1984 is basically ‘what if the stuff we do to the poor / colonised every other day happens to us instead’. Orwell was a colonial officer, so he probably had first-hand experience.
Interesting that the article you link actually makes Orwell seem sympathetic.
This motherfucker put his life on the line fighting fascism in Catalonia and saw what became of people under Soviet-dominated communism. He decided the oppression of capitalist democracy was less than the oppression of communist totalatarianism and acted accordingly.
Nope not a tankie at all and actually quite anti communist. Try again.
But if you don’t see the parallels of acting like thoughtcontrol and hyper surveillance is the epitome of evil and doing the same kind of hyper surveillance and thought control back but just for the government you agree with is wrong then idk what to tell you.
Providing info for a secret British Foreign Office propaganda unit with a list of 38 individuals he suspected of being secret communists or Soviet sympathizers is not the actions a person who cares about thought control would do. Also he suspected is another huge point to this.
And its interesting you would point out that he thought being under the flavor of brutal controlling government the UK was offering was going to be better on a post of an 84 year old woman being arrested on the street corner in the UK (same government he fed names to) for daring to say her thoughts out loud on the actions if said government participating in a genocide. Thoughts that didn’t align with the Ministry oops I meant Monarchy.
Come on now…
The fact that you think that article which says he fed information to a propaganda unit that he THOUGHT was sympathizing with the enemy to be targeted by that government highlights a lack of critical thinking on your part in my opinion. That’s the shit communist countries do with secret police. Why is it ok if its a European country?
life in the domestic UK was better than in the USSR
And what about life in the British colonies? The problem with people like Orwell is that they’re only concerned with oppression when it affects people like them.
There’s a lot of propaganda around Orwell in an effort to discredit him purely because he threatened the USSR party elite’s power, and it persists to this day because those same writings threaten the party elites of the PRC.
I think you’ll need to justify your Orwell comment. Both Animal Farm and 1984 were works against authoritarianism of any form, and he even fought against fascism in the Spanish Civil War.
But turning in names of authors who he wanted the government to target is completely against every single message that both of those books taught.
And no, I’m not a tankie. I am not a communist. But it bothers me that people can’t understand how that action is completely messed up of him and goes against everything he tried to say he stood for.
Orwell opposed authoritarianism in all of its forms, including Soviet style “communism”. He witnessed first hand what that supposed “communism” was. He spent an awfully long time thinking about totalitarianism, both from the perspective of the British Empire and of the Soviet Union. The man was committed to a sanatorium when he handed over his list. Which he handed over to a socialist Labour government, whilst fearing the rise of authoritarian “communism”. And not long after living through his second world war, against the very same fascist forces he’d been fighting against in Spain.
Orwell has done more for leftism than I doubt you or I ever will. Both through his widely read writings and his on the ground, life on the line, physical direct action. He could have lived a comfortable life of an English gentleman, but he didn’t because he cared about more than his own comfort.
The hatred over the list only comes from tankies because he outed the very thing they support. Either you’re a tankie or unfortunately misinformed via propaganda.
I am not a tankie. I’m a person who is against people being hypocrites. What he did, was NOT freedom. What he did wasn’t for the “greater good” even though he felt that way. What he did was akin to censorship and thought control. The very things he wrote about being against.
I respect his fighting for what he believed in. Its what I believe in too. But I would rather die and go to hell than give a list of people I suspected of being the enemy to a government propaganda office. He actually did that so no, that isn’t propaganda. That’s holding someone accountable for their actions. The actions that he absolutely did do.
Although I didn’t realize about the sanitorium thing being around that time. (i looked that up and he wrote the list while he was already in a sanitorium being treated for tuberculosis. so no, his mind was ok) He was someone who talked the talk and then when it really came down to it, was in favor of thought control as long as it was the thoughts he agreed with. I hate that about his legacy and I can’t ever bring myself to agree with that action.
I love 1984 and Animal Farm though. I agree with standing up against government oppression but the thing is I think you should do that whether that government is communist or democratic.
Although I didn’t realize about the sanitorium thing being around that time. (i looked that up and he wrote the list while he was already in a sanitorium being treated for tuberculosis. so no, his mind was ok)
What a naïve and ignorant view.
Psychological distress and psychiatric illness leading to poorer quality of life were present in a significant number of TB patients.
You are right about this its a lot more involved mentally than I knew.
