Mr. Pilkington once again congratulated the pigs on the low rations, the long working hours, and the general absence of pampering which he had observed on Animal Farm.

Not bad, but where&#39;s the profit motive? The pigs are made to look "evil" but it&#39;s not clear that, in fact, there&#39;s a reason behind the "low rations, long working hours, and the general absence of pampering".

Mr. Pilkington needed to make the point explicit: "You pigs have really given us humans a sharp lesson on how to turn a profit&#33;"

But if a line like that had appeared, would high school kids have found Animal Farm on the "approved (compulsory) reading list"?


Apathy Maybe
Because [1984] was written as a warning against all forms of totalitarianism. If you read it closely, you will see that there are three super states which rule the world. While not much is said about the others, it is obvious that they are all totalitarian states as well. It gets to a point where it doesn&#39;t matter if the totalitarianism is "socialist" or "capitalist", they are both the same.

To be honest, I do remember the "three super-states" but I don&#39;t remember if any of them are or claim to be capitalist.

In fact, I don&#39;t think words like capitalism, socialism, or communism even appear in the book.

But whenever Orwell speaks of the "players" in the "Big Brother" society, it&#39;s always the party, the state, the ministry of this or that...never a privately-held corporation.

Nor is there ever any suggestion of an economic motive for what takes place. Production of consumer goods steadily falls...what happens to the diverted resources? Perhaps this was supposed to be an early critique of "command economies"?

I think Orwell had a "vision" of what Stalinism "would be like" after many decades or even a century...and that&#39;s what he was "warning against".

Living in the age of the American Empire, his "warning" appears quite foolish...and reactionary.

Even in 1946, he ought to have known better.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Guest1]

While I actually enjoyed his books, and interpreted them my own way (yes, you can do that no matter what the author means), I will have to side with the critics mostly.

I think there is a grain of truth in them, though I don&#39;t know if it was intentional or not, about the return to capitalism. As for 1984, it is clearly Socialist parties in all three nations. The party practices "IngSoc" I believe, English Socialism if you look it up in the newspeak treanslations provided at the end of some editions of the book.

The reason I don&#39;t support orwell past the spanish civil war is that there has been evidence floating around that he worked with western authorities turning in known Communist sympathizers.

[DaCuBaN]

The party practices "IngSoc" I believe, English Socialism if you look it up in the newspeak treanslations provided at the end of some editions of the book.

Well, he wouldn&#39;t be alone in criticising the socialist movements spawned in the british isles: perhaps a not-so-subtle hint about his opinions of socialism in the UK?


The reason I don&#39;t support orwell past the spanish civil war is that there has been evidence floating around that he worked with western authorities turning in known Communist sympathizers.

:o

Provide evidence (or even further speculation will do for now&#33;), and I will denounce any respect I once held for him: Such actions are unacceptable. :angry:

One thing can be agreed however: It&#39;s clear that neither was he a &#39;happy-chappy&#39;, nor did he have anything resembling an optimistic aproach to the world.

[DaCuBaN]

Where&#39;s the "animal soviet"?

Doesn&#39;t one of the animals stand up to the pigs, after discussing it with the others? I seem to remember this, and can you guess what happened next?


Did his publishers or his heirs or both fuck with the manuscripts? Did they remove the parts that "wouldn&#39;t sell"?

He did a television interview in which he said he fought with the publisher over some content, but refused to allow them to publish an abridged version. However, given that there&#39;s possible evidence of him being a grass, there&#39;s every possibility that he&#39;s a liar too.

Enough on TV tends to be, so I wouldn&#39;t exactly be surprised.


Did he "reason" thusly? Under Stalin and his like, there&#39;s "no hope" for "democratic socialism". On the other hand, under "democratic capitalism" it&#39;s still possible that "democratic socialism" might be re-born. Therefore, I&#39;ll pound the Stalinists as hard as I can and leave the capitalists alone.

Given the antics in Spain which he witnessed first hand, do you not think this viewpoint understandable? The anarchists were royally fucked over, so in essense you could argue that these books were a form of revenge.

[Guest1]

Originally posted by wikipedia
In 1949 Orwell spoke to the Information Research Department, an organization run by the government to encourage the publication of anti-communist propaganda. He offered them information on the "crypto-communist leanings" of some of his fellow writers and advice on how best to spread the anti-communist message. Orwell&#39;s motives for this are unclear, though it does not necessarily follow that he had abandoned socialism - merely that he detested Stalinism, as he had already made very clear in his earlier published works. Some have also speculated that the tuberculosis from which he suffered had affected him mentally.
Coincidentally, this was the same year he published 1984.

[DaCuBaN]

Coincidentally, [the year he sold out his &#39;friends&#39;] was the same year he published 1984.

What a wanker&#33;

Animal Farm however, still bears a potent message, both literally and in analogy: Don&#39;t trust the pigs&#33;

[socialistfuture]

Some of the Black Panthers and Hippies/Yippies/radicals of the 60s ended out being anti-communist, it is not uncommon. People get involved, the movement suffers a downpoint and people loose intrest and hope.
Stalinism put a lot of people of socialism, Orwell had some very valid points. His warnings against totalitarianism were right. The USSR was doomed to fall apart after Lenin died and Stalin replaced him.
Big Brother was Stalin, The book (1984) showed how much a revolution could be betrayed and corrupted - as some later did. He was not saying Capitalism is great - simply that totalitarian communism was bad and lead to nothing but a nasty dictatorship. It is obvious he was not content with capitalism because of the fact he fought in Spain and the writting he did. 1984 was a warning, If people try to build another Communist Super Power it will fail. We don&#39;t want to replace America - there should be No super powers&#33;&#33;&#33;

[YKTMX]

No, I didn&#39;t say we should "choose" the USSR but that we should defend it against U.S. imperialism

Tell me then, would you defend Nazi Germany against U.S. Imperialism? The enemy of my enemy is my friend, even if my friend ends up being Stalin. Give me a break, it&#39;s a recipe for disaster.


and in particular against the capitalist ideologues (like Orwell)

:rolleyes: Capitalist ideologue? Be reasonable.


who deliberately painted it in the grimmest colors for the purpose of making capitalism look "not so bad"

No. He painted it in the worst colours to defend democratic socialism. Here&#39;s what people like you have never understood about this debate. The Russian ruling class and the Western Ruling class BOTH had an interest in saying that the USSR was socialist. Why? For the Russians it was to prove that barbarism is socialism, for the West it was to prove that socialism is barbarism. That&#39;s why being neutral in the Cold War was the only choice for socialists.


Or do we respond with an attack on the gusano&#39;s position that Cuba is "a hellhole"?

Neither. Whether Cuba is or isn&#39;t a "hellhole" has nothing to do with anything. We defend Cuba because we oppose Imperialism. THAT IS THE ONLY REASON.


But for revolutionaries "in the west" (as most Trotskyists were), being "neutral" between U.S. and Russian imperialism amounted to de facto support for "their own ruling class".

Ridiculous. The point is that support (or "defense", or whatever other term you choose) for the USSR meant revolutionary bankruptcy.

[DaCuBaN]

Woah, I just agreed with YKTMX... :o :D

[gaf]

reading a visionaire is so relative
still a good parabole

[PRC-UTE]

even scarier. . . I find myself in agreement with most of DaCuBaN&#39;s posts&#33;&#33; :lol:


What a wanker&#33;

Animal Farm however, still bears a potent message, both literally and in analogy: Don&#39;t trust the pigs&#33;
:ph34r:

[STI]

Orwell made it clear in 1984 that he didn&#39;t think a truly egalitarian society was possible.

In Goldstein&#39;s "the book", he stated that there are three groups:high, middle, and low.

The high attempt to maintain their position, and the middle attempt to overthrow the high. To do this, they gain the support of the low, telling them that they&#39;re fighting for a society where all are equal. The middle become the new high.

[DaCuBaN]

In Goldstein&#39;s "the book", he stated that there are three groups:high, middle, and low.

To do this, they gain the support of the low, telling them that they&#39;re fighting for a society where all are equal. The middle become the new high.

Are you trying to tell me that this doesn&#39;t happen? Take a look at the "Workers Party" in the UK now, have they not totally given up on being Labour?

There&#39;s always someone without integrity; someone who will sell up their comrades. Orwell quote clearly loathed himself, and he was certainly of "middle class" upbringing, yet he clearly in his earlier years persued such an egalitarian society; perhaps this is relevant:


Originally posted by Che y Marijuana
In 1949 Orwell spoke to the Information Research Department, an organization run by the government to encourage the publication of anti-communist propaganda. He offered them information on the "crypto-communist leanings" of some of his fellow writers and advice on how best to spread the anti-communist message. Orwell&#39;s motives for this are unclear, though it does not necessarily follow that he had abandoned socialism - merely that he detested Stalinism, as he had already made very clear in his earlier published works. Some have also speculated that the tuberculosis from which he suffered had affected him mentally.


In my opinion, his search for &#39;justice&#39; in his life destroyed him, and given this information above I find it glaringly obvious that 1984 was the book of a broken man.

I agree that this was his opinion, but I merely find it the most horrific thought, and yet again another stark warning for "revolutionaries": Choose your comrades carefully.

[socialistfuture]

Has anyone looked in to why he might have ratted in people?

I think that 1984 can be viewed as not just a book against totalitarianism and a revolution gone bad but as a study of people and how dormant and unaware people can be. Big Brother bombards people with propaganda and they fall for it.

And the thing with Changing history to fit the needs of the party happened - Stalin got photos changed to delete people (eg removing Trotsky and others). And the purges.. 1984 goes into a lot of stuff that happened after Lenin died in the Solviet Union. The USSR turned into a fucked dictatorship that was ruled by parania and fear - it was a police state with the KGB being like the thought police in 1984 in some ways.

To say Orwell was counter-revolutionairy because he fought against Totaliraianism and the USSR is bullshit. A &#39;red&#39; dictatorship is no improvement to capitalism.

[Latifa]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2004, 07:31 PM

The most depressing rendition I&#39;ve seen was a crappy cartoon they had us watch on it after reading the book; They invitied the old farmer back&#33;

Now that is sick&#33;

Such low minded fools should not mess with the likes of Orwell. Disgusting, totally ruins the political undertone.

[DaCuBaN]

A member of this board posted a link to the online version of "Homage to Catalonia" (and a thousand thank-you&#39;s for it&#33;), in which Orwell makes quite clear his sentiment, and I feel is of great relevance to both "Animal Farm" and "1984":


The only unexpected feature in the Spanish situation—and outside Spain it has caused an immense amount of misunderstanding—is that among the parties on the Government side the Communists stood not upon the extreme Left, but upon the extreme Right. In reality this should cause no surprise, because the tactics of the Communist Party elsewhere, especially in France, have made it clear that Official Communism must be regarded, at any rate for the time being, as an anti-revolutionary force. The whole of Comintern policy is now subordinated (excusably, considering the world situation) to the defence of U.S.S.R., which depends upon a system of military alliances. In particular, the U.S.S.R. is in alliance with France, a capitalist-imperialist country. The alliance is of little use to Russia unless French capitalism is strong, therefore Communist policy in France has got to be anti-revolutionary. This means not only that French Communists now march behind the tricolour and sing the Marseillaise, but, what is more important, that they have had to drop all effective agitation in the French colonies. It is less than three years since Thorez, the Secretary of the French Communist Party, was declaring that the French workers would never be bamboozled into fighting against their German comrades

Homage to Catalonia, Chapter 5 (http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/books/homagetocatalonia-05.htm)

I don&#39;t think I need say any more, in all honesty. If you haven&#39;t read the above book, I advise you set aside a short while to do so.

[Conghaileach]

I think that Animal Farm and 1984 were both informed as much by Orwell&#39;s anti-Stalinism as his anti-authoritarianism. When he went to Spain, he fought with the Trotskyite POUM. They were later banned, declared social fascists and fifth columnists, and Orwell recalled seeing anti-fascist comrades snatched off the streets and later executed. I doubt that would have left him with a particularly positive picture to paint of the Comintern.

Animal Farm was of course based on the early years of the USSR. I think the best part in the book is the end, where the pigs are exposed as being the exact same as the humans - capitalists one and all. Anyone with a sense of Marxism knows that the creation of socialism was impossible in the Soviet Union, which was what led to initiatives such as the NEP. Does this mean that all revolutions are hopeless? Of course not. The book is as much about a "communist" vanguard and the emperor&#39;s new clothes as anything else.

The theme is picked up in 1984 with the "IngSoc" embraced by the Party. Obviously it doesn&#39;t mean much to label yourself a socialist if it doesn&#39;t stand up to facts (even the Nazis were called the National Socialists). I believe the reason the book is so gloomy is that Orwell was trying to get across the point that if we allow such an authoritarian society to flourish, then we&#39;ll never be able to overthrow it.

[anarchvark]

hahaha&#33; you guys think Everything is reactionary&#33;&#33; Even white toilet paper is reactionary in a capitalist society&#33; So, animal farm is reactionary? -- but the Smurfs, now that&#39;s an ingenious working commune&#33; ha&#33;

[Urban Rubble]

I don&#39;t think it&#39;s reactionary, I think it&#39;s a fairly accurate portrayal. But the fact that it has been used by the West as an anti Socialist lesson when it was simply anti totalitrianism is undeniable.

[Saint-Just]

The book is ridiculous. For example, the idea of war is peace, is there an example in the USSR of attempts to change the meaning of any words. Also, the reference to the USSR altering their policy towards Germany in the 1930s. In the book Oceania is very quickly able to change the enemy which it is fighting without the public questioning the decision.

I once saw a beautiful theatre production of 1984 and the best part was watching Winston and Julia dying. Julia, the woman who thinks it is romantic to mention to Winston how many men she has taken prior him to the same spot where they sleep with each other in the forest and Winston who appears to me to be a representation of the author.

redstar2000 makes a good comment on George Orwell:
http://redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.n...rt_from=&ucat=& (http://redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1097859426&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

[chichi]

I agree he was a great writer and after I read Animal Farm and went right on reading 1984. Now, that book scared the crap out of me and reminded me so much of the current situation in the US...Patriot act, John Ashcroft and all that shit.
Still, I love Animal Farm. Orwell does not deny the basic principles of communism, the general idea. Remember Old Major and Snowball? What he criticizes is how it was carries out...

[Shane]

Today i saw the animated version of Animal Farm (based on a book from the 50&#39;s).

