I wouldn't say so, he hated Stalin just as much as he hated Franco and he had no time for "intellectuals" either. Orwell was on the side of social democracy, so probably left-leaning, but I think he would have favored any government that embraced those principles. He would have despised Elon Musk and his "tech bros". I'd even go as far as to say Musk and Trump might have inspired a sequel to Animal Farm.
Orwell was undoubtedly a man of the Left, a libertarian socialist who often stood as a solitary figure against the conformity of mass working-class politics, whether in the form of social democratic states or Soviet-style totalitarianism. I’m not sure who first coined the phrase “1984 is an instruction manual”, but it’s frequently used by those critical of modern political developments and responses to the pandemic. It’s often cited by people who have probably never read Orwell's work, particularly by commentators and viewers in their comments on platforms like GB News and Talk TV - outlets that Orwell, as a staunch critic of authoritarianism, would likely have despised.
@@-tom-8720 I’d agree if you mean Orwell would’ve strongly opposed the identity politics seen on both the left and the right. His writings show him to have been deeply concerned with issues of individual freedom, social justice, and the dangers of authoritarianism. He’d likely to have been critical of the way identity politics often divides people into rigid groups, focusing on labels and categories rather than addressing the broader systemic issues of inequality and power. Orwell's emphasis on truth, freedom of thought, and scepticism of any form of ideological extremism suggests that he’d have found both left-wing and right-wing identity politics to be counterproductive to the goal of a more just and egalitarian society. Orwell would also have despised mainstream media because, in his view, political language often distorts truth to manipulate public opinion. In *_Politics and the English Language_* , he criticises how vague and deceptive language is used to obscure reality, a tactic he believed was employed by politicians and the media to maintain control and avoid accountability.
I believe you got it right. He's socially conservative and economically libertarian socialist or anarcho-syndicalist. It's with whom he was fighting in the war, against fascists, but also liberals and communists/stalinists. I guess today he probably would be a social democrat, mostly because there isn't any democrat socialist anymore. Maybe Labour in the UK has some of that trend. The problem is today, politics is not just about economics but also social engineering. So in the end, I don't believe he would fit any political party today because all the left is primarily socially "progressive" which he would have hated. It's pretty much what he meant by IngSoc. They care more about having their place at the big table than taking care of the poor, just like the pigs in animal farm. It's true as well for all the others he fought against. They all want forced labor in some way and despise the poor and want to be rich themselves and they want the freedom to do so in their own way. So it's why they all try to use it and coopt him. They can use it against their real enemies. So a guy like Musk is closer to be right to appropriate him compared to a liberal or a communist, but it still misses the point entirely. The reason he does not attack fascists/classical liberals in his book is because he probably finds them irredeemable and the past. It's taken for granted they suck and lost the war.
quoting Orwell might be used to 'pull the wool over people's eyes' but most folks (like me) probably refer to him because I don't really understand his ideas in depth. I am not trying to fool or silence people - it is a way I have had of thinking - which I am learning is not adequate! This video has been very helpful in that regard.
I'll never get the obsession over "claiming" Orwell. It doesn't matter that he was a socialist when a lot of what he says is something anyone that isn't a totalitarian and promotes democracy can agree on. As Orwell says, while all his work is either directly or indirectly for socialism, that doesn't mean it's ONLY applicable for socialism. A lot of his writing was just about making language and communication between the "political" and the "non-political" better. His essay Politics and the English Language (my personal favourite) is far more about criticising poor political language, and just language in general, than any explicit ideological claim. And its this claim that is at the heart of 1984. What 1984, that essay, and many other works share in common is that they are talking about topics people from various political backgrounds can agree on. Most of his work shouldn't be seen as somehow exclusive to any one set of ideologies, and I think it's against his own beliefs to view it as such. One of his works that is specifically targeted towards a specific ideology, The Road to Wigan Pier, heavily criticised much of the socialist left for viewing politics this way, and it's one of the reasons he argues that the working class for whom he believes socialism is in the interests of don't support socialism. The moment you make Orwell a writer for socialists, rather than a socialist when was a writer, you misunderstand how Orwell views politics. He was never a writer for socialists, he was a writer for people and wrote ideas he believed in, and while they all strengthened democratic socialism, they did not exclusively strengthen democratic socialism.
