4 ms·

This takedown of 1984 and Orwell in general was really good IMO: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-overrated-novel-of-the-20th-century/answer/Alex-Johnston

This takedown of 1984 and Orwell in general was really good IMO: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-overrated-novel-of-the-20th-century/answer/Alex-Johnston-39 https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-overrated-novel-of-th...

OkayPhysicist 3y ago
"Really good" is a baffling take on a post that accuses Orwell of being "extraordinarily uninterested in socialism" despite voluntarily joining and fighting in a socialist revolution. If picking up a rifle and traveling to a foreign country to participate in their socialist revolution isn't enough to bury any accusations of not being a true believer, I can't imagine what is.
- Lacusch 3y ago
  No true Scotsman in action.
- mhitza 3y ago
  While I haven't read yet Orwell's Ode to Catalonia, I highly recommend the movie Libertarias, a fictional movie based on same period, focused on a feminist militant anarchist group https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarias https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarias
  - cassepipe 3y ago
    Ken Loach's Land and Freedom is worth mentionning too. Loosely bases on the book
- antod 3y ago
  > If picking up a rifle and traveling to a foreign country to participate in their socialist revolution isn't enough to bury any accusations of not being a true believer, I can't imagine what is. I had the impression that he went more for fighting fascism than fighting for a socialist revolution.
- vinceguidry 3y ago
  The Spanish Civil War was certainly not a 'socialist revolution', even though all the communist factions fought on the same side. It was more akin to the French Revolution where the goal was to set up a republican form of government. This is kind of like saying the Democratic Party of the US is a socialist party because socialists caucus with and support them. Socialist government in Spain was never on the table, so calling it a socialist / Marxist revolution is just silly. More to the point, Blair thought he needed socialist credentials to get invited into the war, but couldn't actually get them because the socialists didn't trust him, looks like for very good reason. He got in instead using his Labour contacts, which was far more conventionally liberal. He really didn't care at all about socialism, he just hated fascism. 1984 wasn't anti-socialism, he actually had very little to say about it, all his criticisms were aimed at fascist totalitarianism, IngSoc was only socialist in name. Nothing owned and controlled by the people, everything controlled by the government.
webnrrd2k 3y ago
Thanks, that was a good read, very much in the best tradition of YC.
acatnamedjoe 3y ago
So many critiques of 1984 seem to boil down to "I'd really like 1984 to be a political treatise in favour of my ideology, but it isn't!" All of the things this article says are bad about 1984 are the things that make it a good novel: - It has a complex main character who is deeply flawed and far from an ideal revolutionary. - It isn't especially concerned with accurately modelling a plausible political system, and instead describes an emotive representation of the author's fears for the future. - Many of it's themes are aesthetic or subjective. - It doesn't try to offer a concrete alternative, giving the whole thing a sense of hopelessness.
- vinceguidry 3y ago
  It's a terrible novel. It's iconic, I'll give you that, but there are lots of badly-written, yet iconic books. (Looking at you Bukowski) The main character isn't complex at all. There's no depth at all to Winston. He's not a revolutionary in any fashion whatsoever. I didn't realize the extent to which he was a complete author-insert until I read Johnston's essay though. I wasn't expecting a political treatise, but I would have liked a better thought out world with characters that have actual motivations. The only character with any kind of motivation at all in the whole book is O'Brian.
  - acatnamedjoe 3y ago
    >The main character isn't complex at all. There's no depth at all to Winston. Of course everyone has their own response to any piece of art but I find this criticism very surprising. Even the "takedown" article you posted pretty clearly shows Winston to be a complex character (especially in relation to the role he is cast in): "From the very beginning of his supposed revolt against the Party, Winston simply assumes that he will not be victorious" "Winston’s revolt against the situation is based in large part on his sense of physical disgust with icky surroundings, far more (I would argue) than it’s based on any coherent ideological or humanitarian critique... Winston is repelled more by the crappy cigarettes, and the fact that people use ugly English, and the malodorous sweatiness of Parsons, and the nastiness of the food, and the forgetting of nursery rhymes, than he is by the way the system he lives in is forcing people to live as slaves in terror of death and torture." "Winston’s sexuality is really weird, mixed up as it is with his general uninterest in other people, his contempt for the Party and a general dislike of women" "The closest Winston comes to thinking that there is any hope of positive social change is when he thinks about the proles; but he doesn’t know any proles, he doesn’t like being around them, he thinks they smell (of course), he doesn’t believe that they are capable of independent thought or action, and what ‘faith’ he has in them is shown to be completely groundless and abstract" "As would-be rebels go, Winston is strikingly inactive and incurious. When Winston and Julia form their little two-person cell, do they talk to each other about the world they live in, and try to figure out its true nature, and what, if anything, they can do to shake the system? No. They have sex and drink black market coffee." Seems like a pretty complex guy to me, and much more interesting as a character than the ideologically motivated revolutionary that Johnston seems to want him to be.