I originally thought you had meant that when he gave the list over they put him in a sanitorium after that. One of the people who knew him said that to and that that’s why they thought he did that.
His list was specifically for Stalinist sympathisers.
Stalinism included the creation of a one man[4][5] totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory of socialism in one country, forced collectivization of agriculture, intensification of class conflict, a cult of personality,[6][7] and subordination of the interests of foreign communist parties to those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which Stalinism deemed the leading vanguard party of communist revolution at the time.[8]
Stalin’s regime forcibly purged society of what it saw as threats to itself and its brand of communism (so-called “enemies of the people”), which included political dissidents, non-Soviet nationalists, the bourgeoisie, better-off peasants (“kulaks”),[9] and those of the working class who demonstrated “counter-revolutionary” sympathies.[10] This resulted in mass repression of such people and their families, including mass arrests, show trials, executions, and imprisonment in forced labor camps known as gulags.[11] The most notorious examples were the Great Purge and the Dekulakization campaign. Stalinism was also marked by militant atheism, mass anti-religious persecution,[12][13] and ethnic cleansing through forced deportations.[14]
Even the page you originally cited doesn’t have much in the way of strong condemnation from his contemporaries. As I said in my previous comment, the only people truly outraged by this are tankies or those misinformed by tankie propaganda.
In 2003, Celia Kirwan (Celia Goodman) said that Orwell was quite right to do it because “the only thing that was going to happen to them was that they wouldn’t be asked to write for the Information Research Department”.[1]
The government itself never said that was the only thing that would happen. It was one of his contemporaries quotes on that page, that said that was all that would happen. Why is that persons quote holding any more weight to you than the quotes contemporaries who were against him? If this is really all in the interest of truth then let’s be truthful.
And yes I am anti communist I am aware of all that and yeah for sure I support him for what he’s done to be against it and speak out about it. I agree with you on that. And yes someone else said “well it was either that or communism in the 70s which would you have picked” and YES I would have picked the UK of course.
Know what I wouldn’t have done though? Given them names of people who’s thoughts I think they should keep tabs on.
I don’t care if they were communists or scientologists. It doesn’t matter. That was absolutely a move of thought control and suppression. And was wrong. And I don’t think its wrong to point that out about the dude. He made his own legacy and made his own actions himself.
Sure he has done a lot for leftism and I applaud that. But I HATE that he gave that list to them. Fast forward to an old lady being arrested on a street corner for speaking thought crimes and its a long line of people who did things just like he did to get it this way.
Being a snitch for the government isn’t being a freedom fighter. Its the opposite of that.
also there are several lines of contempt from his peers of that list on that wiki I linked. You said there isn’t much in the way of condemnation except from tankies but right there are SEVERAL of his contemporaries that were rightfully against it and said so. Did you not see those lines? Of course some sympathizers too. I get it. I am against communism too. But I’m not going secret police style and selling out my neighbors and shit that I suspect are sympathetic to it.
And I’m definitely not doing that and then wanting to be remembered as some hero of freedom and thought. Its kind of ridiculous that people just gloss over that he did that.
Wouldn’t it bother you if someone were to put you on a list of people to keep tabs on to the government for that belief? I understand it was a different kind of communism but still.
The disappointment of finding out he did that would be comparable to like finding out my mom was a hooker or something. Just shattered my view of him honestly.
Britain didn’t have McCarthyism. Major industries were being nationalised, the welfare state was being created with the NHS, statutory sick pay, and unemployment benefits. Communism (in the true sense of the word) and socialism were generally acceptable political viewpoints.
Colonies were being given their independence. It was an optimistic time, with government by the people, for the people.
Not the neo-liberal capitalist hellscape dominating both “labour” and conservative parties we have now.
My own 48 years of lived experience in the UK is not remotely like that. Honestly, the hate train for the UK
makes me wonder if my own pre-conceptions about life in the US, formed through the British media and platforms like this, is as way off the mark as you guys genuinely are in regard to what it’s actually like living here.
Don’t get me wrong, I think that most of our governments from Thatcher onwards have been various of flavours of dreadful, but from my perspective the US political landscape is the rock bottom-end to a path we’re essentially locked into as the billionaire backed psueodo-facist parties gain increasing foothold.
It is absolutely true that we both just get fed a great deal of propaganda from both sides.
And yeah USA has its own share of problems I will admit that.