I missed the first 20 mins but its obvious what this animted film is about, Communism and the Russian Revolution.

The animals have a revolution against their owner, Mr Jones.. i found an interesting websites with these comparions:

.
Animal Farm

Comparison of characters to Russian Revolution

Animal Farm


Russian Revolution
Mr. Jones

* irresponsible to his animals &#40;lets them starve&#41;
* sometimes cruel - beats them with whip
* sometimes kind - mixes milk in animal mash

Czar Nicholas II

* a poor leader at best, compared to western kings
* cruel - sometimes brutal with opponents
* Sometimes kind - hired students as spies to make &#036;

Old Major

* taught Animalism
* workers do the work, rich keep the &#036;, animals revolt
* dies before revolution

Karl Marx

* invented Communism
* &#34;workers of the world unite&#34;, take over gov&#39;t
* dies before Russian Revolution

Animalism

* no owners, no rich, but no poor
* workers get a better life, all animals equal
* everyone owns the farm

Communism

* same
* all people equal
* gov&#39;t owns everything, people own gov&#39;t

Snowball

* young, smart, good speaker, idealistic
* really wants to make life better for all
* one of leaders of revolution
* chased away into exile by Napoleon&#39;s dogs

Leon Trotsky

* other leader of &#34;October Revolution&#34;
* pure communist, followed Marx
* wanted to improve life for all in Russia
* chased away by Lenin&#39;s KGB &#40;Lenin&#39;s secret police&#41;

Napoleon

* not a good speaker, not as clever like Snowball
* cruel, brutal, selfish, devious, corrupt
* his ambition is for power, killed opponents
* used dogs, moses, and Squealor to control animals

Joseph Stalin

* not a good speaker, not educated like Trotsky
* same as Napoleon, didn&#39;t follow Marx&#39;s ideas
* cared for power, killed all that opposed him
* used KGB, allowed church, and propagandized

Squealer

* big mouth, talks a lot
* convinces animals to believe and follow Napoleon
* Changes and manipulates the commandments

Propaganda department of Lenin&#39;s government

* worked for Stalin to support his image
* used any lie to convince the people to follow Stalin
* benefited from the fact that education was controlled

The Dogs

* a private army that used fear to force animals to work
* killed or intimidated any opponent of Napoleon
* another part of Napoleon&#39;s strategy to control animals

KGB - Secret Police

* not really police, but forced support for Stalin
* used force, often killed entire families for disobedience
* totally loyal, part of Lenin&#39;s power, even over army

Moses the Raven

* tells animals about SugarCandy mountain - Heaven
* animals can go there if they work hard
* Snowball and Major were against him
* they though Heaven was a lie to make animals work
* Napoleon let him stay because he taught animals to
* work and not complain

Religion

* Marx said &#34;Opiate of the people&#34; a lie
* used to make people not complain and do their work
* Religion was tolerared because people would work
* Stalin knew religion would stop violent revolutions

Mollie

* was vain - loved her beauty and self
* didn&#39;t think about the animal farm
* went with anyone who gave her what she wanted

Vain, selfish people in Russia and world

* some people didn&#39;t care about revolution
* only though about themselves
* went to other countries that offered more for them

Boxer

* strong, hard working horse, believes in Animal Farm
* &#34;Napoleon is always right&#34;, &#34;I must work harder&#34;
* gives his all, is betrayed by Napoleon, who sells him

Dedicated, but tricked communist supporters

* people believed Stalin because he was &#34;Communist&#34;
* many stayed loyal after it was obvious Stalin a tyrant
* betrayed by Stalin who ignored and killed them

Benjamin

* old, wise donkey who is suspicious of revolution
* thinks &#34;nothing ever changes&#34;, is right
* his suspicions are true, about Boxer and sign changes

Skeptical people in Russia and outside Russia

* weren&#39;t sure revolution would change anything
* realized that a crazy leader can call himself communist
* knew that communism wouldn&#39;t work with power
* hungry leaders

Overall details about revolution

* it was supposed to make life better for all
* life was worse at the end
* The leaders became the same as, or worse than,
* the other farmers &#40;humans&#41; they rebelled against

Overall details of Russian Revolution

* supposed to fix problems from Czar
* life was even worse long after revolution
* Stalin made Czar look like a nice guy



The basic Novel is about how the Animals overthrow the opressive owner, Mr Jones and form their own "new society" a society of equality for all....Communism. What sadly happens there is a Coup, after the original revolution the new society has built Socialism, life is good and equal. But a coup is staged and the society turns very much into stalinist russia.

The film is not an all-out attack on Socialism or Communism, its rather a look at where things went wrong.

im getting the book from ebay, if you have not seen this cartoon, see it.

[YKTMX]

I watched the animated version today as well, very sad really.

[RevolverNo9]

Don&#39;t wanna sound like a dick but this isn&#39;t news to most people.

Orwell was a non-Marxist sort of revolutionary socialist, who became more conservative towards the end of his life. But yes you&#39;re right in his most famous two books (this and 1984) he wasn&#39;t criticising socialism (he who said (not 100%) &#39;Every single serious piece I have written since 1936 [when he fought for an anarchist militia in Spain] has been AGAINST totalitarianism and FOR democratic socialism as I see it.&#39;) but its distortions. The messages are strongly anti-Leninist- in 1984 Winston Smith is told by the agents of Big Brother that power is ALWAYS for its own sake- it is always an ends and never a means.

Orwell is great. I especially recommend, aside from all his marvellous novels and social accounts (&#39;Down and Out in London and Paris&#39; and &#39;The Road to Wigan Pier&#39; for example), a real fantastic extended essay called &#39;The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius&#39; It&#39;s in three parts: first is the most pertinent, clever and true portrait and analysis of the English character I have read, second his reasons for why socialism should be introduced and third modest practical proposals. (It should be in any good collection of his essays.)

&#39;Only revolution can save England, that has been clear for a long time.&#39;

&#39;Through revolution we become more ourselves, not less.&#39;

If this line of political thought, ie. the less radical, non-Marxist &#39;err, but socialism is just common sense&#39; kinda-line, try the philosopher Bertrand Russel. His collection of essays &#39;In Praise of Idleness&#39; contain some very nice arguments.

[Pawn Power]

how many animal farm threads must there be................

[RABBIT - THE - CUBAN - MILITANT]

yeah i watched the live action version on the CBC it was well done as well ... I love that even an anit -communist like Orewell can make literature that makes communism seem great as a system .

[bolshevik butcher]

Originally posted by Revolution is the [email protected] 31 2004, 09:15 PM
how many animal farm threads must there be................
The last 1 got closed down coz apparently Orwell&#39;s "reactionary", he&#39;s clearly a socialist. Animal Farm and 1984 r all about how the working class r oppressed by the people meant 2 be fighting for them.

[RevolverNo9]

Couple of quotes from Orwell:

"Through revolution we become more ourselves, not less."
"Only revolution can save England, that has been clear for a long time."

It is ridiculous to dislike 1984 just because it lacks nice little muscly, smiling bits of SOCIALIST REALISM that Red Star seems to hanker after so much. Disregard because it&#39;s pessimistic? Why? He&#39;s not writing politicial propoganda for a party he&#39;s writing a novel to express his sentiments, sentiments shaped by illness, a shacking of his convictions that had happened throughout the war.

1984&#39;s three super-powers are an extrapolation of what was occuring at HIS time, ie. the cold war. Great Britain is called &#39;Airstrip 1&#39;, a clear indication that it is a pawn of American imperialism. The book is a satire, not just on Stalinism and the absurdity of all players in the Cold War, but also the propoganda department where he worked in London during the war (there is for example a comment about keeping the proles subdued with magaizines and pornography. This is a comment about the WEST not the East.) In fact he also draws material from his Prep School (private school for boys until they&#39;re 14)&#33; It must always be remembered: the book is a satire.

The crucial part of the novel as far as tha author&#39;s personal message is concerned is where the Party&#39;s representivtives tell Winston that the retention of power is ALWAYS an ends and never a means. This is what so worried Orwell, this is what he had seen in Germany and Russia and he was frightened (I believe the man mentions the National Socialists and the Soviets).

It is worth noting that after the publication of his two last novels he said that he was very concerned by the conservative interpretations and reiterated that they were not intended as an attack on the Labour movement in Britian as was often suggested.

As for Animal Farm, it is a STRAIGHT ALLEGORY for the Russain Revolution and its degeneration. Again why should he colour it anyother way? He&#39;s not writing the &#39;Red Star Manifesto for the Good of the People&#39;.

(Orwell, I remember, once said that it was impossible for a writer to be a comitted member of a political party (he was a member of the Britain&#39;s &#39;Independent Labour Party&#39;.))

I suggest that people read his long essay &#39;The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and teh English Genius&#39; if they actually want to understand him rather than just moan about him not being a Marxist. It doesn&#39;t mean you&#39;re evil.

To whoever said &#39;He should have read Marx,&#39; Orwell actually studied Marxism very eminently and was a well respected adversary at debates and discussion of European Marxists (see &#39;Orwell and the Left&#39; for a good account.)

Sorry I&#39;ve gone kinda bold mad, I had a fidgiting finger. So there, I guess people have stopped replying to this thread, but I just had to get it off my chest.

[bubb&#1071;ubbgoeswoo]

everyone must be reading this is in school because i am right now and i was going to start a thread aout it to see yalls opinions on the book.oh well, i think it is a good read despite what some think.

[Pawn Power]

The last 1 got closed down coz apparently Orwell&#39;s "reactionary", he&#39;s clearly a socialist. Animal Farm and 1984 r all about how the working class r oppressed by the people meant 2 be fighting for them.

Orwell is "reactionary"

You should really spell out "are" and "to" it is probally confusing to people who do not speak english as a first language.

[redstar2000]

Yes, Orwell in Animal Farm and 1984 is reactionary.

Topic merged...read the discussion.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[bolshevik butcher]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 04:31 AM
Yes, Orwell in Animal Farm and 1984 is reactionary.

Topic merged...read the discussion.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas
In what way exactley, just not being marxist doesn&#39;t make you reactionary. Socialists are still part of the revoloution.

[Saint-Just]

Originally posted by Clenched [email protected] 3 2005, 04:16 PM
In what way exactley, just not being marxist doesn&#39;t make you reactionary. Socialists are still part of the revoloution.
Read the discussion. Or, read this; it is more concise:

http://redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.n...rt_from=&ucat=& (http://redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1097859426&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

If you don&#39;t want to take the time to read that, believe this:

Orwell may or may not have "considered himself" a "democratic socialist"...people can consider themselves lots of things.

But Animal Farm and 1984 are both very poorly written and politically reactionary.~redstar2000

[bolshevik butcher]

Red Star&#39;s obviously got it in for Orwell, I think that the message from 1984 is pro socialist and anti-stalinist. At the time it did look like the world was heading that way.

[Saint-Just]

Originally posted by Clenched [email protected] 3 2005, 06:09 PM
Red Star&#39;s obviously got it in for Orwell, I think that the message from 1984 is pro socialist and anti-stalinist. At the time it did look like the world was heading that way.
I welcome you to read more Orwell - some of his less popular books where he focuses on himself. Then you will be able to how pompous, bourgeois, and reactionary he is.

1984 is a work of fiction. The Soviet Union was has nothing in common with the society described in 1984. Do you think that the book is encouraged in school so that children will become socialists but not Stalinists? No. The reason is this: so that children will become capitalist slaves to ignorance.

[Rockfan]

I have just read it and I think it&#39;s great. I hope I study it in english this year so I can piss my teacher off and explain to everyone the thourts behind the book and the historical parts, like the bit when there attacked which was, in real life, the attack on the ussr by the nazi&#39;s. I as so want to tell them that Orwell himself was a socalist and make them veiw the book a different way not the ussaually high school sterotype "communism and stuff like that is bad".

[bolshevik butcher]

Mao, I think that you are choosing to interprete 1984 as anti-communist, and I didn&#39;t say that in 1984 the world was like the ussr, what I said was that, this was the way it looked like the world was heading, not what it was like then.

[bolshevik butcher]

Originally posted by Chairman Mao+Jan 3 2005, 06:30 PM--> (Chairman Mao @ Jan 3 2005, 06:30 PM)
Clenched [email protected] 3 2005, 06:09 PM
Red Star&#39;s obviously got it in for Orwell, I think that the message from 1984 is pro socialist and anti-stalinist. At the time it did look like the world was heading that way.
I welcome you to read more Orwell - some of his less popular books where he focuses on himself. Then you will be able to how pompous, bourgeois, and reactionary he is.

1984 is a work of fiction. The Soviet Union was has nothing in common with the society described in 1984. Do you think that the book is encouraged in school so that children will become socialists but not Stalinists? No. The reason is this: so that children will become capitalist slaves to ignorance. [/b]
This may be because they are autobiographies?

[Saint-Just]

Originally posted by Clenched [email protected] 4 2005, 11:29 AM
This may be because they are autobiographies?
No, he wrote a lot personal critiques of things such as, the way people use English.


I didn&#39;t say that in 1984 the world was like the ussr

Yes, but you said 1984 was anti-Stalinist. Orwell also intended the world in 1984 to parallel the USSR.

[YKTMX]

Animal Farm is a legitimate analysis of betrayal and the usurping of revolutionary ideals. Just like 1984, Orwell conceived it is as an attack on Stalinism in defence of genuine revolutionary socialism. The only "reactioneries" in this thread are the hypocrites who attack "Leninism" but feel a queasy sentimentality for Stalinist tyrannies.

Quite frankly, disgusting.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2005, 10:35 AM
Animal Farm is a legitimate analysis of betrayal and the usurping of revolutionary ideals. Just like 1984, Orwell conceived it is as an attack on Stalinism in defence of genuine revolutionary socialism. The only "reactioneries" in this thread are the hypocrites who attack "Leninism" but feel a queasy sentimentality for Stalinist tyrannies.

Quite frankly, disgusting.
Well, isn&#39;t this interesting?

Here we have two works by Orwell which have been compulsory reading in high schools throughout the English-speaking (capitalist) world for more than 50 years...curiously characterized as "in defence of genuine revolutionary socialism".

Isn&#39;t that "really nice" of the ruling class to do that "for us"? :wub:

And let&#39;s not overlook the "queasy sentamentalities for Stalinist tyrannies". It&#39;s one of those bombastic phrases that sounds as if it ought to mean something.

