3 ms·

Just have to admit to being impressed by how succinct and clear yet deep this writing was. Easy to read and understand, and certainly gets the point across.

johndhi 4y ago
That's Orwell for ya. Journalism background.
throwaway202022 4y ago
I think he made it a point to write like this. Check out his essay "Politics and the English Language".
moritzwarhier 4y ago
I agree, but I am not surprised. Today's writing about politics mostly seems much more convoluted, bloodless and meaningless. I don't think that the main reason for that is with the writer though. I think the reason is the "triumph of liberal democracy" or capitalism. We have invented a pretty robust sugar-coat for the interests of the powerful. Nowadays, we even call some of our exploitation schemes "eco-friendly".
lostlogin 4y ago
Reading the comments below the article (generally a bad idea) show that a paragraph of the article seems to have been ‘redacted’. Sources are quoted but I don’t see a reason for the change. “I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler. Ever since he came to power - till then, like nearly everyone, I had been deceived into thinking that he did not matter - I have reflected that I would certainly kill him if I could get within reach of him, but that I could feel no personal animosity.”
- pukexxr 4y ago
  >>Sources are quoted but I don’t see a reason for the change. Redacted [by who?] If this was removed by Orwell then it isn't for you to see a reason or not. If removed by the editors of the abve site, then I'd agree that that's a questionable choice; at any rate an ellipsis would be called for.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    Have a read of the comments, the essay seems to vary depending on where you read it.
  - permo-w 4y ago
    given the phrasing - "I should like it put on record" - I would not be particularly sympathetic even towards Orwell choosing to have it redacted from future publications
- permo-w 4y ago
  he is not alone in this feeling. the numbers are no longer on the site, but I remember YouGov [a British polling company] indicated that British people hold Stalin in far more contempt than they do Hitler, even in spite of the far closer proximity and impact of Hitler's crimes. whether that polling can be trusted I do not know, but I do get the feeling that despite genuine hatred for his actions, a lot of people harbour a soft spot for his persona. I suspect this is as or more likely a result of his abundant comic depictions as it is the characterisation as a hero-like figure manfully struggling against inevitability.
  - emmelaich 4y ago
    Contempt is different from personal animosity. I don't know how you can have soft spot or feel personal animus for a long dead historical figure in another country. This is pretty much independent of whether you would attempt to kill him on meeting, knowing everything about him.
  - V-2 4y ago
    There would be no Hitler without Stalin to begin with, while the opposite isn't true. Besides, the UK has committed acts of (de facto) shameful collaboration with Stalin, such as the forceful and brutal "repatriation" of Cossacks to the USSR where they faced certain death. To quote Wikipedia, "On 1 June 1945 the UK placed 32,000 Cossacks (with their women and children) into trains and trucks and delivered them to the Red Army for repatriation to the Soviets [...] most Cossacks were sent to the gulags in far northern Russia and Siberia, and many died"). This was an enormous tragedy and human rights violation, comparable to what deporting thousands of North Korean refugees back to North Korea today would be. The Cossacks knew it was a death sentence, and