Historical Figure (1903-1950)
Novelist, political commentator and Patron Saint of Decency, George Orwell's ideas form the basis of modern Muscular Liberalism.
While he garners much respect for having physically confronted fascism by enlisting to fight in the Spanish Civil War, he is particularly lionised by Muscular Liberals for his political writings.
His most important and relevant works heap derision upon elitist Hampstead liberals and the Ivory Tower intelligentsia, rigorously refuting and ridiculing their moral relativism and liberal guilt.
Orwell was also the celebrated author of works on linguistic accuracy in political speech, inspiring Decents to eschew all forms of propaganda and weasel words when arguing.
His influence upon Decency cannot be overstated, and all over Britain hundreds of committed Muscular Liberals dedicate themselves to ensuring that his vision becomes reality.
An Anatomy of Decency - How Orwell's Vision Was Realised
Problematically, however, historians tend to gloss over Orwell's psychotic hatred of elephants, which he hunted and executed by the thousand, gunning them down without mercy while laughing in celebration.
Selected Bibliography
Homage To Catalonia - Entertaining knock-about larks in Spain, in which the author comes to realise that physically fighting fascists in wars should be secondary to penning venomous screeds denouncing The Left.
Notes On Nationalism - Fiery polemic dissecting the tendency of useful idiots to don ideological blinkers that prevent them from perceiving politically inconvenient facts, leading to the acceptance of irrational, illogical and highly partisan beliefs, like a gaggle of unstoppably dense football supporters.
Animal Farm - Cautionary tale describing how the Far Left became everything it once despised by allying itself with its former foes, rather than working democratically with Man to incrimentally advance the cause of Animalkind.
Politics And The English Language - Masterclass in the art of Decent discourse.
1984 - Novel exploring the use of euphemism and selective memory as a tool of control. Required reading for Muscular Liberals.
External sources: Politics and the English Language by George Orwell, British Writer Sought After Elephant-Shooting Spree, Guardian Online
10 comments:
Orwell also manifested a deep hatred of birth control, despite living for nine months after the birth of Christopher Hitchens. Suspect, to say the least.
Its surely a mistake to allow the decents to claim George Orwell, and particularly his homage to Catelonia which includes a political line on the Spanish Civil War which most decents would describe as 'comedy'. Orwell for one thing had a deep and abiding hatred of imperialism, a decisive influence rather embarressing for the decents.
Ah, but he also said that the British Empire, for all its faults, was "a good deal better" than the emerging totalitarian states. This was because the totalitarians knew what they were doing, while the functionaries of the British Empire did not know what they was doing. Mutatis mutandis, this may be applied to the present situation, with Islamofascists who know what they are doing versus the cuddly but clumsy cruise missiles of the United States, which just can't help landing on the occasional civilian uniform wearer now and then.
I am a dense American and cannot tell if this post is attacking the historical George Orwell or attacking the George Orwell celebrated by the decentists.
My favourite Orwell quote with respect to Decency is:
One of the peculiar phenomena of our time is the renegade Liberal. Over and above the familiar Marxist claim that 'bourgeois liberty' is an illusion, there is now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It always appears that they are not only those who attack it openly and consciously, but those who 'objectively' endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other words defending democracy involves destroying all independence of thought.
Well, one thing with Orwell's work is that it conceals political shifts belied by the belief that clarity of prose can be identified with clarity of politics. The Orwell who wrote Homage to Catelonia was not the same Orwell who wrote the Lion and the Unicorn, and the Orwell who wrote the Lion and the Unicorn is not the same Orwell who just a few years before opposed the alliance between Communists and Churchill against the Nazies and advocated guerilla resistance to the State (this AFTER the second world war had started!). In turn this is not the same Orwell who during the Spanish Civil War denounced pacifists.
Its neccessary therefore to make a distinction between Orwell the right wing icon, and Orwell the flawed but interesting leftist. The big difference between the latter and contemporary decents is that he was actually genuinely tortured politically (this was after all the historical period that Victor Serge described as 'midnight in the century).
Christopher Hitchens bears the same resemblence to Orwell that someone who thinks shooting heroin will make him a genius does to Charlie Parker. None at all.
Hey, I've got an email I want to send the editor... any idea how I get in touch?
cal
Didn't Orwell end up living in Scotland and coughing his guts up?
Hold your horses and elephants everyone. A new devestating line of attack has been developed by the decents. Any complaints about civil liberties are to be greeted with reminders that in Burma matters are considerably worse. The new slogan which will take us foward into the 21st century is "better then Burma". Hattip Raj Decency in the comments section of the Tomb.
I met and worked with Hitchens and in no way would I compare him to George Orwell. Hitchens had an immense ego and never understood the common man/woman like Orwell did. He did a disservice to Orwell by writing a book about him that was not accessible to the layman. He wrote it to be recognized as an intellectual. Orwell wrote for and about the people. He strove for simplicity without dumbing things down. His decency and empathy became a part of everything he wrote and he doubtfully knew it. It was the way he was as a human being. He was not pretentious. He was himself. He was inherently a great man.
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