Almost Orwellian, if you take my meaning. :lol:

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[YKTMX]

Since when do we take our lead from bourgeois educators? If we accepted their premise, the British Empire was benevolent and Winston Churchill won the second world war single handedly.

Animal Farm was written by a man who joined the International Brigades and wrote wonderfully about revolutionary Catalonia. Orwell was a socialist and like any genuine socialist he detested without equivocation or hesitancy Stalinism.

I couldn&#39;t care a less what the capitalists think he meant. I don&#39;t care what they think about anything so I don&#39;t think we should accept their interpretation of Animal Farm.

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Jan 4 2005, 11:37 PM--> (redstar2000 &#064; Jan 4 2005, 11:37 PM)
[email protected] 4 2005, 10:35 AM
Animal Farm is a legitimate analysis of betrayal and the usurping of revolutionary ideals. Just like 1984, Orwell conceived it is as an attack on Stalinism in defence of genuine revolutionary socialism. The only "reactioneries" in this thread are the hypocrites who attack "Leninism" but feel a queasy sentimentality for Stalinist tyrannies.

Quite frankly, disgusting.
Well, isn&#39;t this interesting?

Here we have two works by Orwell which have been compulsory reading in high schools throughout the English-speaking (capitalist) world for more than 50 years...curiously characterized as "in defence of genuine revolutionary socialism".

Isn&#39;t that "really nice" of the ruling class to do that "for us"? :wub:

And let&#39;s not overlook the "queasy sentamentalities for Stalinist tyrannies". It&#39;s one of those bombastic phrases that sounds as if it ought to mean something.

Almost Orwellian, if you take my meaning. :lol:

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas [/b]
Shockingly enough redstar, the athorities at least not of the modern day, are plotting specifically against the possibility that a socialist revolution may occur, and do not edit the reading list in schools accordingly.

Perhaps it has occured to you that this book is on the reading list, because it displays the quality and standard of writting, which those who build the curriclum, wish to see emulated by students.

Lord of the flies is also on the reading list for most schools, and i am quite sure that it is not on their in order to prevent the break down of society, the rise of feudal law, the collapse of democracy, gang warfare, or any other political or social points which the novel attempts to parody. More likley it is selected because it is a good book, written in a manner more likley to be understood and enjoyed by children, rather than works such as "Wuthering Heights", or "Ludwig Feuerbach & the End of Classical German Philosophy".

Paranoia is most worring, perhaps you should see someone about it.

[Zingu]

We have to read this book in English class currently right, luckly, the teacher, who knows I&#39;m a hardcore Marxist, put some backround information about Communism, which was actually unbiased for the students to study first, about the Russian Revolution, Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky as well, but again, despite this there will probably be some misguided conclusions from this book nevertheless.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Enigma
Shockingly enough redstar, the authorities at least not of the modern day, are [not?] plotting specifically against the possibility that a socialist revolution may occur, and do not edit the reading list in schools accordingly.

No, I expect by this time the crap is there just simply because it&#39;s been there a long time and "does no harm" (from their point of view).

But when those books were added to the list, it was not because they were considered "beacons of hope" for revolutionaries.


Perhaps it has occurred to you that this book is on the reading list, because it displays the quality and standard of writing, which those who build the curriculum, wish to see emulated by students.

Yes, we can never rule out sheer literary incompetence, can we?

Sort of like a music appreciation course featuring "top forty hits" from the 1950s.


Lord of the Flies is also on the reading list for most schools...

Not surprising. Better writing than Animal Farm or 1984...but even more reactionary.

Humans are rather "beastly", aren&#39;t they?


More likely it is selected because it is a good book, written in a manner more likely to be understood and enjoyed by children, rather than works such as Wuthering Heights, or Ludwig Feuerbach & the End of Classical German Philosophy.

Here you seem to be saying that "it could be worse"...and you&#39;ll get no argument from me on that one. Compulsory reading lists usually range from the merely dreadful to the monumentally boring. Did they make you read any of the tedium perpetrated by Sir Walter Scott?

I will grant that putting together a reading list that would be both "progressive" and of good literary quality would not be an easy task.

But of course those are not their real purposes, are they?

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[bolshevik butcher]

Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2005, 03:35 PM
Animal Farm is a legitimate analysis of betrayal and the usurping of revolutionary ideals. Just like 1984, Orwell conceived it is as an attack on Stalinism in defence of genuine revolutionary socialism. The only "reactioneries" in this thread are the hypocrites who attack "Leninism" but feel a queasy sentimentality for Stalinist tyrannies.

Quite frankly, disgusting.
Couldn&#39;t agree more. From this you&#39;d think that red star was a Stalinist.

[Saint-Just]

Originally posted by Clenched Fist+Jan 5 2005, 05:38 PM--> (Clenched Fist @ Jan 5 2005, 05:38 PM)
[email protected] 4 2005, 03:35 PM
Animal Farm is a legitimate analysis of betrayal and the usurping of revolutionary ideals. Just like 1984, Orwell conceived it is as an attack on Stalinism in defence of genuine revolutionary socialism. The only "reactioneries" in this thread are the hypocrites who attack "Leninism" but feel a queasy sentimentality for Stalinist tyrannies.

Quite frankly, disgusting.
Couldn&#39;t agree more. From this you&#39;d think that red star was a Stalinist. [/b]
redstar2000 is very different from a &#39;Stalinist&#39;. However, he has been able to divorce himself from any bourgeois preconceptions about the kind of socities we live in, as such he recognises Animal Farm and 1984 for what they are.

[RevolverNo9]

No, the books aren&#39;t beacons of revolutionary hope. They are allegories, satires and analytical perceptions of human power, attacks on the reactionary including an indictment of the media offices he worked in. Lets not lament the fact that it ain&#39;t leftist propoganda or, heaven forbid as some here seem to be desirous, socialist realism.

Orwell is widely regarded in the world of literary criticism as a master of English prose, which I think the quality of his essays attest to. This is the reason why he crops up so frequently in English literature lessons in English schools. I don&#39;t think the issue is some bourgeois conspiracy to provide a selection of &#39;capitalist ideologues&#39; - they are chosen because of their positions as literary standards - but the convention of bourgeois interpretation, which of course tends to neuter the progressive edge. Though I think to disregard the whole acedmic community of literary-criticism would be thoughtless.

I don&#39;t see progressive literature being black-listed to the extent that seems to be suggested. If one does A-level French, they&#39;re almost bound to read Albert Camus. Eric Hosbawm&#39;s history of the 20th Century is a standard text for school history students of that period. Sociology here does not cover Marxism pejortively from what I hear. Although I think anyone who is taught economics at school has no hope of anything except Marxism being publicly demolished by some Thatcherite, neo-Kenseyian disciple.

Just as an aside, In Britain at any rate there are plenty of left-wing teachers (especially as their union is one of the few important ones left.) Recently one came up to me disconcerted saying, &#39;It&#39;s awful, my whole set believes that Marxism is dead. So I put them on to you.&#39; Guess who&#39;s persona non gratis now.

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Jan 5 2005, 06:31 AM--> (redstar2000 @ Jan 5 2005, 06:31 AM)
Enigma
Shockingly enough redstar, the authorities at least not of the modern day, are [not?] plotting specifically against the possibility that a socialist revolution may occur, and do not edit the reading list in schools accordingly.

No, I expect by this time the crap is there just simply because it&#39;s been there a long time and "does no harm" (from their point of view).

But when those books were added to the list, it was not because they were considered "beacons of hope" for revolutionaries.


Perhaps it has occurred to you that this book is on the reading list, because it displays the quality and standard of writing, which those who build the curriculum, wish to see emulated by students.

Yes, we can never rule out sheer literary incompetence, can we?

Sort of like a music appreciation course featuring "top forty hits" from the 1950s.


Lord of the Flies is also on the reading list for most schools...

Not surprising. Better writing than Animal Farm or 1984...but even more reactionary.

Humans are rather "beastly", aren&#39;t they?


More likely it is selected because it is a good book, written in a manner more likely to be understood and enjoyed by children, rather than works such as Wuthering Heights, or Ludwig Feuerbach & the End of Classical German Philosophy.

Here you seem to be saying that "it could be worse"...and you&#39;ll get no argument from me on that one. Compulsory reading lists usually range from the merely dreadful to the monumentally boring. Did they make you read any of the tedium perpetrated by Sir Walter Scott?

I will grant that putting together a reading list that would be both "progressive" and of good literary quality would not be an easy task.

But of course those are not their real purposes, are they?

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas [/b]
No, I expect by this time the crap is there just simply because it&#39;s been there a long time and "does no harm" (from their point of view).

Possibly, but unlikley, if that were the case then kids would still be reading &#39;Silas Marna&#39; by Geoge Elliot or whatever the ladies real name was, instead of "Mrs Frisby and the rats of Nimh".

But when those books were added to the list, it was not because they were considered "beacons of hope" for revolutionaries.

Indeed, I doubt the politics of the book had anything to do with its selection.

Yes, we can never rule out sheer literary incompetence, can we?

Yes, and I am sure that you are more qualified to point out literary incompetence than the individuals who make the selection. :rolleyes:

Sort of like a music appreciation course featuring "top forty hits" from the 1950s.


From viewing this thread, many kids seam to prefer George Orwell to Bill Haley and the Comets.

Not surprising. Better writing than Animal Farm or 1984...but even more reactionary.

Indeed, because neither &#39;1984&#39; or &#39;Animal Farm&#39; are remotly reactionary. As for better written, I am unqualified to make such a judgment.

Compulsory reading lists usually range from the merely dreadful to the monumentally boring.

Agreed, however I remember once when i was in primary school we read Roald Dahl, so some exceptions exist.

But of course those are not their real purposes, are they?

Indeed, because politics does not feature into it, even remotly.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Clinched Fist+--> (Clinched Fist) Couldn&#39;t agree more. From this you&#39;d think that red star was a Stalinist.[/b]

Of course you&#39;d think that, since you didn&#39;t bother to read the thread.

Try it, why don&#39;t you...actually read the thread before you jump to a conclusion based on a moronic summary of someone else&#39;s views.


Originally posted by [email protected]
No, the books aren&#39;t beacons of revolutionary hope. They are allegories, satires and analytical perceptions of human power, attacks on the reactionary including an indictment of the media offices he worked in.

I can see you have a real future in the world of "lit-crit". You might also want to read the whole discussion...as your perception of those works is, well, skewed badly, to be charitable about it.


Orwell is widely regarded in the world of literary criticism as a master of English prose, which I think the quality of his essays attest to.

Indeed, prior to the two works in question, he wrote quite well.

But it is not his earlier work that makes the "assigned reading lists".

As you know.


I don&#39;t think the issue is some bourgeois conspiracy to provide a selection of &#39;capitalist ideologues&#39;...

Why not? You think they are "above" such things?

Schoolboard member #1: "Hey, here&#39;s a couple of books by some English guy that really make communism look like crap."

Schoolboard member #2: "Sounds good to me; let&#39;s do it&#33;"


I don&#39;t see progressive literature being black-listed to the extent that seems to be suggested.

Well, ask yourself this? Did you, in the course of your school reading, come across even one book that suggested even the possibility that what exists now will not be "eternal" but might actually be replaced with something better?

I know I didn&#39;t...but that was a long time ago and it&#39;s possible that schools are not as wretchedly reactionary as they once were.

On the other hand, look at the sort of thing Enigma posts...and it sounds like they&#39;re just as bad as they were in the 50s.


Enigma
Indeed, I doubt the politics of the book had anything to do with its selection.

Yes, and I am sure that you are more qualified to point out literary incompetence than the individuals who make the selection.

From viewing this thread, many kids seem to prefer George Orwell to Bill Haley and the Comets.

Indeed, because politics does not feature into it, even remotely.

Thus the state of modern English education?

(Not a dig at the U.K. -- however bad it is there, it&#39;s probably even worse here...although Enigma&#39;s chronic "deference to authority" is, I think, particularly "English".)

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Invader Zim]

Thus the state of modern English education?

(Not a dig at the U.K. -- however bad it is there, it&#39;s probably even worse here...although Enigma&#39;s chronic "deference to authority" is, I think, particularly "English".)

It was not my education that taught me distain for paranoid old bastards, but rather experiance.

Also if you think that refusal to accept the ramblings of a paranoid old bastard is an example of &#39;chronic "deference to authority"&#39;, then your even more need of seaking professional help than I had previously imagined.

I don&#39;t believe in god because their is no evidence to suggest such a belief. By the exact same token I do not believe your babbling conspiricy nonsense, because you offer no proof.

[Guerrilla22]

It was a pretty good analayasis of what went wrong with the Soviet Union.

[trex]

Animal Farm was a good book, I liked it&#39;s message.

Which was, &#39;power is a magical thing that turns pigs into people&#39;.

[seraphim]

The book is one of my alltime favs. My parents bought it for me when I was 6 Orwell was a visionary.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Enigma+--> (Enigma)By the exact same token I do not believe your babbling conspiracy nonsense, because you offer no proof.[/b]

True, I have not researched the archives of school board meetings back in the 1950s to locate the discussions on adopting Animal Farm or 1984 as part of the compulsory reading lists.

So I have no "proof".

There&#39;s also no proof, by your rigorous standard, that Hitler ordered the extermination of the Jews...no written order has ever been located and there is no account of anyone ever receiving such a verbal order directly from him.

So Hitler had nothing to do with it, right? :lol:


Originally posted by Guerrilla22+--> (Guerrilla22)It was a pretty good analysis of what went wrong with the Soviet Union.[/b]

No it wasn&#39;t...at best it was a description and a seriously inadequate one at that.


[email protected]
Animal Farm was a good book, I liked it&#39;s message.

Which was, &#39;power is a magical thing that turns pigs into people&#39;.

And books like Animal Farm turn people into (anti-communist) pigs.


seraphim
The book is one of my alltime favs. My parents bought it for me when I was 6.

An appropriate gift, perhaps, for a child of six. But still reactionary...like one of those "Bible Stories for Kids" books.


Orwell was a visionary.

And his vision was "revolution is useless".

The vision of a reactionary.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[bolshevik butcher]

There are plenty of left wing leaning teachers at my school. I think people that interprete animal farm as anti-communist are interpreting it wrong and failing to get the whole point of the book which is that power is corupting, and that the ussr wasn&#39;t romotley communist, what&#39;s so anti-communist about either of these?