they resisted, but obviously in vain. In the words of Julius Epstein (after Wikipedia again): "The first to commit suicide, by hanging, was the Cossack editor Evgenij Tarruski. The second was General Silkin, who shot himself...The Cossacks refused to board the trucks. British soldiers [armed] with pistols and clubs began using their clubs, aiming at the heads of the prisoners. They first dragged the men out of the crowd, and threw them into the trucks. The men jumped out. They beat them again, and threw them onto the floor of the trucks. Again, they jumped out. The British then hit them with rifle butts until they lay unconscious, and threw them, like sacks of potatoes, in the trucks." No British Jews have ever been deported to the Third Reich. And this certainly may add to the sense of contempt for Stalin, as the Soviet dictator sort of corrupted British politics making the UK an accomplice in a way Hitler never managed to. > I suspect this is as or more likely a result of his [Hitler's] abundant comic depictions as it is the characterisation as a hero-like figure manfully struggling against inevitability. That's an alternative explanation, sure (although personally I tend to doubt it)
- stephen_g 4y ago
  Maybe they thought it looked bad… But it was only 1940 when he wrote the essay, so at that point a lot of Hitler’s crimes would not yet have been known in Britain, and a lot of them were not yet even in full swing. So he’s looking from a very different perspective to us who know about the holocaust and the other shocking things the Nazis did.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Barrin92 4y ago
That's too charitable. It's a rhetorical tool that Orwell uses to invoke a sort of comradery with the reader because it lends itself to the largely anti-establishment points he tried to get across. It's the old Etonian going "I'm one of you guys" which has a long tradition in British political rhetoric.
- sillysaurusx 4y ago
  So? You say it like it’s a bad thing to use rhetoric. But even pg has his own sharp set of rhetorical tools.
  - Barrin92 4y ago
    it's a bad thing to mistake rhetorical skill for profundity. The same is true for pg. Most of what he writes is trite but he's popular because he's mastered the skill of talking to his audience in a tone that has convinced them they're all secret geniuses with access to forbidden knowledge. If Orwell was alive today, he'd probably have a thriving substack. In reality much of Orwell's output was the result of his personal feud with Stalinism, deeply conventional and elitist, and not that deep, and it's not surprising that he is today probably the most mindlessly-quoted writer around.
    - magpi3 4y ago
      Do you really thing a book like 1984 is "not that deep"?
      - adventured 4y ago
        1984 is a particularly shallow book. It borders on being so simplistic as to cater to a teen equivalent crowd intellectually. It'd be deep for a 12 year old reading it for the first time, maybe. It's a cartoonish dystopia, laughably absurd in structure; although it gets his points across, which is obviously important. Orwell paints the kind of fantasy dystopia one might envision if one knew absolutely nothing about totalitarianism firsthand. Its popularity over the decades owes primarily to being shallow, simplistic. People that otherwise can't or won't approach complex ideas can read 1984 and get it. It's also not very original, even Ayn Rand took a shot at the premise a decade before Orwell with her book Anthem (1984 is a better book however).
mhh__ 4y ago
Orwell's writing is such a palate cleanser compared to (say) the continental philosophers of not very long after him.