Most people usually "use" his name because he made a lot of good points, made them well, and kept them incredibly accessible. The fact even secondary school students can understand the point he was making in 1984 while that point was still complex is amazing. While some absolutely "claim" him, most don't. Most simply cite his work as strengthening a point they want to make, and that can happen a lot due to the nature of his work being inclusive rather than exclusive. On top of an obsession of "claiming" Orwell for one side or the other, there's also this obsession - such as this video - to present Orwell's work as only being applicable to a socialist world view because he was socialist. But as I argued, Orwell was not a writer for socialists, but a socialist that was a writer. And being that, and one that made his ideas and writings incredibly inclusive (the point of Politics and the English Language, for example), means people from across the spectrum can cite him. The implication that it's wrong for non-socialists to cite him, as this video veers towards, is wrong in my mind and fundamentally misunderstands Orwell's mindset as a writer.
Excellent point. Here’s an example from a different writer to amplify it. La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) wrote many maxims. His most famous is probably “Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue”. Anyone can invoke that maxim without having to agree with that 17th century author’s entire world-view.
@@georgesdelatour Yes but then you don't go around and claim the hypocrites are all on the side of whatever La Rochefoucauld was, which is what the people using it are doing. It's just pretty sick. But of course if all you want to talk about is hypocrisy, you can quote him. But even then, when people like Musk or Republicans use it, it's mostly to promote what they call "free speech" and anti-government sentiment. They miss the point on free speech because his whole idea in 1984 is that speech is changed so much, people don't even have the mental capacity to have a divergent thought. Clearly it's not their case, so it does not apply. Or it is their case and they don't recognize it. They believe it's Big Brother that forces himself upon people while it's the complete opposite. People want him to protect them from those other imaginary enemies. Musk literally is Big Brother and it's what Republicans cheer. They believe socialism is helping the poor, so are against it and they confuse it with Big Brother because of their new speak. So being rich now becomes the proof you are not Big Brother and are in the Party and part of the proles while it's the opposite of the truth. It's why context matter in that case. They put Orwell on it's head in order to deny him and do what he considered a dystopia. Like La Rochefoucauld would say, it's hypocrisy.
@freewyvern707That was my thought through much of the video. The idea of "claiming" Orwell, or genuinely believing he was being prophetic and using some amazing thought process to correctly foretell the future has never crossed my mind. I only ever use Orwell quotations as a shorthand as most people in the UK currently have a basic understanding of the broad concepts. When I describe GB "News" (definitely not a news channel OFCOM, they cross their heart and swear it's true), or some of the speeches made by Farage, Trump, or even Musk as "two minute hate", I'm not saying that Orwell predicted it (AH of Germany did the same nearly a century ago). I'm just using a useful shorthand to describe focusing a group on hating a specific target so much that it creates a visceral reaction. Just as when I say "In the end, the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it", or "Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia." I'm not saying that he predicted a change to maths or that one side or the other are the only ones to push lies. It's a shorthand for being told lies so big, so obvious, and yet being expected to believe it. It's up there with the more modern "Alternative Facts". Sometimes a quotation isn't "claiming" the quoted person, or attaching a higher more universal truth to them. It's just an easy way to get a point across. 😁
"George Orwell's legacy is far from perfect. Modern scholarship critiques of Orwell's views on empire, race, class and gender." That's the type of nonsense that Orwell attributed to "sandal wearing cranks" in the The Road to Wigan Pier. Middle class gibberish, detached from reality and the views of working class. The Spanishcivil war didn't influence 1984 but the Animal Farm because he experienced first hand how the communist and Soviet Russia was trying to hijack the republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. 1984 was influenced more by the 180 turn conducted by the British ruling class, including the media, in regards to Soviet Union during WW2. When suddenly Joseph Stalin from from being a murderous psychopath became a friendly "Uncle Joe" and the NKVD troops conducting ethnic and political cleansing became "just like us". The left claim Orwell because he was a democratic socialist. The right claim him because he spent most of his life critiqueing what he considered distortions and corruptions of socialism. By doing so they both miss the point. The left that claim him don't understand that he was critiqueing them. The right don't understand that he was critiqueing not the socialism itself but it's corrupted forms because he hoped for true socialism to trive. This piece is actually an example of that.