[Invader Zim]

There&#39;s also no proof, by your rigorous standard, that Hitler ordered the extermination of the Jews...no written order has ever been located and there is no account of anyone ever receiving such a verbal order directly from him.

No but their is plenty of writings which suggest his hatred of the jews, then their is the fact that millions of them were murdered during his regime. It does not take a lot to come to a conclusion based on that. Also as head of the regime the blame still eventually rests firmly at his feet.

However, your paranoid view of the school reading list selection methods have no convinient and conclusive facts which point to an easy and obvious hypothesis. Indeed your paranoid views have no rational basis. Of course you could always prove me wrong, I suggest you take several long trips to national library. If of course you don&#39;t want to, then of course one can only assume that you are after all a paranoid fool.

[Urban Rubble]

My word, you two just can&#39;t get enough of each other, get a room.

Look, it&#39;s pretty clear. Toward the end of Orwell&#39;s life his views began to waver. Personally, I think it&#39;s clear that the man remained a comitted Socialist until he died. It seems to me that he wrote the book at time when he was disillusioned with the "Communist" movement of the time, he wrote Animal Farm without really thinking about the fact that it would be used the way it was.

Either way, I think RedStar is somewhat right, but he&#39;s sensationalizing.

I just came in here to mention that I got a cool version of the book illustrated by Ralph S. Steadman (the guy who does all of Hunter S. Thompson&#39;s stuff). It&#39;s got some amazing drawings, fully painted and all that.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Clenched [email protected] 6 2005, 11:27 AM
There are plenty of left wing leaning teachers at my school. I think people that interpret Animal Farm as anti-communist are interpreting it wrong and failing to get the whole point of the book which is that power is corrupting, and that the USSR wasn&#39;t remotely communist, what&#39;s so anti-communist about either of these?
Yes, "power is corrupting"...so what?

Is there any suggestion in Animal Farm that things would have gone differently if power had been in the hands of all the animals from the beginning?

Is there any suggestion that some animals thought that domination by certain "leading pigs" was a really bad idea and should be struggled against?

Isn&#39;t the central point of Animal Farm the idea that "if you overthrow the humans, then a minority of the animals will become the new humans"?

If you overthrow capitalism, then a minority of the revolutionaries "will" always become the new capitalists.

That is an anti-communist message...it says that revolution is hopeless even if you win.

The same message delivered at greater length in 1984.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Urban Rubble]

Isn&#39;t the central point of Animal Farm the idea that "if you overthrow the humans, then a minority of the animals will become the new humans"?

If you overthrow capitalism, then a minority of the revolutionaries "will" always become the new capitalists.

That is an anti-communist message...it says that revolution is hopeless even if you win.

RedStar, what you are totally leaving out is the fact that Animal Farm was a satire of the Soviet Union. What you just said is EXACTLY what happened in the Soviet Union (as you yourself have said many times). He wasn&#39;t attempting to discredit the entire Communist movement, it was a satire of what happened in the Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union, the revolutionaries DID become the new Capitalists.

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by Urban [email protected] 7 2005, 12:43 AM
My word, you two just can&#39;t get enough of each other, get a room.

Look, it&#39;s pretty clear. Toward the end of Orwell&#39;s life his views began to waver. Personally, I think it&#39;s clear that the man remained a comitted Socialist until he died. It seems to me that he wrote the book at time when he was disillusioned with the "Communist" movement of the time, he wrote Animal Farm without really thinking about the fact that it would be used the way it was.

Either way, I think RedStar is somewhat right, but he&#39;s sensationalizing.

I just came in here to mention that I got a cool version of the book illustrated by Ralph S. Steadman (the guy who does all of Hunter S. Thompson&#39;s stuff). It&#39;s got some amazing drawings, fully painted and all that.
Animal farm is a parody of the USSR, and particularly Stalins selling out of the revolution. Anyone who considers this an attack on communism is wrong, as for that to be the case the USSR would have to have been communist. Which I am sad to say it was not, certainly not when Stalin was in power.

Anyone who states otherwise has either not read the book, doesn&#39;t understand the book or doesn&#39;t know what communism actually is.

Is there any suggestion in Animal Farm that things would have gone differently if power had been in the hands of all the animals from the beginning?

Yes. At the beginning of the book, prior to the corrupting influence of Napoleon has set in, when the farm is still run by the animals in council as a whole, the farm is displayed as a highly productive paradise.

As for those who call the book reationary, please explain why the authority figures and capitalists are portrayed as pigs?

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Urban Rubble+--> (Urban Rubble)He wasn&#39;t attempting to discredit the entire Communist movement, it was a satire of what happened in the Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union, the revolutionaries DID become the new Capitalists.[/b]


Originally posted by [email protected]
Animal farm is a parody of the USSR, and particularly Stalin&#39;s selling out of the revolution. Anyone who considers this an attack on communism is wrong, as for that to be the case the USSR would have to have been communist.

What neither of you mention is any place in the book where it is ever suggested that things could have been otherwise.

If Orwell was not attacking the whole possibility of emancipation, then why does he never suggest that there&#39;s any possibility of altering the course of events in the USSR or anywhere?

Sure, it&#39;s "possible" that he was "only attacking Stalin/Stalinism"...but remember, he was writing fiction. That means you can put in stuff that didn&#39;t really happen if you want to make your point clearer.

Animal Farm could have ended with a scene of a new generation of animals who, having learned the lesson of the pigs, would have proceeded on the basis of permanent animal equality. No leaders&#33;

1984 could have ended with Winston Smith coming into contact with a real revolutionary underground.

Except in "Orwell&#39;s world", there&#39;s no such thing&#33;

I think his real intent, based both on what he said and what he didn&#39;t say, was to discredit the whole idea of communist revolution.

Another fault of the "only the USSR" interpretation is that, in the 1940s, it was the USSR that was clearly (if wrongly) identified with communism itself throughout the world.

Unlike today, in those days anyone who said s/he was a communist was automatically linked with the USSR.

Perhaps in the U.K. with its alleged abundance of "left-wing teachers", kids who read those books get an explanation that takes communism "off the hook". I&#39;m skeptical...but it&#39;s possible.

In the U.S., I am confident that it never happens.


Enigma
As for those who call the book reactionary, please explain why the authority figures and capitalists are portrayed as pigs?

One reason might be that pigs are considerably more intelligent mammals than...sheep.

Your question assumes that Orwell shared the vulgar prejudice against pigs as "filthy swine"...when, of course, it is human treatment that&#39;s responsible for their "filth". Pigs, when they have the choice and opportunity, are probably cleaner than dogs...though not as clean as cats.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Invader Zim]

What neither of you mention is any place in the book where it is ever suggested that things could have been otherwise.

Not true, Animal Farm makes it quite clear what could have been with out the degeneration of the real socialist ideal, as I said a paradise. It went into a spiral of capitalist decline when &#39;Old Major&#39; kicks the bucket.


One reason might be that pigs are considerably more intelligent mammals than...sheep.

I imagine they are also considerably more intelligent than donkeys, but not in Animal farm.

Your question assumes that Orwell shared the vulgar prejudice against pigs as "filthy swine"...when, of course, it is human treatment that&#39;s responsible for their "filth". Pigs, when they have the choice and opportunity, are probably cleaner than dogs...though not as clean as cats.


What pigs are like if left to their own devises is irrelevant, how many twelve year old children, indeed adults, will know that fact, I am willing to bet it is a miniscule number bordering on nil. However what is important is the common interpretation of pigs, the one that Orwell was drawing upon and the audience recognise, as "filthy swine".

It is also important to note that he named the &#39;Stalin&#39; pig after a hard willed dictatorial imperialist, Napoleon Bonaparte, and the &#39;Trotsky; pig the relatively unobtrusive inoffensive name &#39;Snowball&#39;.

Animal Farm could have ended with a scene of a new generation of animals who, having learned the lesson of the pigs, would have proceeded on the basis of permanent animal equality. No leaders&#33;

That defeats the object of the book though, which was to parody Stalin’s Totalitarian regime, when Animal farm was written Stalin was alive and still very much in control of Russia. The reference to how socialism should be is made at the beginning of the book. look at the character of "Old major", a kindly wise old animal and philosopher of change, a character based on Marx and Lenin. A character necessary to parody the history Soviet Union accurately, but carefully portrayed as the exact opposite of Napoleon, an ideal model leader for an ideal society.

As for 1984, that never could have had the same chilling effect it did, had it resulted in a happy ending. It would have ruled the whole nightmare atmosphere of the book. Notice that "Brave New World", a book running to some extent on a parallel futuristic nightmare society, also has an unhappy ending, suicide.

Except in "Orwell&#39;s world", there&#39;s no such thing&#33;

Ahh but you forget the most important factor of the book, this is not just Orwell’s world, it is Orwell’s nightmare world, and such organisations could not exist, not with a society he was trying to create. A society where secrets are impossible to keep, and there is no real hope of success.

Perhaps in the U.K. with its alleged abundance of "left-wing teachers", kids who read those books get an explanation that takes communism "off the hook". I&#39;m skeptical...but it&#39;s possible.

I never read 1984 in school, only animal farm which incidentally I had read before anyway. As I recall were told little about the social and political history which the book was written to commentate on. We were left to reach our own conclusions; the lessons were more focused towards things like character development, and literary skill. What you would expect in an English class, not politics of the 1940&#39;s.

[Urban Rubble]

Animal Farm could have ended with a scene of a new generation of animals who, having learned the lesson of the pigs, would have proceeded on the basis of permanent animal equality. No leaders&#33;

Because that didn&#39;t happen in the Soviet Union. The book is about what happened in the Soviet Union.

[RevolverNo9]

QUOTE (Revolver09)
No, the books aren&#39;t beacons of revolutionary hope. They are allegories, satires and analytical perceptions of human power, attacks on the reactionary including an indictment of the media offices he worked in.



I can see you have a real future in the world of "lit-crit". You might also want to read the whole discussion...as your perception of those works is, well, skewed badly, to be charitable about it.

Seeing as you pass up literary merit in preference for a Stalinist tendency, why don&#39;t you rewrite the books with your optimistic ending and put a strong peasent woman on the cover, with burgeoning biceps and three sacks full of grain. Everything I wrote there I happy to defend to the teeth.

If you had read the whole thread you might have come across my reaction to it...


Couple of quotes from Orwell:

"Through revolution we become more ourselves, not less."
"Only revolution can save England, that has been clear for a long time."

It is ridiculous to dislike 1984 just because it lacks nice little muscly, smiling bits of SOCIALIST REALISM that Red Star seems to hanker after so much. Disregard because it&#39;s pessimistic? Why? He&#39;s not writing politicial propoganda for a party he&#39;s writing a novel to express his sentiments, sentiments shaped by illness, a shacking of his convictions that had happened throughout the war.

1984&#39;s three super-powers are an extrapolation of what was occuring at HIS time, ie. the cold war. Great Britain is called &#39;Airstrip 1&#39;, a clear indication that it is a pawn of American imperialism. The book is a satire, not just on Stalinism and the absurdity of all players in the Cold War, but also the propoganda department where he worked in London during the war (there is for example a comment about keeping the proles subdued with magaizines and pornography. This is a comment about the WEST not the East.) In fact he also draws material from his Prep School (private school for boys until they&#39;re 14)&#33; It must always be remembered: the book is a satire.

The crucial part of the novel as far as tha author&#39;s personal message is concerned is where the Party&#39;s representivtives tell Winston that the retention of power is ALWAYS an ends and never a means. This is what so worried Orwell, this is what he had seen in Germany and Russia and he was frightened (I believe the man mentions the National Socialists and the Soviets).

It is worth noting that after the publication of his two last novels he said that he was very concerned by the conservative interpretations and reiterated that they were not intended as an attack on the Labour movement in Britian as was often suggested.

As for Animal Farm, it is a STRAIGHT ALLEGORY for the Russain Revolution and its degeneration. Again why should he colour it anyother way? He&#39;s not writing the &#39;Red Star Manifesto for the Good of the People&#39;.

(Orwell, I remember, once said that it was impossible for a writer to be a comitted member of a political party (he was a member of the Britain&#39;s &#39;Independent Labour Party&#39;.))

I suggest that people read his long essay &#39;The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and teh English Genius&#39; if they actually want to understand him rather than just moan about him not being a Marxist. It doesn&#39;t mean you&#39;re evil.

To whoever said &#39;He should have read Marx,&#39; Orwell actually studied Marxism very eminently and was a well respected adversary at debates and discussion of European Marxists (see &#39;Orwell and the Left&#39; for a good account.)




Animal Farm could have ended with a scene of a new generation of animals who, having learned the lesson of the pigs, would have proceeded on the basis of permanent animal equality. No leaders&#33;

As has already been stated by anyone with a brain there is a very good reason... that would be untrue to what actually happened. He was writing an allegory not a pamphlet.


Well, ask yourself this? Did you, in the course of your school reading, come across even one book that suggested even the possibility that what exists now will not be "eternal" but might actually be replaced with something better?

Hmm... aside from Marx, Owen, Dickens, left wing historical journals, Camus, Sartre nothing springs to mind immediately no...

[Forward Union]

Perhaps in the U.K. with its alleged abundance of "left-wing teachers", kids who read those books get an explanation that takes communism "off the hook". I&#39;m skeptical...but it&#39;s possible.

I am still at school, though above the years that actually read Animal Farm, and It has come to my attention that we have been made to read many texts that discredit stalinism, under the name of communism. We are literally forced to presume that what happened in China and the USSR was communism at its "finest" so whether they intended 1984 and Animal farm to be deliberately interpreted wrong or not is beside the point. They are misleading the students. Need evidence? well I could, photocopy a page from a history textbook if you want which clearly states:

"The USSR was a communist state"

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Enigma+--> (Enigma)Ahh but you forget the most important factor of the book, this is not just Orwell’s world, it is Orwell’s nightmare world, and such organisations could not exist, not with a society he was trying to create. A society where secrets are impossible to keep, and there is no real hope of success.[/b] -- emphasis added.

Exactly my point&#33;&#33;&#33;

The reason those two books became compulsory reading for kids is to teach them that there is no real hope of success in any revolutionary alternative.


As I recall [we] were told little about the social and political history which the book was written to commentate on. We were left to reach our own conclusions; the lessons were more focused towards things like character development, and literary skill. What you would expect in an English class, not politics of the 1940&#39;s.

Yes, you were left to reach your own conclusion -- without being aware that Animal Farm was "just about the USSR".

