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...Orwell, of course, was seldom happier than when he was attacking fraud and hypocrisy and hearing the squeals of the injured.
Despite his insistence on being "political" in his work, Orwell's career suggests his politics were the sort that real politicans detest. Why, for example, was Orwell so determined to make the case against Soviet communism at precisely the moment all proper people preferred not to hear it? Devoted socialist he may have been, but he had none of the politician's instinct for trimming sails to the wind when it is expedient to tell people what they want to hear. Worse, he insisted on telling people precisely what they did not want to hear.
He was that political figure all politicians fear: the moralist who cannot bear to let any wrong deed go undenounced. As a politician he had the fatal defect of the totally honest man: He insisted on the truth even when the truth was most inconvenient.
Drinking Liberally Update (11/15/2024)
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In Politics: Nationally: The Election is over and the wrong side won. I
have nothing to contribute to the barrels of ink being used by Pundits to
explain a...
3 days ago
"Worse, he insisted on telling people precisely what they did not want to hear."
ReplyDeleteTruth may occasionally make people feel uncomfortable, but so does gore. Getting your neighbor to flinch, cringe, or riot doesn't guarantee that your position is true.
Bill O'Reilly says things I don't want to hear... does that make him an Orwellian patriot?
Context, please: Baker is talking about truth, not gore, sensationalism, or spin. In the case of Animal Farm, Orwell made his neighbors flinch and cringe (I'm not sure if anyone rioted) by expressing truths about Stalin and Soviet Russia that certain powers did not want to hear, for fear they would complicate their political position on the West's alliance with the USSR against Hitler. Orwell was not some juvenile spouting swear words just to annoy his elders. Neither Baker nor Orwell would justify saying things just to make people flinch. Baker is simply noting that Orwell prioritized truth over political correctness, a prioritization I suspect we both share.
ReplyDeleteBaker is also talking about an author whose writing changed our language and became a fixture of political discourse, not a crackpot whose forgettable rantings will fade from cultural memory shortly after he falls silent. If anything, O'Reilly represents the sort of bullying and abuse of language that we describe as Orwellian in its standard negative sense.
“As a politician he had the fatal defect of the totally honest man: He insisted on the truth even when the truth was most inconvenient.”
ReplyDeleteThis is the only slip-up I see in Baker’s preface. He actually labels Orwell a politician. Politicians are defenders of the plutocracy/oligarchy/theocracy, etc; whichever structure is in place to control the rabble. Orwell was a satirist. Politicians piss down your neck and tell you its raining. Orwell explained to his readers how this worked. He had no interest in defending the power structure; quite the contrary.
Recall now that The D-sider’s favorite politician is…
Jesus Christ!!
mpr
PS: David, I hope you read my comment to Cory’s “HB 1293 Trumps Trigger Law.” It should raise your blood pressure a bit.
"Baker is talking about truth, not gore, sensationalism, or spin."
ReplyDeletePrecisely true in the context of Orwell. But in my opinion people flinch and cringe to your posts only because they are sensationalist.
On several occasions I've pushed for a well-defined overall political philosophy to make sense of your arguments, but have always been dodged. I've asked for a defense of the slogan "legal, safe, and rare" without hearing one. And I've asked for a sensible discussion on my alternative to universal health care, without receiving one.
Near as I can tell, like the sophists of Greece, you have no desire to pursue these arguments to the foundation of truth. You are building a reputation only by exposing hypocrisy, corruption, and governmental inefficiencies... not by actually composing some sort of logical framework for your arguments. As is, they reflect a hodgepodge of communism, libertarianism, religious defender, state-and-church separatist, government's too big, government's too small, corporations are too big, corporations have a right to their own property, doctors should decide this, politicians should decide that, among other things.
You maintain that your political positions aren't decided solely on self-interest, but I haven't found anything else that they could be based upon. And so, I am forced to conclude that this blog is nothing more than O'Reilly sensationalism guarded by a few rhetorical tricks.