Orwell claimed 1984 was not an anti-leftist novel. He supported the 1945 Attlee government, which, at the time, probably felt like the most left wing government the UK had ever had. This claim isn’t straightforward. In 1984 the Ingsoc regime definitely came to power as a leftist Party. We know this because we’re given the Ingsoc regime’s version of the “ancien regime” it overthrew. It’s the most vulgar-Marxist, cartoon description of Capitalism imaginable. So, is Ingsoc English Bolshevism? It seems to be. Big Brother is a Stalin-like figure, Emmanuel Goldstein a Trotsky-like figure. Orwell seems to be saying that leftist revolutions don’t necessarily result in the kind of society desired by leftists…
8:15 this is what from the religious position is an object of worship. The history from listening to shieks, after the flood people started the worship of great leaders. Inshrining their graves and making images of them. Abraham was the son of the high priest, he destroyed the idles pointing out they have no power. Clearly, they must have had very good ideas. Ghandi is not a god, muhat is a title of worship. This is pointing out the connection between the political religious methods of control over a population and the modern day equivalent. Thank you, another thing people worship that I will be careful about sourcing and second hand content surrounding Orwellian in conversation.
Yes and his wife wrote an essay 1984 15 years before Orwell also it was her idiology that infuenced him and she was in Spain but he fails to mention her in his Ode to Caledonia.
Does George Orwell belong to one side of politics?
I wouldn't say so, he hated Stalin just as much as he hated Franco and he had no time for "intellectuals" either. Orwell was on the side of social democracy, so probably left-leaning, but I think he would have favored any government that embraced those principles.
He would have despised Elon Musk and his "tech bros". I'd even go as far as to say Musk and Trump might have inspired a sequel to Animal Farm.
Musk is a friend of big brother if not big brother himself.
Orwell was undoubtedly a man of the Left, a libertarian socialist who often stood as a solitary figure against the conformity of mass working-class politics, whether in the form of social democratic states or Soviet-style totalitarianism. I’m not sure who first coined the phrase “1984 is an instruction manual”, but it’s frequently used by those critical of modern political developments and responses to the pandemic. It’s often cited by people who have probably never read Orwell's work, particularly by commentators and viewers in their comments on platforms like GB News and Talk TV - outlets that Orwell, as a staunch critic of authoritarianism, would likely have despised.
As he would despise the modern Left and all mainstream news
@@-tom-8720 I’d agree if you mean Orwell would’ve strongly opposed the identity politics seen on both the left and the right. His writings show him to have been deeply concerned with issues of individual freedom, social justice, and the dangers of authoritarianism. He’d likely to have been critical of the way identity politics often divides people into rigid groups, focusing on labels and categories rather than addressing the broader systemic issues of inequality and power. Orwell's emphasis on truth, freedom of thought, and scepticism of any form of ideological extremism suggests that he’d have found both left-wing and right-wing identity politics to be counterproductive to the goal of a more just and egalitarian society.
Orwell would also have despised mainstream media because, in his view, political language often distorts truth to manipulate public opinion. In *_Politics and the English Language_* , he criticises how vague and deceptive language is used to obscure reality, a tactic he believed was employed by politicians and the media to maintain control and avoid accountability.
Met alot of Trump fans who quote 1984. Asked them the main characters name, not one of them knew! 🤣🤣🤣
It's Winston. MAGA!
They don't read books.
I believe you got it right. He's socially conservative and economically libertarian socialist or anarcho-syndicalist.
It's with whom he was fighting in the war, against fascists, but also liberals and communists/stalinists.
I guess today he probably would be a social democrat, mostly because there isn't any democrat socialist anymore. Maybe Labour in the UK has some of that trend.