OkayPhysicist 3y ago

"Really good" is a baffling take on a post that accuses Orwell of being "extraordinarily uninterested in socialism" despite voluntarily joining and fighting in a socialist revolution. If picking up a rifle and traveling to a foreign country to participate in their socialist revolution isn't enough to bury any accusations of not being a true believer, I can't imagine what is.

Lacusch 3y ago
No true Scotsman in action.
mhitza 3y ago
While I haven't read yet Orwell's Ode to Catalonia, I highly recommend the movie Libertarias, a fictional movie based on same period, focused on a feminist militant anarchist group https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarias https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarias
- cassepipe 3y ago
  Ken Loach's Land and Freedom is worth mentionning too. Loosely bases on the book
antod 3y ago
> If picking up a rifle and traveling to a foreign country to participate in their socialist revolution isn't enough to bury any accusations of not being a true believer, I can't imagine what is. I had the impression that he went more for fighting fascism than fighting for a socialist revolution.
vinceguidry 3y ago
The Spanish Civil War was certainly not a 'socialist revolution', even though all the communist factions fought on the same side. It was more akin to the French Revolution where the goal was to set up a republican form of government. This is kind of like saying the Democratic Party of the US is a socialist party because socialists caucus with and support them. Socialist government in Spain was never on the table, so calling it a socialist / Marxist revolution is just silly. More to the point, Blair thought he needed socialist credentials to get invited into the war, but couldn't actually get them because the socialists didn't trust him, looks like for very good reason. He got in instead using his Labour contacts, which was far more conventionally liberal. He really didn't care at all about socialism, he just hated fascism. 1984 wasn't anti-socialism, he actually had very little to say about it, all his criticisms were aimed at fascist totalitarianism, IngSoc was only socialist in name. Nothing owned and controlled by the people, everything controlled by the government.

webnrrd2k 3y ago

Thanks, that was a good read, very much in the best tradition of YC.

acatnamedjoe 3y ago

So many critiques of 1984 seem to boil down to "I'd really like 1984 to be a political treatise in favour of my ideology, but it isn't!" All of the things this article says are bad about 1984 are the things that make it a good novel: - It has a complex main character who is deeply flawed and far from an ideal revolutionary. - It isn't especially concerned with accurately modelling a plausible political system, and instead describes an emotive representation of the author's fears for the future. - Many of it's themes are aesthetic or subjective. - It doesn't try to offer a concrete alternative, giving the whole thing a sense of hopelessness.

vinceguidry 3y ago
It's a terrible novel. It's iconic, I'll give you that, but there are lots of badly-written, yet iconic books. (Looking at you Bukowski) The main character isn't complex at all. There's no depth at all to Winston. He's not a revolutionary in any fashion whatsoever. I didn't realize the extent to which he was a complete author-insert until I read Johnston's essay though. I wasn't expecting a political treatise, but I would have liked a better thought out world with characters that have actual motivations. The only character with any kind of motivation at all in the whole book is O'Brian.
- acatnamedjoe 3y ago
  >The main character isn't complex at all. There's no depth at all to Winston. Of course everyone has their own response to any piece of art but I find this criticism very surprising. Even the "takedown" article you posted pretty clearly shows Winston to be a complex character (especially in relation to the role he is cast in): "From the very beginning of his supposed revolt against the Party, Winston simply assumes that he will not be victorious" "Winston’s revolt against the situation is based in large part on his sense of physical disgust with icky surroundings, far more (I would argue) than it’s based on any coherent ideological or humanitarian critique... Winston is repelled more by the crappy cigarettes, and the fact that people use ugly English, and the malodorous sweatiness of Parsons, and the nastiness of the food, and the forgetting of nursery rhymes, than he is by the way the system he lives in is forcing people to live as slaves in terror of death and torture." "Winston’s sexuality is really weird, mixed up as it is with his general uninterest in other people, his contempt for the Party and a general dislike of women" "The closest Winston comes to thinking that there is any hope of positive social change is when he thinks about the proles; but he doesn’t know any proles, he doesn’t like being around them, he thinks they smell (of course), he doesn’t believe that they are capable of independent thought or action, and what ‘faith’ he has in them is shown to be completely groundless and abstract" "As would-be rebels go, Winston is strikingly inactive and incurious. When Winston and Julia form their little two-person cell, do they talk to each other about the world they live in, and try to figure out its true nature, and what, if anything, they can do to shake the system? No. They have sex and drink black market coffee." Seems like a pretty complex guy to me, and much more interesting as a character than the ideologically motivated revolutionary that Johnston seems to want him to be.