Or perhaps you were aware...but how many other kids were?

While reading this "literary work" you were learning how to look at revolution itself -- and, in fact, it shows in your whole political outlook that you display in your posts here. You "don&#39;t like" revolution...it doesn&#39;t "appeal" to you.

I don&#39;t just blame Orwell for that...but reading him certainly didn&#39;t do anything to help your politics&#33;

(To speak about "character development" in those two works is absurd, by the way. The characters are card-board cut-outs that do not change or develop at all.)


Originally posted by Urban Rubble+--> (Urban Rubble)Because that didn&#39;t happen in the Soviet Union.[/b]

I repeat: in a work of fiction, you are allowed to put stuff in that didn&#39;t happen.

If you want to.


Originally posted by RevolverNo9
Seeing as you pass up literary merit in preference for a Stalinist tendency, why don&#39;t you rewrite the books with your optimistic ending and put a strong peasant woman on the cover, with burgeoning biceps and three sacks full of grain.

Well, who knows, perhaps someday someone will.

Or perhaps they&#39;ll write a much better novel about the USSR with both positive and negative aspects of life there.

But your suggestion of a "strong peasant woman with burgeoning biceps" is unlikely to be followed...though what you have against such women is a puzzle that we can leave for another occasion.


Originally posted by RevolverNo9
It is ridiculous to dislike 1984 just because it lacks nice little musically, smiling bits of SOCIALIST REALISM that Red Star seems to hanker after so much.

Where in this thread did I express an admiration for "socialist realism"?

I didn&#39;t, of course...but that never inhibits my critics. If you have no real argument, just make stuff up.

For all of its "literary merits", 1984 might well be labeled anti-socialist realism.


Originally posted by RevolverNo9
Disregard because it&#39;s pessimistic? Why? He&#39;s not writing political propaganda for a party he&#39;s writing a novel to express his sentiments, sentiments shaped by illness, a slacking of his convictions that had happened throughout the war. -- emphasis added.

Yes, "a slacking of his convictions" indeed&#33;

From left to right is a genuine "slacking".

As to pessimism in the genre in general, no, I don&#39;t care for it. Real life is sufficiently pessimistic for me.

But it&#39;s not pessimism in the abstract that made Orwell compulsory reading in high schools...it&#39;s very specifically pessimism about revolution.


Originally posted by RevolverNo9
The crucial part of the novel as far as the author&#39;s personal message is concerned is where the Party&#39;s representatives tell Winston that the retention of power is ALWAYS an ends and never a means.

But that, of course, is false. It was false under Stalin and it was false even under Hitler.

Power always exists in order to "do something"...not to just exist for the sake of existence.


Originally posted by RevolverNo9
It is worth noting that after the publication of his two last novels he said that he was very concerned by the conservative interpretations and reiterated that they were not intended as an attack on the Labour movement in Britain as was often suggested.

Good joke&#33; :lol: As if the British "Labour" party was ever revolutionary.


[email protected]
Again why should he colour it any other way? He&#39;s not writing the &#39;Red Star Manifesto for the Good of the People&#39;.

No, he&#39;s writing about "what will happen" should you ever listen to "old pigs" like redstar.


RevolverNo9
...if they actually want to understand him rather than just moan about him not being a Marxist. It doesn&#39;t mean you&#39;re evil.

Sometimes it does.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Invader Zim]

Ahh so in short what you wanted was nothing more than a empty piece of political rhetoric, in short a piece propaganada for true socialism. You dislike Orwell because he did not add that political advert right at the end, never mind it would have ruined the books, and totally destroyed any hope of them gaining any credibility.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Enigma
You dislike Orwell because he did not add that political advert right at the end, never mind it would have ruined the books, and totally destroyed any hope of them gaining any credibility.

Not to mention the drop in sales&#33; :o

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Urban Rubble]

I repeat: in a work of fiction, you are allowed to put stuff in that didn&#39;t happen.

If you want to.

RedStar, now why in the hell would Orwell write an entire book based on real events in the Soviet Union, and then at the very end change what happened ? Not only would that ruin the book (and the theme of a USSR satire) but it would turn it into a blatant piece of political propaganda. What you said here makes absolutely no sense. You&#39;re mad because Orwell didn&#39;t paint the USSR is positive light at the end, but what you&#39;re missing is that doing so would have changed the entire point and focus of the book.


Not to mention the drop in sales&#33;

Of course, that HAD to be it.

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Jan 8 2005, 02:57 AM--> (redstar2000 @ Jan 8 2005, 02:57 AM)
Enigma
You dislike Orwell because he did not add that political advert right at the end, never mind it would have ruined the books, and totally destroyed any hope of them gaining any credibility.

Not to mention the drop in sales&#33; :o

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas [/b]
:rolleyes:

Some people will never learn.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Urban Rubble+--> (Urban Rubble)RedStar, now why in the hell would Orwell write an entire book based on real events in the Soviet Union, and then at the very end change what happened?[/b]

Gee, I dunno, duh, maybe so that people wouldn&#39;t give up on the whole idea of revolution...you think?


Enigma
Some people will never learn.

Don&#39;t assume that other people share your handicap. :)

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Jan 8 2005, 08:48 PM--> (redstar2000 &#064; Jan 8 2005, 08:48 PM)
Originally posted by Urban [email protected]
RedStar, now why in the hell would Orwell write an entire book based on real events in the Soviet Union, and then at the very end change what happened?

Gee, I dunno, duh, maybe so that people wouldn&#39;t give up on the whole idea of revolution...you think?


Enigma
Some people will never learn.

Don&#39;t assume that other people share your handicap. :)

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas [/b]
Don&#39;t assume that other people share your handicap. :)


Sorry Redstar you are confused, confusion is a major issue for you isn&#39;t it. Perhaps all that bullshit has addled your brains. :lol:

[RevolverNo9]

Or perhaps they&#39;ll write a much better novel about the USSR with both positive and negative aspects of life there.

Yeah that&#39;d be great, that&#39;d make a really fantastic satire. Now I&#39;m gonna start writing some satires about life in Western Capitalism equally underlining the good and positive elements of that society.


But your suggestion of a "strong peasant woman with burgeoning biceps" is unlikely to be followed...though what you have against such women is a puzzle that we can leave for another occasion.

Don&#39;t play it dumb. You&#39;re more than intelligent enough to know what references I&#39;m making.


QUOTE (RevolverNo9)
It is ridiculous to dislike 1984 just because it lacks nice little musically, smiling bits of SOCIALIST REALISM that Red Star seems to hanker after so much.


Where in this thread did I express an admiration for "socialist realism"?

You didn&#39;t implicitly. I took the polemical liberty to state what I did on the basis that your central objection to the books is that they don&#39;t slot into your world view and can&#39;t serve for your propoganda machine, as Enigma concurs.

From your talk of wishing Orwell to break the tone of his literature in order to place in some tub-beating, pro-revolutionary call to arms it is not a great extrapolation to pull. We could add references of Winston Smith frequenting shady, secret parlours to have tattoos of Lenin dug into his right buttock.


a slacking of his convictions that had happened throughout the war.
More minor point but &#39;shacking&#39; meant to read &#39;shaking&#39;, not &#39;slacking&#39;. Appreciable difference.


Power always exists in order to "do something"...not to just exist for the sake of existence.

This is too big a question to address properly here but there is a psycological structure to power far more potent than even the genuinely perceived ends. This is what I believe Orwell is talking about.


Good joke&#33; As if the British "Labour" party was ever revolutionary.

That the Labour party has until its recent periods always had revolutionary elements is irrlevant (especially to you no doubt as I&#39;m sure you could tell me how each one was and is reactionary). These were the petty allegations of the conservatives and they were levied at the workers&#39; movement, if the Latin derivation is too esoteric.


Not to mention the drop in sales&#33;

Yeah of course, Orwell wrote books with the sole objective of maximising his profits. Oh sorry - and of course to discredit the progressive project.


QUOTE (Urban Rubble)
RedStar, now why in the hell would Orwell write an entire book based on real events in the Soviet Union, and then at the very end change what happened?


Gee, I dunno, duh, maybe so that people wouldn&#39;t give up on the whole idea of revolution...you think?

Do you think that &#39;Brave New World&#39; would be such a wonderful satire on Plato&#39;s Republic if at the Hucley decided to impose his conception of the utopia?

[Invader Zim]

RevolverNo9, I shouldn&#39;t waste your breath, Redstar is stubborn. To be fair he is actually correct most of the time, so he can afford to be stubborn.

[RevolverNo9]

Yeah, don&#39;t worry I&#39;ve noticed&#33; I enjoy his critique the majority of the time but for someone who is such an undogmatic Marxist he sure is... er, dogmatic.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by RevolverNo9
Now I&#39;m gonna start writing some satires about life in Western Capitalism equally underlining the good and positive elements of that society.

This would seem to be well within your talents...but you do have plenty of competition.

Good luck. :)


Don&#39;t play it dumb. You&#39;re more than intelligent enough to know what references I&#39;m making.

Yeah, I was trying to be "nice"...which usually is dumb.

Your caricature of socialist realist visual art comes directly from the bourgeois "art world"...where pissing on a canvas is considered an "artistic breakthrough".

See, I can play caricature too&#33; :)


I took the polemical liberty to state what I did on the basis that your central objection to the books is that they don&#39;t slot into your world view and can&#39;t serve for your propaganda machine, as Enigma concurs.

Quite. But the books "slot into" the capitalist world view as if they were written for that purpose...which they were.

That doesn&#39;t bother you or Enigma, does it?


From your talk of wishing Orwell to break the tone of his literature in order to place in some tub-beating, pro-revolutionary call to arms it is not a great extrapolation to pull.

No, it could (and should) have been done in a very "low key" way; a novel is not a call for insurrection.

But there&#39;s no way to do it at all if your view is that "revolution is hopeless".

That was his view&#33; If you can&#39;t effectively refute that, then everything else you&#39;ve said is just "book-chat".


This is too big a question to address properly here but there is a psychological structure to power far more potent than even the genuinely perceived ends. This is what I believe Orwell is talking about.

That&#39;s just psycho-babble.


These were the petty allegations of the conservatives and they were levied at the workers&#39; movement, if the Latin derivation is too esoteric.

Those conservatives, whoever they were, had a much deeper appreciation of Orwell than you do -- they saw a useful weapon against revolution and latched onto it with gusto.

As in the U.S. And it has been thus ever since.


Yeah of course, Orwell wrote books with the sole objective of maximising his profits. Oh sorry - and of course to discredit the progressive project.

I think the latter was his primary motive -- but one can never disregard the former in capitalist countries.

Writers have to eat like everyone else.


Do you think that "Brave New World&#39; would be such a wonderful satire on Plato&#39;s Republic if at the [end?] Huxley decided to impose his conception of the utopia?

You have an odd conception of the word "satire"...there&#39;s nothing humorous about any of these books. Mark Twain was a satirist; Orwell and Huxley were not.

Animal Farm is an allegory, not satire. 1984 and Brave New World are dystopian novels...not satires.

You may think it inconsistent of me, but I would see no reason to tamper with the text of Brave New World at all. I&#39;ve never heard of high school kids being made to read it...possibly the authorities think it&#39;s "too pro-drugs". :lol:

Orwell is a different matter. :angry:

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[bolshevik butcher]

Originally posted by Urban [email protected] 7 2005, 12:18 AM

Isn&#39;t the central point of Animal Farm the idea that "if you overthrow the humans, then a minority of the animals will become the new humans"?

If you overthrow capitalism, then a minority of the revolutionaries "will" always become the new capitalists.

That is an anti-communist message...it says that revolution is hopeless even if you win.

RedStar, what you are totally leaving out is the fact that Animal Farm was a satire of the Soviet Union. What you just said is EXACTLY what happened in the Soviet Union (as you yourself have said many times). He wasn&#39;t attempting to discredit the entire Communist movement, it was a satire of what happened in the Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union, the revolutionaries DID become the new Capitalists.
That was exactley my point Red Star, don&#39;t you read what I right, it was an attack on the ussr not communism.

[RevolverNo9]

You have an odd conception of the word "satire"...there&#39;s nothing humorous about any of these books. Mark Twain was a satirist; Orwell and Huxley were not.

Animal Farm is an allegory, not satire. 1984 and Brave New World are dystopian novels...not satires.

You may think it inconsistent of me, but I would see no reason to tamper with the text of Brave New World at all. I&#39;ve never heard of high school kids being made to read it...possibly the authorities think it&#39;s "too pro-drugs".

First off Orwell&#39;s two books are not compulsory reading (I never did them at school) and Huxley is a regular on reading lists. God, how did it slip through the bourgeois conspiracy net?

A satire does not have to be overtly humorous. Come on, you&#39;re slipping here. It ridicules and exagerates its target with the hope of creating a movement of change against it. I said that Animal Farm is an allegory all the way through. Brave New World is a satire, and a direct satire on Plato&#39;s Republic, (as well as various aspects of 1930s society.)

1984 is a satire. And the most satirical elements in the book are based on Britain and America. Why? Because as that most famous quote says, everything he wrote was &#39;against totalitarianism&#39;. By paradying things he saw in the West and cleverly juxtoposing it with images clearly cut from the two most immediate examples of totalitarianism, Stalinism and National Socialism, he made his point that the West too was not safe from attacks on its liberty.

Orwell actually said that he was commenting on life in post-war Britain, where constraints from the war were still maintained, where the British Empire was meeting death everywhere but the Establishment were stating its strength and where he had worked for the BBC, which served as inspiration for his vision of media. And in fact Orwell extracted the nature of the four &#39;Ministries&#39; from that famous State of the Union speach that Roosevelt made:


"The first is freedom of speech and expression – everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way – everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants – everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor – anywhere in the world."

Your interpretation of the novel seems fundamentally flawed.

A satire is by its very nature revolutionary to some extent in that its upholding of its subject calls for people to oppose it.


Writers have to eat like everyone else.

Quite. Luckily by this stage Orwell was in no danger of going hungry so it&#39;s more than safe to say that he wrote what he wanted to write. (As he did when he was hungry too...)

[redstar2000]

satire 1. A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.

2. Irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity.

Synonym:

caricature A representation, especially pictorial or literary, in which the subject&#39;s distinctive features or peculiarities are deliberately exaggerated to produce a comic or grotesque effect.


dystopia 1. An imaginary place or state in which the condition of life is extremely bad, as from deprivation, oppression, or terror.

