The BBC said they don’t want to erect a statue of George Orwell because he was “too left-wing.”
Well, if they made a bust of him, I’m sure Obama would give it a good home.
6 Comments
Strange though. Orwell seemed to have rather fluctuating political viewpoints. He seemed to grasp the end result of the socialist nanny state, but at times buy into the glittering promises of socialism. And also strangely, it seems that socialist groups are the quickest to claim him as one of their own.
But he wrote animal farm…which is impossible to ignore as a warning of what pure socialism does. And he wrote 1984, which demonstrates what big government is capable of.
Then he wrote a lot of anti-imperialism, and anti-capitalism stuff.
So it is difficult to figure out what is views really were.
But there is no denying he did claim to be a socialist at various points, and ran with a socialist crowd often enough.
Maybe he was a socialist-anarchist?
I still don’t quite understand what a socialist-anarchist is, as I always understood anarchy to be extremely to the right. Yet socialism is to the left.
It’s ironic that the guy who wrote the seminal warning on the dangers of socialism and big government — 1984 — was a professed socialist. Reminds me of all the college professors who acknowledge socialism’s failures (and, uh, killings) but believe it hasn’t been implemented correctly.
Strange though. Orwell seemed to have rather fluctuating political viewpoints. He seemed to grasp the end result of the socialist nanny state, but at times buy into the glittering promises of socialism. And also strangely, it seems that socialist groups are the quickest to claim him as one of their own.
But he wrote animal farm…which is impossible to ignore as a warning of what pure socialism does. And he wrote 1984, which demonstrates what big government is capable of.
Then he wrote a lot of anti-imperialism, and anti-capitalism stuff.
So it is difficult to figure out what is views really were.
But there is no denying he did claim to be a socialist at various points, and ran with a socialist crowd often enough.
Maybe he was a socialist-anarchist?
I still don’t quite understand what a socialist-anarchist is, as I always understood anarchy to be extremely to the right. Yet socialism is to the left.
Meh!
I don’t know what Orwell was either, but I do know that he was smart and certainly smarter than most people in England (or America) – even back then!
What? The BBC thinks Orwell is too left-wing? Really…
The best explaination of Orwell’s views I have ever seen is that he was a Tory anarchist.
Horsehockey. Nothing is to the left of the BBC.
It’s ironic that the guy who wrote the seminal warning on the dangers of socialism and big government — 1984 — was a professed socialist. Reminds me of all the college professors who acknowledge socialism’s failures (and, uh, killings) but believe it hasn’t been implemented correctly.