Comments on: Orwell, Animal Farm, and socialism’s inherent contradictions

By: BrooklynBoy

BrooklynBoy — Mon, 20 Jul 2020 20:33:53 +0000

Orwell wrote three masterpieces – Homage to Catalonia, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Animal Farm. His other works frankly are uneven. Orwell while denouncing anti-Semitism was anti-Semitic himself, he never publicly or in his writings ever referred to the Holocaust and in several of his books made anti-Jewish remarks that would have made Charles Dickens in “Oliver Twist” feel proud.

By: bester schÃ¶nheitsblog

bester schÃ¶nheitsblog — Sat, 02 May 2015 13:47:33 +0000

Mc – Guire is not a fan of the new lasers and prefers to stick with the tried and true CO2 version. Follow the suggestions for that prescription antibiotics making sure that you’re taking them on routine and according to the guidelines.
Unfortunately, there are circumstances where a procedure is needed for reconstruction purposes.

By: Thoughts on Orwell, Animal Farm, and socialismâ€™s inherent contradictions | James Russell Ament

Sat, 10 May 2014 12:02:18 +0000

[…] for today, from Neo-neocon, a fascinating piece, so read the whole thing. An […]

By: richard40

richard40 — Mon, 05 May 2014 21:37:57 +0000

On the subject to whether real capitalism has ever really been tried, the US had something pretty close to unfettered capitalism (except for the sin of slavery, and some small level of gov corruption), for most of its existence, until Woodrow Wilson (and even them capitalism made a comeack under Coolidge). And for all that period, out nation grew and prospered, with gov spending (except in wartime) being a small fraction of GDP. We did not really abandon full capitalism until FDR, and then only partly. The full big regulatory big spending regulatory state did not happen fully until LBJ, Nixon, Carter.

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 05 May 2014 14:44:58 +0000

John –

“However, to analyze “Animal Farm” from the viewpoint of Marxist dialectic to try to say that Orwell was inveighing against capitalism is more than a stretch—it is a willful misreading of everything Orwell was about. “Animal Farm” was a parable of the Soviet system. He may have been saying that the communists were no different than the capitalists when it came to greed and the impulse to control others, but the story is about the dangers of communism, and not the dangers of capitalism.”

Agreed.

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Mon, 05 May 2014 14:15:44 +0000

Under the Left’s Totalitarianism, you will say what they say you will say. You will write what they say you will write. You will think what they say you will think. Orwell, being dead, is more susceptible to that.

By: John Scotus

John Scotus — Mon, 05 May 2014 01:21:25 +0000

In Orwell’s own memoir of his part in the Spanish Civil War, he comes across more as an anarchist than anything else. While he did not serve with the anarchists, there was an anarchist group nearby, and he felt a strong kinship with them. When he talks of communism, his frame of reference is not Marxist class struggle and dialectic, but something more ill-defined and primitive. He also displayed extreme bitterness towards Stalinism and the Soviet-led international communist movement because they had co-opted the other communist movements in Spain and then made peace with Franco.

While Orwell saw himself as a critic of communism from the left, in practice when it came to actual policy he often sounded a lot like David Horowitz and other modern-day neo-conservatives. It is true that he wanted equality, but there is no indication that he thought this could be achieved through state intervention. Rather, he viewed the state and all forms of authority with suspicion.

Of course, this understanding of Orwell is based upon just a small selection of his writings, so it may be incomplete. However, to analyze “Animal Farm” from the viewpoint of Marxist dialectic to try to say that Orwell was inveighing against capitalism is more than a stretch–it is a willful misreading of everything Orwell was about. “Animal Farm” was a parable of the Soviet system. He may have been saying that the communists were no different than the capitalists when it came to greed and the impulse to control others, but the story is about the dangers of communism, and not the dangers of capitalism.

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 05 May 2014 01:15:27 +0000

Neo – Thanks for noting my comment. I felt like I was nitpicking, and I hate to do that. I’m glad to see that I triggered an interesting conversation. I’m torn about Orwell – he had uncanny insight into one aspect of totalitarianism, but his overall record is ambiguous. We have to be careful about adopting Orwell into the conservative movement.

You said, “Orwell was a brilliant man, and he struggled to reconcile his wish for a certain type of world with his knowledge that such a world could probably never come to be as he wished it.” I think you hit the three key words in any discussion of Orwell: “brilliant…struggled…reconcile”. One of the big themes of this blog seems to be what you do when you discover that you can’t reconcile certain beliefs.

By: NeoConScum

NeoConScum — Sun, 04 May 2014 18:28:02 +0000

Comrade N-Neocon: Thank You for the self-denunciation, Comrade. Now, as a decades long student of Stalinism and its oceans of corpses, I must tell you that Yezhov & Beria are awaiting your further begging for your mere life in the bowels of the Lubyanka before(of course) you give up your newly self-denounced life.

Mary: The staff at Shady Oaks Asylum is eagerly awaiting your arrival. Can you say,”Long days in the EST Room”?? ((-:

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Sun, 04 May 2014 12:11:55 +0000

Blert, it just goes to show how Republicans are controlled by non grass roots functions on the West and East coast.

Instead of using collective bargaining and walk out, they prefer to beg for scraps.