2. A work describing such a place or state: “dystopias such as Brave New World” (Times Literary Supplement).

I see nothing in the way of "irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit" in 1984...it is entirely dystopic and as grim as a terminal diagnosis.

As the Times Literary Supplement agrees with my view of Brave New World, I need not comment further.


Originally posted by RevolverNo9
First off Orwell&#39;s two books are not compulsory reading (I never did them at school) and Huxley is a regular on reading lists.

Well, schools differ, perhaps. I find it outrageous that Orwell&#39;s reactionary shit is evidently still widely read in schools...even if it has fallen off the "compulsory" lists in some places. (Note that if "literary merit" were the real criterion, they could have chosen other Orwell works...written before he became a reactionary.)

Think about it&#33; We have a huge thread on Orwell&#39;s crap more than 50 years after publication. Where&#39;s our huge thread on Steinbeck, Dos Passos, Hemingway, London, Dreiser, Lewis or any of a dozen other early or mid-20th century authors who were far superior from a literary standpoint to Orwell?

Orwell is still in print and still read for only one reason: the anti-revolutionary content of Animal Farm and 1984 is still considered "useful instruction for the young".

Very useful&#33;

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[trex]

Say Redstar, why not add your little link and smiley into an actual signature? I can&#39;t believe how many time&#39;s I&#39;ve also seen that quoted.

Sorry to run off topic.

[eQuaLiTy]

Animal Farm the movie kept me on the edge of my seat. hehe.

[Salvador Allende]

Animal Farm and 1984 are purely propaganda speeches showing a mixed Anarchist and Trotskyist view of the events in the USSR. While both are well written, they should be taken as what they are, a 100% assault on Marxism-Leninism. They should be read by Marxist-Leninists only to learn more on the views of non-Marxist "leftists" to be able to counter their arguments more easily.

[RevolverNo9]

QUOTE
satire 1. A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.

2. Irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity.

Synonym:

caricature A representation, especially pictorial or literary, in which the subject&#39;s distinctive features or peculiarities are deliberately exaggerated to produce a comic or grotesque effect.



QUOTE
dystopia 1. An imaginary place or state in which the condition of life is extremely bad, as from deprivation, oppression, or terror.

2. A work describing such a place or state: “dystopias such as Brave New World” (Times Literary Supplement).



I see nothing in the way of "irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit" in 1984...it is entirely dystopic and as grim as a terminal diagnosis.

First up, I never denied that both books were dystopias.

More importantly your conception of satire seems very narrow-mind. Orwell takes trends and fears and stretches them into the region of absurdity, in order to expose people&#39;s folly. People in the 30s talked about technology being used in so widespread a fashion; Orwell demonstrates how ridiculous these notions are. Plus he gained sources from his prep-school.

I&#39;ll check what Wikipedia says onsatire...

Right, okay:


Satires need not be humorous - indeed, they are often tragic - while parodies are almost inevitably humorous.


Common examples of satire include:
...Inflation: A common technique of satire is to take a real-life situation and exaggerate it to such a degree that it becomes ridiculous and its faults can be seen, and thus satirical.


Notable examples of satire are:
...Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, a dystopia, also common in satire.
...Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, dystopia.

Geddit?


Oh and interestingly enough I came across a UK English literature school paper. Here are some of the questions (and incidentily it was in a catagory of contextual comparision for Satire):



1: Do some research on:
George Orwell and the Left
The Spanish Civil War
The Rise of Big Business
George Orwell and his time with the down and outs

2: In what can Gulliver&#39;s Travels be seen as an influence on Orwell in the writing of Nineteen Eighty-Four

3: Orwell stated that his novel was NOT an attack on Socialism or the British Labour Party. What, then, is he attacking?

4: What use of Double Think and Newspeak does Orwell use in this novel? Can you recognise these in 1930s society and/or modern society or do you think they are confined to the parameters of the novel?

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by RevolverNo9
More importantly your conception of satire seems very narrow-mind[ed].

Perhaps...I was using Dictionary.com, not the more dubious Wikipedia.


Orwell takes trends and fears and stretches them into the region of absurdity, in order to expose people&#39;s folly.

I don&#39;t see that at all&#33; The "problem" in 1984 has nothing to do with "human folly" -- quite the contrary, Orwell&#39;s totalitarianism "works" and there&#39;s nothing to suggest that it won&#39;t work forever.

What is "satirical" about that?


Geddit?

Nope.


Oh and interestingly enough I came across a UK English literature school paper. Here are some of the questions (and incidentally it was in a category of contextual comparison for Satire)

Ok?


2: In what can Gulliver&#39;s Travels be seen as an influence on Orwell in the writing of Nineteen Eighty-Four

They were both written in English. Other than that, you tell me. Swift indeed was a satirist and a very good one.


3: Orwell stated that his novel was NOT an attack on Socialism or the British Labour Party. What, then, is he attacking?

The possibility of successful revolutionary change for the better. (Yes, the "obvious target" was the USSR...but he went much further than that, to the delight of bourgeois educators.)


4: What use of Double Think and Newspeak does Orwell use in this novel? Can you recognise these in 1930s society and/or modern society or do you think they are confined to the parameters of the novel?

The use of "terminology that lies" (newspeak) has theological roots...from the late medieval Christian apologetics most likely.

Orwell did write an essay on the corruption of political language, after all.

It&#39;s quite likely that he derived "Double Think" from communist sources at the time of the Stalin-Hitler pact (1939) followed by the abrupt reversal of 1941.

So how&#39;d I do? Don&#39;t tell me, I failed again? :o

I guess I don&#39;t have "what it takes" to suck-ceed in academia. :(

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[RevolverNo9]

Perhaps...I was using Dictionary.com, not the more dubious Wikipedia.



Yes but I don&#39;t see how you can disagree with anything there, which is a senseible description of satire not a little dictionary definition (how irriating is it when people quote the dictionary for &#39;socialism&#39; or &#39;communism&#39;?)

Nor does it negate any of the satire in 1984. But thinking that something is only satirical if it&#39;s witty, ironic and humourous is, quite frankly, facile.

www.poeticbyway.com describes satire as:


A literary work which exposes and ridicules human vices or folly. Historically perceived as tending toward didacticism, it is usually intended as a moral criticism directed against the injustice of social wrongs. It may be written with witty jocularity or with anger and bitterness.

www.sassonary.demon.co.uk:


A mode of writing which exposes the failings of individuals, societies or institutions to ridicule and scorn.

One could go on indefinitely. But I have never come across anyone trying to deny 1984 as a political and social satire, I mean its a text-book example. I&#39;m starting to wonder whether you&#39;re maintaing stubborn oppositon for its own sake, because your far from unintelligent.

1984 exposes the folly of ideas and systems of the time, by exagerating them to an absurd extent. And these are mainly elements observed in Britain.

1984 is not a vision of the future. The notion of cameras in every room, such omnipresent thought police, the amount of erradication of language etc... are not things that the reader with half a brain is supposed to think might actually happen. They are inflated to expose the failings of such an idea.

The dystopia may work indefinitely but that&#39;s irrelevant. It&#39;s a satire, not real life.


QUOTE
Oh and interestingly enough I came across a UK English literature school paper. Here are some of the questions (and incidentally it was in a category of contextual comparison for Satire)



Ok?

The point is here is the education system asking the pupil to research Orwell&#39;s leftism and the wrongs of capitalism that influenced him. They express to the student that&#39;s its not an attack on socialism (lessening its effect as capitalist ideology, I would have thought.)


QUOTE
2: In what can Gulliver&#39;s Travels be seen as an influence on Orwell in the writing of Nineteen Eighty-Four



They were both written in English. Other than that, you tell me. Swift indeed was a satirist and a very good one.

I confess I have only actually read a handful of letters and essays by Swift but I believe the comparision is between satirical methods of exagerating society&#39;s ideas. In fact I think I&#39;ve got it to a more specific element: Swift, of course, satirised the most viscously the widespread sentiment of post-Enlightenment society that everything could be solved by technology and science (which as a devout Christian he found abhorent.) And of course he had a point (some of the quirky experiments he mentions were actually taking place, like trying to make food out of faeces.)

Orwell in 1984 satirises those many people who believed that technology could be used for everything to control society. He bitterly offers a vision of this in the absolute, to ridicule such ideas.

Like Swift, Orwell denounces those who advocate efficieny and scientifc logic over humanity. In a Modest Proposal, Irish peasents shipping off babies to be eaten in London makes fiscal, economic and biological sense - but of course it is totally inhumane. In 1984, language is stripped to its necessity as primitive communication, sex is totally unrecreational etc... People are treated like basic units in a scientific sene, of course denying their humanity.

There we go, that was unexpectedly productive&#33;


QUOTE
3: Orwell stated that his novel was NOT an attack on Socialism or the British Labour Party. What, then, is he attacking?



The possibility of successful revolutionary change for the better. (Yes, the "obvious target" was the USSR...but he went much further than that, to the delight of bourgeois educators.)


As I have established beforehand, it is an attack on the Western world, not just Stalinism and National Socialism. He takes it as a given that these two modes are disgusting. What he wants to do is expose capitalism.


QUOTE
4: What use of Double Think and Newspeak does Orwell use in this novel? Can you recognise these in 1930s society and/or modern society or do you think they are confined to the parameters of the novel?



The use of "terminology that lies" (newspeak) has theological roots...from the late medieval Christian apologetics most likely.

Orwell did write an essay on the corruption of political language, after all.

It&#39;s quite likely that he derived "Double Think" from communist sources at the time of the Stalin-Hitler pact (1939) followed by the abrupt reversal of 1941.

Again that&#39;s obivous. But his point was that poeple were doing the same things in supposedly &#39;liberal&#39; society; modiyfying and corrupting language to impair our understanding and thought capacity. And Britain and America gave out claims that were contrary to the reality, like the state of the British Empire.

[Discarded Wobbly Pop]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Oct 10 2004, 01:32 PM--> (redstar2000 &#064; Oct 10 2004, 01:32 PM)
poop
I don&#39;t see how either book implied that any attempt to change things "will only make things worse." AF implied that after the Bolshevik attempt to change the social order, things were the same, except pigs were in charge instead of humans. Even if he had argued that things were worse, it wouldn&#39;t necessarily follow that he was arguing that any attempt to change anything would end up with the same results.

I think you are being excessively literal here; he didn&#39;t actually have to say "give up; it&#39;s hopeless" or "revolutions just make things worse".

An implication is exactly that. If you present a sequence of events in such a way as to invite the reader to draw a certain conclusion, you don&#39;t actually have to "spell it out".

Nor, as a writer of fiction, could Orwell take refuge in the historian&#39;s reasonable defense -- "I&#39;m just reporting what actually happened in the Bolshevik revolution". The writer of fiction can alter events as he pleases...but it pleased Orwell to offer gloom and despair.

Note further that Orwell offers no explanation for the events in either book. The pigs and "Big Brother&#39;s" party are "just evil"...that&#39;s the way people "really are".

Yet another reason to "forget that revolution stuff".

I don&#39;t think you can find so much as a line in either book that suggests any reason to hope for, much less fight for, a "better" world.

Moreover, insofar as both books caricature the "USSR" as "the 9th level of Hell", the obvious conclusion one is "pointed towards" is to defend capitalism as it stands.


Do you think the Russian Revolution resulted in socialism?

No, I think the best term for Russia, China, etc. is "state monopoly capitalism."

But whatever terminology one wishes to employ with regard to the USSR, I don&#39;t think Orwell had much interest in that sort of thing. I think his real message is that "resistance and revolution are just wrong...especially if they win".

And that, as I said, is a reactionary message.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas [/b]
Just like many westerners, Animal Farm was my introduction to socialism. My pops made me read when I was like 14 or 15, he is a big Orwell fan.

Of course at that age I couldn&#39;t really understand it, and I needed him to explain the symbolism to me.

My father calls himself a "fabian" socialist, and claims that a boregios liberal democracy will preceed a communist society, he labels people like the "RAF", "revolutionary adventurists" :lol: . When I point out to him that our current "boregios liberal democracy" is leading us towards extreme fascism, he says that it isn&#39;t a liberal democracy, and that I am not a "marxist" unless I agree. Isn&#39;t it interesting that I am leaning towards anarchism these days. :D

Anyhow, when he explained it to me he gave me a simplistic description that Lenin was right, and Stalin was wrong and that the USSR was socialist and not communist. And with this weak understanding of socialism I went to school and had a huge row with one of my social studies tachers, who&#39;s father was Korean. She claimed that my father&#39;s position on socialism was "communist propaganda" and humilliated me infront of the class, seeing as I was too young and ignorant to argue back. She also went about doing everything she could to try and fail me. (she even failed me on one of my papers about the enlightenment giving me a zero, claiming that there was a "early, middle, and late enlightenment" <_< )

Looking back, man am I ever glad I never did well in school, otherwise I might have had some respect for those fools. :ph34r:

EDIT: Whoa It just occured to me that I was thinking animal farm but I accidentally typed 1984 LOL

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by RevolverNo9
1984 is not a vision of the future. The notion of cameras in every room, such omnipresent thought police, the amount of eradication of language etc... are not things that the reader with half a brain is supposed to think might actually happen. They are inflated to expose the failings of such an idea.

If that&#39;s how you read it, then that&#39;s how you read it.

I don&#39;t think Orwell intended 1984 as a literal vision of the future...but I think the implication is that "this is how it will be if the communists win".

I think this is a common reading among the general public -- though perhaps not in academia. I remember the actual year 1984, of course...and there was much fuss in the public press about "how close are we to Orwell&#39;s vision?", etc.

Little did they know. :o

And we have, of course, the adjective "Orwellian"...meaning intrusive levels of government surveillance, loss of privacy, etc. -- though I don&#39;t think the word is used widely outside of academic circles.

I think readers of the late 1940s and early 1950s read it literally as an anti-communist work...and swiftly elevated it to the pantheon of required reading for the young.


Orwell in 1984 satirises those many people who believed that technology could be used for everything to control society.

Again, I fail to understand your interpretation. Aside from the television/camera sets, there isn&#39;t any "new technology" in 1984.


Like Swift, Orwell denounces those who advocate efficiency and scientific logic over humanity.

??? The "big brother state" was, all things considered, efficient only in controlling a rather docile population. Of "scientific logic" I found no trace...indeed, I don&#39;t think you could even "do" science in newspeak.