The problem is today, politics is not just about economics but also social engineering. So in the end, I don't believe he would fit any political party today because all the left is primarily socially "progressive" which he would have hated. It's pretty much what he meant by IngSoc. They care more about having their place at the big table than taking care of the poor, just like the pigs in animal farm. It's true as well for all the others he fought against. They all want forced labor in some way and despise the poor and want to be rich themselves and they want the freedom to do so in their own way.
So it's why they all try to use it and coopt him. They can use it against their real enemies. So a guy like Musk is closer to be right to appropriate him compared to a liberal or a communist, but it still misses the point entirely. The reason he does not attack fascists/classical liberals in his book is because he probably finds them irredeemable and the past. It's taken for granted they suck and lost the war.
quoting Orwell might be used to 'pull the wool over people's eyes' but most folks (like me) probably refer to him because I don't really understand his ideas in depth. I am not trying to fool or silence people - it is a way I have had of thinking - which I am learning is not adequate! This video has been very helpful in that regard.
I'll never get the obsession over "claiming" Orwell. It doesn't matter that he was a socialist when a lot of what he says is something anyone that isn't a totalitarian and promotes democracy can agree on.
As Orwell says, while all his work is either directly or indirectly for socialism, that doesn't mean it's ONLY applicable for socialism. A lot of his writing was just about making language and communication between the "political" and the "non-political" better.
His essay Politics and the English Language (my personal favourite) is far more about criticising poor political language, and just language in general, than any explicit ideological claim. And its this claim that is at the heart of 1984. What 1984, that essay, and many other works share in common is that they are talking about topics people from various political backgrounds can agree on.
Most of his work shouldn't be seen as somehow exclusive to any one set of ideologies, and I think it's against his own beliefs to view it as such. One of his works that is specifically targeted towards a specific ideology, The Road to Wigan Pier, heavily criticised much of the socialist left for viewing politics this way, and it's one of the reasons he argues that the working class for whom he believes socialism is in the interests of don't support socialism.
The moment you make Orwell a writer for socialists, rather than a socialist when was a writer, you misunderstand how Orwell views politics. He was never a writer for socialists, he was a writer for people and wrote ideas he believed in, and while they all strengthened democratic socialism, they did not exclusively strengthen democratic socialism.
A very interesting point! But I do think there is value in looking how people use Orwell’s name whether he would have liked it or not!
Most people usually "use" his name because he made a lot of good points, made them well, and kept them incredibly accessible. The fact even secondary school students can understand the point he was making in 1984 while that point was still complex is amazing.
While some absolutely "claim" him, most don't. Most simply cite his work as strengthening a point they want to make, and that can happen a lot due to the nature of his work being inclusive rather than exclusive.
On top of an obsession of "claiming" Orwell for one side or the other, there's also this obsession - such as this video - to present Orwell's work as only being applicable to a socialist world view because he was socialist.
But as I argued, Orwell was not a writer for socialists, but a socialist that was a writer. And being that, and one that made his ideas and writings incredibly inclusive (the point of Politics and the English Language, for example), means people from across the spectrum can cite him.
The implication that it's wrong for non-socialists to cite him, as this video veers towards, is wrong in my mind and fundamentally misunderstands Orwell's mindset as a writer.
Excellent point. Here’s an example from a different writer to amplify it. La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) wrote many maxims. His most famous is probably “Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue”. Anyone can invoke that maxim without having to agree with that 17th century author’s entire world-view.
@@georgesdelatour Yes but then you don't go around and claim the hypocrites are all on the side of whatever La Rochefoucauld was, which is what the people using it are doing. It's just pretty sick. But of course if all you want to talk about is hypocrisy, you can quote him.
But even then, when people like Musk or Republicans use it, it's mostly to promote what they call "free speech" and anti-government sentiment. They miss the point on free speech because his whole idea in 1984 is that speech is changed so much, people don't even have the mental capacity to have a divergent thought.