There's more to debate than barking... more to truth than labeling yourself as Orwellian. Enumerate your political premises, and open them up for argument. Detail how the cacophony of your posts aligns to those premises with simple reason. Inspire us with what things are important in life (and politics), rather than just publishing reactions to events and other people's agendas. And at least engage other people's inconvenient criticisms rather than ignoring them.
Your patient reader is on the edge of a riot.
Riot away, dbergan!
ReplyDeleteDbergan again perhaps overmingles the public and the private in his comments here. I'm not sure my complete political philosophy or lack thereof is vital to the public discourse. The editors of the New York Times and the Madison Daily Leader don't expend much ink defending their personal character: they offer news and commentary on public matters, accept and publish a wide range of reader comments, and let personal attacks roll by.
However (could you feel that coming, gentle reader?), I'll offer a few brief responses:
1. The only people I've heard flinching and cringing at my posts are dbergan and phaedrus. The rest of the reading seems either pleased with or unmoved by the contents of this blog.
2. The accusation of self-interest seems odd, especially on my position on abortion. I am neither a woman nor a doctor; I derive no income from any family-planning enterprise. I own no stock in Similac or Trojan. Self-interest? Where?
3. I could withdraw from the public realm until I have perfected my political philosophy and tested my every position for consistency, but the Legislature won't wait. Sloppier thinkers than I at all levels of government are passing bad laws and ignoring bigger problems than my lack of a complete philosophy. Democracy won't wait for the philosopher king.
4. Oh yeah, and the original post was a nod to George Orwell, a great writer whom we should aspire to emulate. We all have our failings, but our imperfections should not paralyze us from recognizing and calling for the improvement of the imperfections around us. I don't know how Orwell felt about abortion, drug use, economic development, or international trade. Maybe he didn't either. But he didn't need to lay out a Summa Orwellica to earn the right to criticize Soviet Russia. My philosophy is a work in progress. It is the house I live in; I want to paint all the walls, but first, I've got to eat breakfast.
"The only people I've heard flinching and cringing at my posts are dbergan and phaedrus."
ReplyDeleteWell then, I can tell you with complete confidence that 50% of the flinchers are upset by what they see as a lack of consistency and unwillingness to follow your rants to their inevitable conclusions. They want to know why you rant as you do... believing that the sage of Lake Herman is truly a deep thinker, but he settles for the shallow standards of superficial sensationalist subscription-hungry newspapers.
And furthermore, they note that they flinch at Bill O'Reilly for precisely the same reason (with less certainty that he might be deep thinker).
"The accusation of self-interest seems odd, especially on my position on abortion."
You got me there... I still have no clue why you think abortion should be legal. You haven't told me.
And not everything falls under the generalization.
But as for universal health care, cell phone tax, internet 3, downsizing athletic departments, replacing property tax with corporate income tax, school de-consolidation, requiring funding to public schools for homeschooled students, and channeling laptop money into teacher pay... they all have a certain scent to them.
You're obviously going to be passionate about issues that affect you, but that's where a consistent political framework would help us understand what basic and fair obligations you think a government has... rather than just help Cory.
"My philosophy is a work in progress. It is the house I live in; I want to paint all the walls, but first, I've got to eat breakfast."
A house of contradictions isn't a philosophy in progress.
Cory, YOU ARE ORWELLIAN!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Michael! Now wasn't that simple?
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised the irony didn't break on me earlier...
ReplyDeleteDo you really think Orwell would side with your communist-leading posts? Would he want Big Brother taking care of our health, and educating our young?
I don't have an exact quote from Orwell on single-payer health care or free public education, but I'll take a chance and speculate that Orwell sits closer to me than you on the political spectrum. Consider:
ReplyDelete"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." (Orwell, "Why I Write")
Also, I urge dbergan to note a couple other comments from Orwell on art:
"What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art. My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.... And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally." (ibid.)