In 1984, language is stripped to its necessity as primitive communication, sex is totally unrecreational, etc... People are treated like basic units in a scientific scene, of course denying their humanity.

Well...yes, I suppose you could put it that way.


As I have established beforehand, it is an attack on the Western world, not just Stalinism and National Socialism.

I think that&#39;s an impossibly surrealistic reading.


He takes it as a given that these two modes are disgusting. What he wants to do is expose capitalism.

And that&#39;s just totally "off the charts".

He&#39;s "exposing capitalism" by writing a dystopic novel without capitalists???


But his point was that people were doing the same things in supposedly &#39;liberal&#39; society; modifying and corrupting language to impair our understanding and thought capacity.

That point is made in the essay...not in 1984.

I don&#39;t think the essay is on the reading lists.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[bolshevik butcher]

Originally posted by Salvador [email protected] 9 2005, 09:34 PM
Animal Farm and 1984 are purely propaganda speeches showing a mixed Anarchist and Trotskyist view of the events in the USSR. While both are well written, they should be taken as what they are, a 100% assault on Marxism-Leninism. They should be read by Marxist-Leninists only to learn more on the views of non-Marxist "leftists" to be able to counter their arguments more easily.
It&#39;s simpefetic to marxism and socialism. In animal farm it complements the socialist econemy as a good idea and shows how the soviet econemy worked well until Stalin was in power.

[RevolverNo9]

I don&#39;t think Orwell intended 1984 as a literal vision of the future...but I think the implication is that "this is how it will be if the communists win".

I think this is a common reading among the general public -- though perhaps not in academia. I remember the actual year 1984, of course...and there was much fuss in the public press about "how close are we to Orwell&#39;s vision?", etc.


Again, that&#39;s simplistic. Just out of interest what&#39;s your interpretation of Brave New World? In a way you have actually provided evidence against yourself by mentioning the discussion of how close we were to 1984 in that year. It shows that people were conscious of that fact that the book was indicting, perhaps seemingly small examples, of central control. If it was just a cariacture on the Soviet Union people would feel no reason to examine themselves in such a way.

Orwellian a word from academia?&#33; I hardly think so, its a very common word, especially in the mouths of journalists and the like. I don&#39;t see intellectuals using the term as a specific tool of analysis.


I think readers of the late 1940s and early 1950s read it literally as an anti-communist work...and swiftly elevated it to the pantheon of required reading for the young.

So that kids could answer questions on why it wasn&#39;t an attack on socialism or why Orwell was repelled by big business after their double Sartre lesson?


Again, I fail to understand your interpretation. Aside from the television/camera sets, there isn&#39;t any "new technology" in 1984.

Exactly new technology is totally absent. It&#39;s the use of technology that is so absolute, and an absurd extrapolation of talk at the time.


QUOTE
Like Swift, Orwell denounces those who advocate efficiency and scientific logic over humanity.



??? The "big brother state" was, all things considered, efficient only in controlling a rather docile population. Of "scientific logic" I found no trace...indeed, I don&#39;t think you could even "do" science in newspeak

If I may quote you, &#39;Orwell&#39;s totalitarianism works&#39;. It does not work in the sense of human happiness, but completely works in fulfilling the cold, objective aims of the state. Very Swiftian. Michael Foot said in the Guardian:


Indeed, he recruits Swift as a kind of joint author to stand at his side and point the way ahead at the most awkward crossroads. And Swift, of course, was Orwell&#39;s mentor and model, the most significant of all. ... Patrick Reilly*, by the way, will have none of the nonsense so often peddled in interested Right-wing quarters sometimes shamefully accepted by Left-wingers who ought to knowbetter, that Orwell himself had deserted the Socialist cause. ... He learnt from many masters - Dickens, Marx, Joyce, especially Swift, and in making their wisdom his own he saw that democratic Socialism must understand deeper instincts even than the fight against hunger and poverty; not that he was or knave enough ever to underrate them.

*Possibly the most knowledgable biographer of Orwell and annotater of 1984.


I think that&#39;s an impossibly surrealistic reading.

&#33; It&#39;s an orthodox one in acedemia. The best interpretation I have ever read is in a book called &#39;The Faber Book of Utopias&#39; (Faber Faber I hope is a reliable enough source for you). I really wish I had it to hand because it talks about everything in high detail and revealing evidence; the Soviet Union, the BBC, post-War Britain, his sadistic headmaster (where Room 101 comes from) etc...

Despite your perfectly legitimate scepticism I just found that the Wikipedia article concurs with me (well almost, it doesn&#39;t mention the Soviet Union in detail&#33;), calling it a
is a darkly satirical political novel and quoting in that Roosevelt speach that I put up (weid eh? I didn&#39;t write it, honest&#33;)


To understand why Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four, one has only to look at his less famous writings: most significantly, Homage to Catalonia does a lot to explain his distrust of totalitarianism and the betrayal of revolutions; Coming Up For Air, at points, celebrates the individual freedom that is lost in Nineteen Eighty-Four; and his essay Why I Write explains clearly that all the "serious work" he had written since the Spanish Civil War in 1936 was "written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" [1] (http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/whywrite.html).

However, the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four also reflects various aspects of the social and political life of both the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Orwell is also reported to have said that the book described what he saw as the actual situation in the United Kingdom, where he lived, in 1948, where rationing was still in place, and the British Empire was dissolving at the same time as newspapers were reporting its triumphs. At the time Orwell had also been working for the overseas service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) which may help to explain one of his interpretations of four key ministries that governed the world of Big Brother.



He&#39;s "exposing capitalism" by writing a dystopic novel without capitalists???

No he&#39;s exposing capitalism by showing that the societies of &#39;liberal democracies&#39; can just as well degnerate into totalitarianism as sovietism. Just think of the way the world is carved up; Eurasia, a clear extension of the USSR all over Europe and Ocenia, the Anglo-Saxon empires of American and Britain, with England playing the part of &#39;Air Strip 1&#39;. It&#39;s an extrapolation of the Cold War to an absurd extent.


That point is made in the essay...not in 1984.

No it&#39;s made in both. Newspeak is a satirical interpretation of it.

Also what about the revolutions that we hear are begining to take place in farms everyhere at the end of AF? I don&#39;t think Orwell necessarily is inferring that these are to be successful, but it agrees with his belief that global revolt was inevitable and that eventually someone would get it right. He also had a hard time publishing it, most publishers considered it too subversive. And as a point of informaation did you know that HtC only sold about 50 copies a year at first because the Inteligentsia condemned it for portraying Communists in a bad light?

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by RevolverNo9
Also what about the revolutions that we hear are beginning to take place in farms everywhere at the end of AF?

I just glanced through the on-line text of Animal Farm (Chapters 9 and 10) and found no mention of revolutions on other farms.

You had me worried there for a minute. :o


Just out of interest what&#39;s your interpretation of Brave New World?

So many decades have passed since I read it that I hesitate to attempt a "definitive" comment.

As I remember, it was something of a eugenic-consumerist dystopia...a cross, perhaps, between the Third Reich and the United States ("in the year of our Ford").

To me, it was an uninteresting novel...not one I&#39;ve ever been tempted to go back and read again.

If someone were to ask my personal recommendation, I&#39;d suggest the "cyperpunk" novels of William Gibson offer a more interesting "dystopic" projection...and with plenty of rebellion as well.


In a way you have actually provided evidence against yourself by mentioning the discussion of how close we were to 1984 in that year. It shows that people were conscious of that fact that the book was indicting, perhaps seemingly small examples, of central control. If it was just a caricature on the Soviet Union people would feel no reason to examine themselves in such a way.

Perhaps...at least among journalists.

I think people who were forced to read it in school just assumed that it was "against communism", period.


So that kids could answer questions on why it wasn&#39;t an attack on socialism or why Orwell was repelled by big business after their double Sartre lesson?

Want to re-phrase this one? I have no idea of your meaning here.

No only did kids in the 50s not read Sartre; I don&#39;t imagine any of their teachers had ever heard of the guy.


It&#39;s the use of technology that is so absolute, and an absurd extrapolation of talk at the time.

In the 1940s? Have you ever seen a picture of a television camera from that era? They were huge. Putting one in each room in an entire city would be like putting a grand piano in each room in a city. Ok, maybe an upright piano. :)

I think Orwell probably borrowed the idea from Jeremy Bentham who came up with that pan-opticon prison idea (where the prisoner never knows when he is being watched and must therefore assume that he&#39;s always being watched).


No he&#39;s exposing capitalism by showing that the societies of &#39;liberal democracies&#39; can just as well degenerate into totalitarianism as sovietism.

Perhaps that is what he intended -- though I personally don&#39;t think so.

But if that was what he intended, then where&#39;s the linking mechanism? All of the overt features of 1984 suggest "communist totalitarianism"...including the wretched and declining standard-of-living.

Even that famous "punishment" -- having your head enclosed in a cage with a ravenous rat -- comes from a story concocted by an anti-Soviet refugee from the USSR in the 1930s.

Indeed, how do we know that some of his ire was "not directed against" the British Labour party? They were in power in the U.K. in the late 1940s and rationing didn&#39;t end until 1950 or so...perhaps he did think that Labour was "en route" to Stalinism.

Just because he said otherwise is not necessarily the "final answer".


And as a point of information did you know that HtC only sold about 50 copies a year at first because the Intelligentsia condemned it for portraying Communists in a bad light?

Probably doesn&#39;t sell that much better now -- I&#39;m sure it&#39;s not on the reading list at most schools.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Invader Zim]

What novels would you suggest children read, to not only entertain but to inspire literary skill?

It seams you have &#39;rubbished&#39; some of the finest texts going, so what would you replace them with. I am honestly intrigued, perhaps you are a fan of "The Catcher in the Rhy" or perhaps "Of Mice and Men".

[RevolverNo9]

I just glanced through the on-line text of Animal Farm (Chapters 9 and 10) and found no mention of revolutions on other farms.

I don&#39;t have time to look through the text but I read in an honours&#39; thesis comparing Orwell to Marx this:

We see this in Animal Farm when Animalism is suppressed by farmers after word of the Rebellion and its apparent success spreads and animals turn rebellious. Though we hear little of these other societies, the idea that revolutionary social change is bound to occur in them comes in the form of what the farmers think when they listen to their animals singing Animalism&#39;s hymn, "Beasts of England"


As I remember, it was something of a eugenic-consumerist dystopia...a cross, perhaps, between the Third Reich and the United States ("in the year of our Ford").

It was published in 1932, so I doubt the Third Reich is under scrutiny.

The book is actually a satire on Plato&#39;s Republic, almost completely though it contains social observations of the time in Britain. Calling this a &#39;surrealistic&#39; reading would be even more absurd than when it was levelled against the reading of 1984 so I hope you can this.


Want to re-phrase this one? I have no idea of your meaning here.

No only did kids in the 50s not read Sartre; I don&#39;t imagine any of their teachers had ever heard of the guy.

Sorry I wan&#39;t very clear. You said that it was soley a common appearence on reading lists to discredit socialism, I&#39;m saying then why do kids get told things like &#39;It&#39;s not an attack on socialism- what is Orwell then attacking?&#39; or asked to research his time in the Spanish Civil War, or the effects of big-bussiness etc...

I&#39;m also saying that the fact that Marx, Camus, Dickens for example are also frequent school material suggests that the web of conspiracy is weak. I personally would be mildly shocked if a teacher had never heard of Sartre, but then I can&#39;t vouch for other ages and nations.


If someone were to ask my personal recommendation, I&#39;d suggest the "cyperpunk" novels of William Gibson offer a more interesting "dystopic" projection...and with plenty of rebellion as well.

Hm, sci-fi. I&#39;m sure it&#39;s very good and all but I&#39;m not sure I could get into it in a huge way. I prefer the meat of political, social, emotional and philosophical indictment (wow what a pretentious sentence&#33;)


In the 1940s? Have you ever seen a picture of a television camera from that era? They were huge. Putting one in each room in an entire city would be like putting a grand piano in each room in a city. Ok, maybe an upright piano.

Don&#39;t get too pinickety. The fact is technology is not a radical departure from his time at all (even if he smoothed some of it over to fit his vision). What is a radical departure is the use of that technology and its pervasiveness.


Even that famous "punishment" -- having your head enclosed in a cage with a ravenous rat -- comes from a story concocted by an anti-Soviet refugee from the USSR in the 1930s.

Maybe the situation is actually based from his experiences at prep-school.


Indeed, how do we know that some of his ire was "not directed against" the British Labour party? They were in power in the U.K. in the late 1940s and rationing didn&#39;t end until 1950 or so...perhaps he did think that Labour was "en route" to Stalinism.

Well at least your on the right lines here.


What novels would you suggest children read

Do you know that I read 1984 and Animal Farm myself when I was ten and eleven, and this was actually the point when I started to believe in proegressive politics (for want of a better term)&#33;? So it worked on me anyway. [Queue witheringly sarcastic comment from RS.]

[encephalon]

(RevolverNo9)
Also what about the revolutions that we hear are beginning to take place in farms everywhere at the end of AF?


I just glanced through the on-line text of Animal Farm (Chapters 9 and 10) and found no mention of revolutions on other farms.

You had me worried there for a minute.


there is brief mention of other farms, and at first it seems as though animal farm is going to foment revolution on other farms, but soon they start working with the capitalist farmers instead of inciting rebellion amongst the animals.

That, and animal farm was a story about the USSR in particular, a parody of the events that led to stalin&#39;s dictatorship, not a description of communism itself. He openly admitted that it was based on russia. Orwell was very critical of the USSR, although at first he did support it. He was speaking out against the USSR, not socialism nor communism.

[redstar2000]

We see this in Animal Farm when Animalism is suppressed by farmers after word of the Rebellion and its apparent success spreads and animals turn rebellious. Though we hear little of these other societies, the idea that revolutionary social change is bound to occur in them comes in the form of what the farmers think when they listen to their animals singing Animalism&#39;s hymn, "Beasts of England".

Perhaps so (I don&#39;t want to read through the whole text again myself)...but that doesn&#39;t challenge my central contention.

The conclusion of Animal Farm is that a new ruling class has taken over that is "just as bad" if not "actually worse" than the old one...and there is no sign that it will ever be otherwise.


It was published in 1932, so I doubt the Third Reich is under scrutiny.

The Nazis became a "big deal" in the international press after the elections of 1930 and "eugenics" had enjoyed more than three decades of "intellectual respectability".