johndhi 4y ago

That's Orwell for ya. Journalism background.

throwaway202022 4y ago

I think he made it a point to write like this. Check out his essay "Politics and the English Language".

moritzwarhier 4y ago

I agree, but I am not surprised. Today's writing about politics mostly seems much more convoluted, bloodless and meaningless. I don't think that the main reason for that is with the writer though. I think the reason is the "triumph of liberal democracy" or capitalism. We have invented a pretty robust sugar-coat for the interests of the powerful. Nowadays, we even call some of our exploitation schemes "eco-friendly".

lostlogin 4y ago

Reading the comments below the article (generally a bad idea) show that a paragraph of the article seems to have been ‘redacted’. Sources are quoted but I don’t see a reason for the change. “I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler. Ever since he came to power - till then, like nearly everyone, I had been deceived into thinking that he did not matter - I have reflected that I would certainly kill him if I could get within reach of him, but that I could feel no personal animosity.”

pukexxr 4y ago
>>Sources are quoted but I don’t see a reason for the change. Redacted [by who?] If this was removed by Orwell then it isn't for you to see a reason or not. If removed by the editors of the abve site, then I'd agree that that's a questionable choice; at any rate an ellipsis would be called for.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  Have a read of the comments, the essay seems to vary depending on where you read it.
- permo-w 4y ago
  given the phrasing - "I should like it put on record" - I would not be particularly sympathetic even towards Orwell choosing to have it redacted from future publications
permo-w 4y ago
he is not alone in this feeling. the numbers are no longer on the site, but I remember YouGov [a British polling company] indicated that British people hold Stalin in far more contempt than they do Hitler, even in spite of the far closer proximity and impact of Hitler's crimes. whether that polling can be trusted I do not know, but I do get the feeling that despite genuine hatred for his actions, a lot of people harbour a soft spot for his persona. I suspect this is as or more likely a result of his abundant comic depictions as it is the characterisation as a hero-like figure manfully struggling against inevitability.
- emmelaich 4y ago
  Contempt is different from personal animosity. I don't know how you can have soft spot or feel personal animus for a long dead historical figure in another country. This is pretty much independent of whether you would attempt to kill him on meeting, knowing everything about him.
- V-2 4y ago
  There would be no Hitler without Stalin to begin with, while the opposite isn't true. Besides, the UK has committed acts of (de facto) shameful collaboration with Stalin, such as the forceful and brutal "repatriation" of Cossacks to the USSR where they faced certain death. To quote Wikipedia, "On 1 June 1945 the UK placed 32,000 Cossacks (with their women and children) into trains and trucks and delivered them to the Red Army for repatriation to the Soviets [...] most Cossacks were sent to the gulags in far northern Russia and Siberia, and many died"). This was an enormous tragedy and human rights violation, comparable to what deporting thousands of North Korean refugees back to North Korea today would be. The Cossacks knew it was a death sentence, and they resisted, but obviously in vain. In the words of Julius Epstein (after Wikipedia again): "The first to commit suicide, by hanging, was the Cossack editor Evgenij Tarruski. The second was General Silkin, who shot himself...The Cossacks refused to board the trucks. British soldiers [armed] with pistols and clubs began using their clubs, aiming at the heads of the prisoners. They first dragged the men out of the crowd, and threw them into the trucks. The men jumped out. They beat them again, and threw them onto the floor of the trucks. Again, they jumped out. The British then hit them with rifle butts until they lay unconscious, and threw them, like sacks of potatoes, in the trucks." No British Jews have ever been deported to the Third Reich. And this certainly may add to the sense of contempt for Stalin, as the Soviet dictator sort of corrupted British politics making the UK an accomplice in a way Hitler never managed to. > I suspect this is as or more likely a result of his [Hitler's] abundant comic depictions as it is the characterisation as a hero-like figure manfully struggling against inevitability. That's an alternative explanation, sure (although personally I tend to doubt it)
stephen_g 4y ago
Maybe they thought it looked bad… But it was only 1940 when he wrote the essay, so at that point a lot of Hitler’s crimes would not yet have been known in Britain, and a lot of them were not yet even in full swing. So he’s looking from a very different perspective to us who know about the holocaust and the other shocking things the Nazis did.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Barrin92 4y ago

That's too charitable. It's a rhetorical tool that Orwell uses to invoke a sort of comradery with the reader because it lends itself to the largely anti-establishment points he tried to get across. It's the old Etonian going "I'm one of you guys" which has a long tradition in British political rhetoric.

sillysaurusx 4y ago
So? You say it like it’s a bad thing to use rhetoric. But even pg has his own sharp set of rhetorical tools.
- Barrin92 4y ago
  it's a bad thing to mistake rhetorical skill for profundity. The same is true for pg. Most of what he writes is trite but he's popular because he's mastered the skill of talking to his audience in a tone that has convinced them they're all secret geniuses with access to forbidden knowledge. If Orwell was alive today, he'd probably have a thriving substack. In reality much of Orwell's output was the result of his personal feud with Stalinism, deeply conventional and elitist, and not that deep, and it's not surprising that he is today probably the most mindlessly-quoted writer around.
  - magpi3 4y ago
    Do you really thing a book like 1984 is "not that deep"?
    - adventured 4y ago
      1984 is a particularly shallow book. It borders on being so simplistic as to cater to a teen equivalent crowd intellectually. It'd be deep for a 12 year old reading it for the first time, maybe. It's a cartoonish dystopia, laughably absurd in structure; although it gets his points across, which is obviously important. Orwell paints the kind of fantasy dystopia one might envision if one knew absolutely nothing about totalitarianism firsthand. Its popularity over the decades owes primarily to being shallow, simplistic. People that otherwise can't or won't approach complex ideas can read 1984 and get it. It's also not very original, even Ayn Rand took a shot at the premise a decade before Orwell with her book Anthem (1984 is a better book however).

mhh__ 4y ago

Orwell's writing is such a palate cleanser compared to (say) the continental philosophers of not very long after him.