But I’ve never seen a 84 year old woman get arrested in USA for speaking in an inside voice about being against a genocide.
Now sure here the cops will come and throw tear gas and maybe even kill a few people so I’m not saying that’s great. It isn’t.
But dude once you arrest old ladies for simply saying they are against the genocide of Palastenians then its over man. You don’t live in a free society.
Now in USA they use anti Israel sentiment to try and look for reasons to deport visa holders (which is messed up) but they don’t arrest citizens for saying it. I could go out on the street corner right now and talk just like that lady did about how Palestinians are being genoiceded while we do nothing and all about even how Trump and Epstein were buddies and nothing will happen to me. Nothing.
In the UK they can detain you for questioning because their face scans of you (that you can’t refuse) look like some other dude who may or may not have done a crime.
In the UK they can arrest an 84 year old Lady for just saying she is against the targeted killing of an entire ethnicity of people and nothing else.
Bro, that is insane. You realize that is insane right? I’m not saying USA isn’t insane our cops use citizens as target practice but god damn arresting old ladies for saying they don’t support what Israel is doing? That’s way more fucked up then anything going on in America.
I think you’re taking a single, disputed incident and presenting it as if it’s how the UK normally works.
I agree this video is a disgrace, but the issue wasn’t simply “an old lady was arrested for saying she opposed genocide.” The circumstances are more complicated than that, and there are ongoing legal and factual disputes about why the police intervened. Reducing it to “you get arrested in Britain for criticising Israel” isn’t an accurate description of UK law.
People in the UK publicly criticise Israel, the UK government, and the police every single day. There have been countless pro-Palestinian demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of people. If merely saying “I oppose what Israel is doing” were grounds for arrest, our prisons would be overflowing.
The same applies to facial recognition. There are legitimate debates about police use of the technology, but saying “you can’t refuse it” or implying people are routinely detained because the computer thinks they look like someone else leaves out a lot of important legal safeguards and oversight.
The US and the UK both have genuine issues around policing and civil liberties, but it’s not helpful to compare the worst anecdote from one country with the worst anecdote from the other and then claim one is fundamentally free while the other isn’t. Reality is more nuanced than that.
The UK is a shithole country. Orwell helped make his 1984 wet dream come to life there.
1984 is basically ‘what if the stuff we do to the poor / colonised every other day happens to us instead’. Orwell was a colonial officer, so he probably had first-hand experience.
He was an informant for the “good guys” government. He was a bastard.
I LOVE 1984 (and We, and Brave New World and others like it) but I fucking hate that guy as a person.
Just watched a 84 year old woman get arrested for calmly speaking her viewpoints in public. If that isn’t thoughtcrime then idk wtf is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwell's_list
Interesting that the article you link actually makes Orwell seem sympathetic.
This motherfucker put his life on the line fighting fascism in Catalonia and saw what became of people under Soviet-dominated communism. He decided the oppression of capitalist democracy was less than the oppression of communist totalatarianism and acted accordingly.
I guess if you’re a tankie, this is unacceptable.
Nope not a tankie at all and actually quite anti communist. Try again.
But if you don’t see the parallels of acting like thoughtcontrol and hyper surveillance is the epitome of evil and doing the same kind of hyper surveillance and thought control back but just for the government you agree with is wrong then idk what to tell you.
Providing info for a secret British Foreign Office propaganda unit with a list of 38 individuals he suspected of being secret communists or Soviet sympathizers is not the actions a person who cares about thought control would do. Also he suspected is another huge point to this.
And its interesting you would point out that he thought being under the flavor of brutal controlling government the UK was offering was going to be better on a post of an 84 year old woman being arrested on the street corner in the UK (same government he fed names to) for daring to say her thoughts out loud on the actions if said government participating in a genocide. Thoughts that didn’t align with the Ministry oops I meant Monarchy.
Come on now…
The fact that you think that article which says he fed information to a propaganda unit that he THOUGHT was sympathizing with the enemy to be targeted by that government highlights a lack of critical thinking on your part in my opinion. That’s the shit communist countries do with secret police. Why is it ok if its a European country?
I read Homage to Catalonia and I can’t bring myself to shit on Orwell without understanding his perspective.
And, yes, compartively, life in the domestic UK was better than in the USSR. Where would you rather be living in 1947? 1957? 1967? 1977?
And what about life in the British colonies? The problem with people like Orwell is that they’re only concerned with oppression when it affects people like them.
Abslutely! I specified “domestic UK” for that very reason.
Was Orwell engaging in anti-communist activity in colonies? would be my next question.
There’s a lot of propaganda around Orwell in an effort to discredit him purely because he threatened the USSR party elite’s power, and it persists to this day because those same writings threaten the party elites of the PRC.
I think you’ll need to justify your Orwell comment. Both Animal Farm and 1984 were works against authoritarianism of any form, and he even fought against fascism in the Spanish Civil War.
Yes and I respect him for that.
But turning in names of authors who he wanted the government to target is completely against every single message that both of those books taught.
And no, I’m not a tankie. I am not a communist. But it bothers me that people can’t understand how that action is completely messed up of him and goes against everything he tried to say he stood for.
Orwell opposed authoritarianism in all of its forms, including Soviet style “communism”. He witnessed first hand what that supposed “communism” was. He spent an awfully long time thinking about totalitarianism, both from the perspective of the British Empire and of the Soviet Union. The man was committed to a sanatorium when he handed over his list. Which he handed over to a socialist Labour government, whilst fearing the rise of authoritarian “communism”. And not long after living through his second world war, against the very same fascist forces he’d been fighting against in Spain.
He was anti-communist in as much as Emma Goldman or Alexander Berkman or Nestor Makhno or any leftist with a fucking brain was.
Orwell has done more for leftism than I doubt you or I ever will. Both through his widely read writings and his on the ground, life on the line, physical direct action. He could have lived a comfortable life of an English gentleman, but he didn’t because he cared about more than his own comfort.
The hatred over the list only comes from tankies because he outed the very thing they support. Either you’re a tankie or unfortunately misinformed via propaganda.
I am not a tankie. I’m a person who is against people being hypocrites. What he did, was NOT freedom. What he did wasn’t for the “greater good” even though he felt that way. What he did was akin to censorship and thought control. The very things he wrote about being against.
I respect his fighting for what he believed in. Its what I believe in too. But I would rather die and go to hell than give a list of people I suspected of being the enemy to a government propaganda office. He actually did that so no, that isn’t propaganda. That’s holding someone accountable for their actions. The actions that he absolutely did do.
Although I didn’t realize about the sanitorium thing being around that time. (i looked that up and he wrote the list while he was already in a sanitorium being treated for tuberculosis. so no, his mind was ok) He was someone who talked the talk and then when it really came down to it, was in favor of thought control as long as it was the thoughts he agreed with. I hate that about his legacy and I can’t ever bring myself to agree with that action.
I love 1984 and Animal Farm though. I agree with standing up against government oppression but the thing is I think you should do that whether that government is communist or democratic.
I just noticed your edit.
What a naïve and ignorant view.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0019570725000873
Not to mention that if it were extrapulmonary TB then likely his kidneys were failing too, which causes severe fatigue and confusion.
If his mind were fine he would not have been in a sanatorium, but rather a hospital or hospice.
You are right about this its a lot more involved mentally than I knew.
I originally thought you had meant that when he gave the list over they put him in a sanitorium after that. One of the people who knew him said that to and that that’s why they thought he did that.
You know what Stalinism is, right?
His list was specifically for Stalinist sympathisers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalinism
Even the page you originally cited doesn’t have much in the way of strong condemnation from his contemporaries. As I said in my previous comment, the only people truly outraged by this are tankies or those misinformed by tankie propaganda.
Oh no!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwell's_list#Reactions_to_the_list
The government itself never said that was the only thing that would happen. It was one of his contemporaries quotes on that page, that said that was all that would happen. Why is that persons quote holding any more weight to you than the quotes contemporaries who were against him? If this is really all in the interest of truth then let’s be truthful.
And yes I am anti communist I am aware of all that and yeah for sure I support him for what he’s done to be against it and speak out about it. I agree with you on that. And yes someone else said “well it was either that or communism in the 70s which would you have picked” and YES I would have picked the UK of course.
Know what I wouldn’t have done though? Given them names of people who’s thoughts I think they should keep tabs on.
I don’t care if they were communists or scientologists. It doesn’t matter. That was absolutely a move of thought control and suppression. And was wrong. And I don’t think its wrong to point that out about the dude. He made his own legacy and made his own actions himself.