The book is actually a satire on Plato&#39;s Republic...

If you say so...personally, I can&#39;t imagine why anyone would bother. It&#39;s not as if Plato was a "hot topic" in 1932.


Calling this a &#39;surrealistic&#39; reading would be even more absurd than when it was leveled against the reading of 1984...

No, I didn&#39;t use the word "surrealistic" with regard to your understanding of Brave New World...but rather correctly with regard to your reading of 1984.

Your contention that BNW is based on Plato&#39;s Republic may be quite accurate -- I have no way of knowing that one way or the other. My knowledge of that ancient reactionary comes from the critique by Karl Popper...which seems to me to be a definitive argument against actually reading Plato -- unless one is suffering from insomnia.


You said that it was solely a common appearance on reading lists to discredit socialism; I&#39;m saying then why do kids get told things like &#39;It&#39;s not an attack on socialism - what is Orwell then attacking?&#39; or asked to research his time in the Spanish Civil War, or the effects of big-business etc...

None of those things happened in the 50s or 60s in the United States. I doubt very much if they are at all common now.

You must have gone to an exceptional school&#33;


I&#39;m also saying that the fact that Marx, Camus, Dickens for example are also frequent school material suggests that the web of conspiracy is weak.

High school students reading Marx or Camus as part of their required reading???

Damn, I wish I&#39;d gone to your school&#33;

Dickens, of course, is quite another matter. Here&#39;s an "online summary" of A Tale of Two Cities...


A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is one of Dickens’ two historical novels, the other being Barnaby Rudge, the two cities in question are Paris and London at the time of the French Revolution. Perhaps unsurprisingly Dickens seems to disdain the aristocracy. The heroic nobleman, Charles Darnay, renounces his status in opposition to his uncle, the Marquis de St Evremonde, and the evils of oppression he represents. Meanwhile, Dr Manette the physician has become aware of the Marquis’ ill-practice through a young peasant and his sister who have been hideously treated. After Darnay leaves France, he falls in love with Manette’s daughter, Lucie, and they are married. The story continues after Darnay’s happiness with Lucie as he returns to France during the Terror to save a servant. Darnay is arrested and condemned to death. The final section of the novel is concerned with the question of whether he will survive or be punished for his noble act of rescue, and whether or not the Englishman Carton who resembles Darnay will be able to save his life. It is a story of great sacrifices being made for the sake of principle. The novel is notable for its vivid representation of France during this troubled time and was modeled on Carlyle’s The French Revolution. Although contemporary critics saw it as humourless, it has become popular since then due to film and dramatic adaptations.

http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/19/45/frameset.html

You better believe we had to plow through that crap...yet another example of the "revolution sucks" literary canon.


Hm, sci-fi. I&#39;m sure it&#39;s very good and all but I&#39;m not sure I could get into it in a huge way. I prefer the meat of political, social, emotional and philosophical indictment (wow what a pretentious sentence&#33;)

Yes it is...but that&#39;s not the real problem.

You see guys like Orwell, Huxley, Dickens, Plato, etc. as "stars"...blinding you to the quality of your own era.

Sure, 90 per cent of science fiction is crap.

Guess what? 90 per cent of everything is crap&#33;

Gibson is worth reading; Orwell after HtC isn&#39;t. And after the short Trial of Socrates, Plato is shit.


Maybe the situation is actually based from his experiences at prep-school.

Wow&#33; I thought my school was a shithole...but his must have been really bad&#33; :o

No, the "rat-cage punishment" story really was in circulation before Orwell used it in 1984.


Do you know that I read 1984 and Animal Farm myself when I was ten and eleven, and this was actually the point when I started to believe in progressive politics (for want of a better term)&#33;? So it worked on me anyway. [Queue witheringly sarcastic comment from RS.]

The word you want there is cue...as in cue theme, roll credits.

I don&#39;t think that "withering sarcasm" is called for here...we all have "odd beginnings" of one sort or another.

The first "radical" book that I read, for example, was Dwight MacDonald&#39;s Memoirs of a Revolutionist...certainly one of the strangest political books ever written. :lol:

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[RevolverNo9]

The conclusion of Animal Farm is that a new ruling class has taken over that is "just as bad" if not "actually worse" than the old one...and there is no sign that it will ever be otherwise.

I won&#39;t reply to this because we&#39;d just go in circles. Needless to say I think Epehelon has got the right idea...


If you say so...personally, I can&#39;t imagine why anyone would bother. It&#39;s not as if Plato was a "hot topic" in 1932.

Plato and Aristotle are always a &#39;hot topic&#39; in intellectual circles.


No, I didn&#39;t use the word "surrealistic" with regard to your understanding of Brave New World...but rather correctly with regard to your reading of 1984.

I know, it was a tactical pre-emption.


Your contention that BNW is based on Plato&#39;s Republic may be quite accurate -- I have no way of knowing that one way or the other. My knowledge of that ancient reactionary comes from the critique by Karl Popper...which seems to me to be a definitive argument against actually reading Plato -- unless one is suffering from insomnia.

Without tryring to sound disgustingly overbearing it is totally accurate. Plato&#39;s Repulic envisions a central caste of philospohers dictating to the rest of society for their own good, that being a very utilitarian idea of content, not happiness. Children are born and brought up communally in order to fit their place in society and without families, with the hope that all older men and women would be like mothers and father, and all contemporaries brothers and sisters. They were supposed to address eachother like that too (though logic deserts the man when he then states that no man is to procreate with a &#39;mother&#39; or a &#39;sister&#39; and vice-versa... this would of course result in nobody being allowed to procreate&#33;)

The Guardians were supposed to protect the society from anything that could depress society. Only a couple of musical progressions, for example, were to be allowed (ones considered by Plato to be good at inciting discipline and bravery). The rest were considered too exciting, or sad or the like. Grain and provisions were supplied communally.

There are I&#39;d imagine a couple of other reason to read Plato, other than insomnia which seems legitimate. First is that so much of Western beliefs are founded on him and Aristotle. Second you might wanna sharpen up your classical Greek&#33; To call him a &#39;reactionary&#39; is probably misleading. I&#39;m not sure the economic conditions of his time would allow such scope, though on the other hand he has inspired so much reactionary thought.

I woulda thought that you would disragard the work of such a reactionary, or capitalist-ideologue (or whatever label you give them) as Karl Popper&#33; The second volume of the work I believe you are referring to (Enemies of a Free Society?) being &#39;:Hegel and Marx&#39;. :lol:


You must have gone to an exceptional school&#33;

Er, well I&#39;m at school now. But what I&#39;m actually referring to are those questions from an English exam paper I found that I quoted (see above if you need a refresher). I have never actually studied any of Orwell&#39;s writing while I&#39;ve been at school, except one teacher when we were discussing visions of future society showed us the essay on 1984 from the Faber book I mentioned, which is where I&#39;m getting a lot of my resources from I suppose (if only I had it to hand&#33;). No-one in the set seemed to think it was reactionary, and when someone mentioned it objectively the teacher described such a view as &#39;imbecilic&#39;&#33;


High school students reading Marx or Camus as part of their required reading???

Well we don&#39;t have required reading (the government don&#39;t make books compuslory) in this country. But Camus is by far the most commonly chosen set-text for sets doing French A-Level. Someone today was asking me for help with a big task on Marxism. There was a list of 17 essential tenet of the theory and philosophy and they had to choose the 5 considered the most relevent to the modern day and explain in detail why.


You better believe we had to plow through that crap...yet another example of the "revolution sucks" literary canon.

Yeah, especially bourgeois revolution.


You see guys like Orwell, Huxley, Dickens, Plato, etc. as "stars"...blinding you to the quality of your own era.


That, my friend, is a presumption&#33; I&#39;ve only read Brave New World I certainly don&#39;t have an interest in reading Plato. My favourite books at the moment are by Dostoevsky, Hermann Hesse and Joyce but I certainly still read more recent books (though trying to read philosphy and politics as well means there ain&#39;t much time&#33; Phew, its hard work educating yourself.)


QUOTE
Maybe the situation is actually based from his experiences at prep-school


There should be a &#39;,&#39; after maybe. That&#39;s a statement. There was no rats involved but he&#39;s recalling the way masters used to psychologically break pupils&#39; resolve.


The word you want there is cue...as in cue theme, roll credits.


Good point&#33; More stupid than weather and whether, me thinks.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by RevolverNo9
I woulda thought that you would disregard the work of such a reactionary, or capitalist-ideologue (or whatever label you give them) as Karl Popper&#33; The second volume of the work I believe you are referring to (Enemies of a Free Society?) being &#39;Hegel and Marx&#39;.

Popper is "not so good" on Marx...he doesn&#39;t like meta-historical narratives at all.

But he&#39;s excellent on Plato and Hegel...rips them to shreds&#33; In fact, the followers of those two reactionary frauds are still howling like stuck pigs over Popper on the internet to this day...a sign of how good a wrecking job he did on them.

Perhaps the best way to describe Popper would be as a late-blooming bourgeois revolutionary...back in the "Age of Enlightenment", he would have been one of the giants.


No-one in the set seemed to think it was reactionary, and when someone mentioned it objectively the teacher described such a view as &#39;imbecilic&#39;&#33;

Ah, but he didn&#39;t have me to contend with. :lol:

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[RevolverNo9]

Ah, but he didn&#39;t have me to contend with. :lol:


Evidently not&#33;

And now let us leave behind us what, if I say so myself, has been a top debate to the benefit of future generations&#33;

Thankyou.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Enigma
What novels would you suggest children read, to not only entertain but to inspire literary skill?

Sorry, I overlooked this...

It&#39;s a tough question as I think I mentioned earlier. Also, when you say "children", I&#39;m not clear what you mean by that word.

Between, say, 8 and 12, I much preferred short stories to novels. I suspect this is not unusual for kids...so that&#39;s what I&#39;d give them to read in school.

By 13 or so, kids have developed an attention-span long enough to begin to appreciate novels.

So I&#39;d recommend...

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur&#39;s Court by Mark Twain

In my opinion, much better than the usual choices, Huckleberry Finn or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

-------------------------

Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis

A brilliant attack on religion and evangelism.

-------------------------

In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck

A "pessimistic" account of the struggle to organize migrant workers...but with a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. (And much better than Of Mice and Men.)

-------------------------

Union Square by Albert Harper

A "proletarian" novel of the Great Depression.

-------------------------

Neuromancer by William Gibson

The first "cyberpunk" novel...but all of his titles are pretty good.

-------------------------

City of Darkness, City of Light by Marge Piercy

A novel of Robespierre and the French Revolution...makes A Tale of Two Cities look like used toilet paper.

Piercy is both good and prolific; Woman on the Edge of Time is also excellent.

-------------------------

The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh

One of the funniest novels ever written and a brilliant attack on the funeral/cemetery-cult in Southern California.

-------------------------

Alas, my feeble memory...I&#39;m sure other titles would come to mind if I gave it some more thought.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Invader Zim]

Terry Pratchett while not being exactly a Bronté or Dickens wrote a very amusing parody of religion for children.

It is a book called Truckers, perosonally I would place that book as compulsery reading, as I think that kids would actually enjoy it for a start. Personally I never enjoyed "Lord of the Flys", when I was forced to read it at 13, but I re-read it at 17 and enjoyed it far more.

John Steinbeck I am told is the one Nobel winner who actually diserves his prize, so I must try some of his work.

[RevolverNo9]

I&#39;m surpsied you haven&#39;t mentioned Steinbeck after all that. But then Of Mice and Men is already a mainstay at schools so I suppose that&#39;s less relevent. The most obvious anti-religious fiction for children is Philip Pullman&#39;s His Dark Materials Trilogy. In fact he says it&#39;s an attack on agnosticism.

[Stancel]

I love Animal Farm, it is wonderfully written both as a metaphor and good story&#33; :D I think those that are criticizing the book probably have never read it and just want to say bad things about it because it tells the truth about the USSR. For those that don&#39;t know, George Orwell was a socialist, but saw through the hypocrisy of the USSR. George Orwell fought on the side of the Spanish revolutionaries in Catalonia, which he documented in his book Homage to Catalonia. I recommend Animal Farm for all&#33;

[Motorcycle_diAries]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2004, 01:44 AM
Man, read his autobiography.

You&#39;ll come out with a totally different impression of the man: He was a socialist, and the books he wrote outlined his fears of such societies - they were never intended in the way they were taken.

He knew all to well the situation, and watching the USSR I feel he made a pretty fair judgement on how things turned out.

Read his autobiography ;)
True&#33;

[redstar2000]

For Stancel and Motorcycle_diAries...

George Orwell -- Reactionary? (http://redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1097859426&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

Orwell Again??? (http://redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1105929449&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Stancel]

That is your opinion. I don&#39;t think that Orwell was a critic of Marxist socialism, I think he was a critic of Stalinist dictatorships. He was not a capitalist, he fought in a REVOLUTION in Catalonia. You are quite reactionary to suggest he was a capitalist. Is everything critical of the Stalin maniac a capitalist work? I don&#39;t think so. :angry:

[Pedro Alonso Lopez]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2004, 10:04 AM

And the book is very mediocre in terms of the quality of literature. Simplism at its worst.

Are you serious, Orwell was probably the best writer of the last century, I can&#39;t even see where you get the flaws?

I honestly don&#39;t get it at all, what&#39;s wrong with his writing. It is lucid, highly suggestive yet all the time quite striaghtforward.

Also Homage to Catalonia expresses his beliefs a lot better. I foyu don&#39;t think Orwell was a socialist then the critiria is too high for anybody.

[Motorcycle_diAries]

Animal Farm :)

I read it as a kid, and i hated those damned Pigs for being so unfair and stuff. But most of all i hated them for they killed their faithful subject "BOXER" the horse and i remember i cried then. I never in ma lill stupid mind thought that book had anything to do with politics and stuff. Now i got the whole Point. :)

I&#39;t a real good book.

[FistFullOfSteel]

Iam reading the book right now. Seems quite good.

When im finished reading the book, i will post a comment.

[Ramshaw is all]

there&#39;s already a thread for this

[Ramshaw is all]

The only reason 1984 didn&#39;t happen is because Orwell wrote that book

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Ramshaw is [email protected] 24 2005, 01:13 PM
The only reason 1984 didn&#39;t happen is because Orwell wrote that book
Certainly a novel theory of historical cause and effect. :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif