From: slider@anashram.com

Seventy-five years ago, in August 1946, George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” was published in the United States. It was a huge success, with over a
half-million copies sold in its first year. “Animal Farm” was followed three years later by an even bigger success: Orwell’s dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four.”

In the years since, Orwell’s writing has left an indelible mark on
American thought and culture. Sales of “Animal Farm” and “Nineteen Eighty-Four” jumped in 2013 after the whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked confidential National Security Agency documents. And “Nineteen
Eighty-Four” rose to the top of Amazon’s best-sellers list after Donald Trump’s Presidential Inauguration in 2017.

As a philosophy professor, I’m interested in the continuing relevance of Orwell’s ideas, including those on totalitarianism and socialism.

https://theconversation.com/orwells-ideas-remain-relevant-75-years-after-animal-farm-was-published-165431

Early career

George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Blair. Born in 1903 in colonial
India, Blair later moved to England, where he attended elite schools on scholarships. After finishing school, he joined the British civil service, working in Burma, now Myanmar. At age 24, Orwell returned to England to
become a writer.

Disinformation is dangerous. We fight it with facts and expertise

During the 1930s, Orwell had modest success as an essayist, journalist and novelist. He also served as a volunteer soldier with a left-wing militia
group that fought on behalf of the Spanish Republic during the Spanish
Civil War. During the conflict, Orwell experienced how propaganda could
shape political narratives through observing inaccurate reporting of
events he experienced firsthand.

Orwell later summarized the purpose of his writing from roughly the
Spanish Civil War onward: “Every line of serious work I have written since 1936 has been, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism.”

Orwell did not specify in that passage what he meant by either
totalitarianism or democratic socialism, but some of his other works
clarify how he understood those terms.

What is totalitarianism?

For Orwell, totalitarianism was a political order focused on power and
control. The totalitarian attitude is exemplified by the antagonist,
O'Brien, in “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” The fictional O'Brien is a powerful government official who uses torture and manipulation to gain power over
the thoughts and actions of the protagonist, Winston Smith. Significantly, O'Brien treats his desire for power as an end in itself. O'Brien
represents power for power’s sake.

Much of Orwell’s keenest insights concern what totalitarianism is incompatible with. In his 1941 essay “The Lion and the Unicorn,” Orwell writes of “The totalitarian idea that there is no such thing as law, there
is only power … .” In other words, laws can limit a ruler’s power. Totalitarianism seeks to obliterate the limits of law through the
uninhibited exercise of power.

Similarly, in his 1942 essay “Looking Back on the Spanish War,” Orwell argues that totalitarianism must deny that there are neutral facts and objective truth. Orwell identifies liberty and truth as “safeguards” against totalitarianism. The exercise of liberty and the recognition of
truth are actions incompatible with the total centralized control that totalitarianism requires.

Orwell understood that totalitarianism could be found on the political
right and left. For Orwell, both Nazism and Communism were totalitarian.

Orwell’s work, in my view, challenges us to resist permitting leaders to engage in totalitarian behavior, regardless of political affiliation. It
also reminds us that some of our best tools for resisting totalitarianism
are to tell truths and to preserve liberty.

What is democratic socialism?

In his 1937 book “The Road to Wigan Pier,” Orwell writes that socialism means “justice and liberty.” The justice he refers to goes beyond mere economic justice. It also includes social and political justice.

Orwell elaborates on what he means by socialism in “The Lion and the Unicorn.” According to him, socialism requires “approximate equality of incomes (it need be no more than approximate), political democracy, and abolition of all hereditary privileges, especially in education.”

In fleshing out what he means by “approximate equality of incomes,” Orwell later says in the same essay that income equality shouldn’t be greater
than a ratio of about 10 to 1. In its modern-day interpretation, this
suggests Orwell could find it ethical for a CEO to make 10 times more than their employees, but not to make 300 times more, as the average CEO in the United States does today.

But in describing socialism, Orwell discusses more than economic
inequality. Orwell’s writings indicate that his preferred conception of socialism also requires “political democracy.” As scholar David Dwan has noted, Orwell distinguished “two concepts of democracy.” The first concept refers to political power resting with the common people. The second is
about having classical liberal freedoms, like freedom of thought. Both
notions of democracy seem relevant to what Orwell means by democratic socialism. For Orwell, democratic socialism is a political order that
provides social and economic equality while also preserving robust
personal freedom.

I believe Orwell’s description of democratic socialism and his recognition that there are various forms socialism can take remain important today
given that American political dialogue about socialism often overlooks
much of the nuance Orwell brings to the subject. For example, Americans
often confuse socialism with communism. Orwell helps clarify the
difference between these terms.

With high levels of economic inequality, political assaults on truth and renewed concerns about totalitarianism, Orwell’s ideas remain as relevant
now as they were 75 years ago.

### - only had to read '1984' a couple of times (at age 14) to have
wallyworld all wrapped up in a nutshell, 'animal farm' (a few years later) further clearly clarifying the matter of how things actually ARE, in
reality, for everyone alive today...

people like thang (and chris too) being typically dismissive of such
important information in-favour of living in some kinda 'bubble of
reality' of their own, one not even their own but some kinda cheap/shared
one so typical of cults? (one-size fits all heh)

i mean, you wanna confuse socialism with communism then that's YOUR
problem pal hah, no doubt you'll soon be banging down the doors of the
capitol building too AND feeling perfectly justified in the process lol
(and then pinched for being a total ass of course) for SUCH is the PRICE
of... ignorance??

just can't live like that myself is all... painful as reality often is,
it's still better than living in some shite bubble of reality wherein what
YOU opine is all-important (no debate iow) and everyone else is a cunt?? riiiight...

fuck that... would personally rather live on the street with the bums in
abject poverty, amongst people who at least KNOW what Reality is (because they're forced to live it, i.e., the poor) and who thus deal with it on a
daily basis, than in some glorified ivory tower of superiority... dreaming their fuckin' lives away, more often than not quite selfishly and
spitefully if not despicably like the trumps of this world, yuk! a totally wasted life, that in the end didn't add-up to even a goddamned hill of
beans either for themselves or anyone else!?

fuck that...

i.e., have prolly been scared in one way or another all my life?

but have never been a goddamned coward...

dealin' with Reality takes balls.

;)

Ps. this message comes with free culo-expanders to help ya'll take yer' goddamned heads outta yo' goddamned assholes for once LOL ! :)))

(like: thaaat'll beee the daaay? ahaha...)

ok then, back under ya's go... duh

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)