I must thank you for an inadvertently delightful reading experience. I despised Orwell for his propaganda for the great crusade against Communism but now I get to despise him as an incompetent reader and essayist. The biggest guffaw of course had to come when Orwell thinks Swift meant us to accept the Houynhms as paragons. The notion that the detailed satire of the Court in the first parts of Gulliver's Travels is redolent of modern politics is wonderfully droll.
I suppose that he meant the Big-Endians and the Little-Endians. That's thoroughly entertaining farce in Swift, but the simple fact is that there are indeed real differences involved in political struggles, mostly over individual pelf and place. But sometimes not, which means the childish claim that politics is a waste of time is a thoroughly conservative position, advanced for those who want a strong government to carry out their preferred policies without wasting time convincing people. In general, if you denigrate "politicians" are time wasters, one need not worry about the maverick who tries to win by serving the majority of people. (Those people are hated and called demagogues and doing things for the majority regarded as, plainly, tyranny over the minority.)
The nitwits who wrote the note speculating why Orwell didn't use his regular pseudonym didn't notice that the essay wasn't entirely ironic in its title. Or that Orwell was offering a definition of "socialism" that might have been entirely acceptable to, well, pretty much anyone, including any bankers, generals and clergymen occasionally prone to sentimentality. Particularly sentimental bankers, generals and clergymen who thought a mundane concern for food, clothing, shelter, medicine and education was not nearly as important as brotherhood. Why ever would someone with a public reputation as a socialist ever consider floating such a balloon under another name?
The small minded nastiness of Orwell's defenders in the thread perfectly memorializes the little turd. 1984, with its picture of a monolithic and invincible Communist tyranny terrorizing its victims forever was of course refuted withn the decade. Nonetheless, 1984 was intended to provide a picture of the eternal horrors that Communism would bring. Somehow, through magical powers of subversion, the devastation of WWII would be wiped clean away and the dirty Reds would threaten to kill us all in our beds!
Justifying an antiCommunist crusade is exactly what Orwell meant his book to do. It was propaganda justifying the horrors of the antiCommunist crusade, because you know, it's an imperfect world full of shades of gray and all heroes are ambiguous and tough choices have to be made and we can live with it. Orwell was living up to the spirit of 1984 when he informed blacklisters who would be appropriate targets. Defending and promoting his hysterical drivel is defending and promoting the antiCommunist crusade it sought so hard to inspire, including the millions of deaths.
1984 was meant to be a portrait of a Communist regime. Orwell depicted it as just another warring empire, supposedly just like the German Empire and the old Russian Empire and the French Empire (but possibly not the British Empire, as I suspect nothing was too vile for the asshole.) That was his version of Big-Endism and Little-Endism, where the Communists weren't really menaced at all! It was just pointless ideological nonsense, covering up the essential identity of imperialism and Communism. 1984's admirers seem to have critical skills even less developed than Orwell, so maybe they don't realize this.
Of course, if that's the case, there's no need for 1984's pretense there's some metaphysical horror afoot, but only a fool or a child ever thought Orwell anything but a malicious hack. Historically, it was the Free World Orwell sought to warn against the demonic menace which made up phony enemies as justification for multitudinous invasions, attacks and savage wars. But the dread monster Communists whose wars, attacks and interventions can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Calling this absurdity the truth is itself a damned lie.
Praising 1984 is for the die hards bent on justifying the slaughters of millions. That's beyond creepy, into vile.