Sure he has done a lot for leftism and I applaud that. But I HATE that he gave that list to them. Fast forward to an old lady being arrested on a street corner for speaking thought crimes and its a long line of people who did things just like he did to get it this way.
Being a snitch for the government isn’t being a freedom fighter. Its the opposite of that.
also there are several lines of contempt from his peers of that list on that wiki I linked. You said there isn’t much in the way of condemnation except from tankies but right there are SEVERAL of his contemporaries that were rightfully against it and said so. Did you not see those lines? Of course some sympathizers too. I get it. I am against communism too. But I’m not going secret police style and selling out my neighbors and shit that I suspect are sympathetic to it.
And I’m definitely not doing that and then wanting to be remembered as some hero of freedom and thought. Its kind of ridiculous that people just gloss over that he did that.
I’m not :)
I am unashamedly a communist. Just not a Leninist, or worse a Stalinist.
Wouldn’t it bother you if someone were to put you on a list of people to keep tabs on to the government for that belief? I understand it was a different kind of communism but still.
The disappointment of finding out he did that would be comparable to like finding out my mom was a hooker or something. Just shattered my view of him honestly.
In 1940s socialist Labour Britain? No.
Especially as that’s not what the list was.
Britain didn’t have McCarthyism. Major industries were being nationalised, the welfare state was being created with the NHS, statutory sick pay, and unemployment benefits. Communism (in the true sense of the word) and socialism were generally acceptable political viewpoints.
Colonies were being given their independence. It was an optimistic time, with government by the people, for the people.
Not the neo-liberal capitalist hellscape dominating both “labour” and conservative parties we have now.
This is more V for Vendetta
My own 48 years of lived experience in the UK is not remotely like that. Honestly, the hate train for the UK makes me wonder if my own pre-conceptions about life in the US, formed through the British media and platforms like this, is as way off the mark as you guys genuinely are in regard to what it’s actually like living here.
Don’t get me wrong, I think that most of our governments from Thatcher onwards have been various of flavours of dreadful, but from my perspective the US political landscape is the rock bottom-end to a path we’re essentially locked into as the billionaire backed psueodo-facist parties gain increasing foothold.
It is absolutely true that we both just get fed a great deal of propaganda from both sides.
And yeah USA has its own share of problems I will admit that.
But I’ve never seen a 84 year old woman get arrested in USA for speaking in an inside voice about being against a genocide.
Now sure here the cops will come and throw tear gas and maybe even kill a few people so I’m not saying that’s great. It isn’t.
But dude once you arrest old ladies for simply saying they are against the genocide of Palastenians then its over man. You don’t live in a free society.
Now in USA they use anti Israel sentiment to try and look for reasons to deport visa holders (which is messed up) but they don’t arrest citizens for saying it. I could go out on the street corner right now and talk just like that lady did about how Palestinians are being genoiceded while we do nothing and all about even how Trump and Epstein were buddies and nothing will happen to me. Nothing.
In the UK they can detain you for questioning because their face scans of you (that you can’t refuse) look like some other dude who may or may not have done a crime.
In the UK they can arrest an 84 year old Lady for just saying she is against the targeted killing of an entire ethnicity of people and nothing else.
Bro, that is insane. You realize that is insane right? I’m not saying USA isn’t insane our cops use citizens as target practice but god damn arresting old ladies for saying they don’t support what Israel is doing? That’s way more fucked up then anything going on in America.
I think you’re taking a single, disputed incident and presenting it as if it’s how the UK normally works.
I agree this video is a disgrace, but the issue wasn’t simply “an old lady was arrested for saying she opposed genocide.” The circumstances are more complicated than that, and there are ongoing legal and factual disputes about why the police intervened. Reducing it to “you get arrested in Britain for criticising Israel” isn’t an accurate description of UK law.
People in the UK publicly criticise Israel, the UK government, and the police every single day. There have been countless pro-Palestinian demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of people. If merely saying “I oppose what Israel is doing” were grounds for arrest, our prisons would be overflowing.
The same applies to facial recognition. There are legitimate debates about police use of the technology, but saying “you can’t refuse it” or implying people are routinely detained because the computer thinks they look like someone else leaves out a lot of important legal safeguards and oversight.
The US and the UK both have genuine issues around policing and civil liberties, but it’s not helpful to compare the worst anecdote from one country with the worst anecdote from the other and then claim one is fundamentally free while the other isn’t. Reality is more nuanced than that.