Clearly it's not their case, so it does not apply. Or it is their case and they don't recognize it. They believe it's Big Brother that forces himself upon people while it's the complete opposite. People want him to protect them from those other imaginary enemies. Musk literally is Big Brother and it's what Republicans cheer. They believe socialism is helping the poor, so are against it and they confuse it with Big Brother because of their new speak. So being rich now becomes the proof you are not Big Brother and are in the Party and part of the proles while it's the opposite of the truth.
It's why context matter in that case. They put Orwell on it's head in order to deny him and do what he considered a dystopia. Like La Rochefoucauld would say, it's hypocrisy.
@freewyvern707That was my thought through much of the video. The idea of "claiming" Orwell, or genuinely believing he was being prophetic and using some amazing thought process to correctly foretell the future has never crossed my mind.
I only ever use Orwell quotations as a shorthand as most people in the UK currently have a basic understanding of the broad concepts. When I describe GB "News" (definitely not a news channel OFCOM, they cross their heart and swear it's true), or some of the speeches made by Farage, Trump, or even Musk as "two minute hate", I'm not saying that Orwell predicted it (AH of Germany did the same nearly a century ago). I'm just using a useful shorthand to describe focusing a group on hating a specific target so much that it creates a visceral reaction.
Just as when I say "In the end, the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it", or "Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia." I'm not saying that he predicted a change to maths or that one side or the other are the only ones to push lies. It's a shorthand for being told lies so big, so obvious, and yet being expected to believe it. It's up there with the more modern "Alternative Facts".
Sometimes a quotation isn't "claiming" the quoted person, or attaching a higher more universal truth to them. It's just an easy way to get a point across. 😁
"George Orwell's legacy is far from perfect. Modern scholarship critiques of Orwell's views on empire, race, class and gender." That's the type of nonsense that Orwell attributed to "sandal wearing cranks" in the The Road to Wigan Pier. Middle class gibberish, detached from reality and the views of working class.
The Spanishcivil war didn't influence 1984 but the Animal Farm because he experienced first hand how the communist and Soviet Russia was trying to hijack the republican cause in the Spanish Civil War.
1984 was influenced more by the 180 turn conducted by the British ruling class, including the media, in regards to Soviet Union during WW2. When suddenly Joseph Stalin from from being a murderous psychopath became a friendly "Uncle Joe" and the NKVD troops conducting ethnic and political cleansing became "just like us".
The left claim Orwell because he was a democratic socialist. The right claim him because he spent most of his life critiqueing what he considered distortions and corruptions of socialism.
By doing so they both miss the point. The left that claim him don't understand that he was critiqueing them. The right don't understand that he was critiqueing not the socialism itself but it's corrupted forms because he hoped for true socialism to trive.
This piece is actually an example of that.
Thanks - an excellent educating and interesting perspective
Orwell claimed 1984 was not an anti-leftist novel. He supported the 1945 Attlee government, which, at the time, probably felt like the most left wing government the UK had ever had.
This claim isn’t straightforward. In 1984 the Ingsoc regime definitely came to power as a leftist Party. We know this because we’re given the Ingsoc regime’s version of the “ancien regime” it overthrew. It’s the most vulgar-Marxist, cartoon description of Capitalism imaginable. So, is Ingsoc English Bolshevism? It seems to be. Big Brother is a Stalin-like figure, Emmanuel Goldstein a Trotsky-like figure.
Orwell seems to be saying that leftist revolutions don’t necessarily result in the kind of society desired by leftists…
Which is true for any revolution
8:15 this is what from the religious position is an object of worship.
The history from listening to shieks, after the flood people started the worship of great leaders.
Inshrining their graves and making images of them.
Abraham was the son of the high priest, he destroyed the idles pointing out they have no power.
Clearly, they must have had very good ideas.
Ghandi is not a god, muhat is a title of worship.
This is pointing out the connection between the political religious methods of control over a population and the modern day equivalent.
Thank you, another thing people worship that I will be careful about sourcing and second hand content surrounding Orwellian in conversation.
Typical I paper now owned by the daily mail trying to suggest Orwell was right-wing 😂 laughable.
This video is obviously suggesting he should only be used by the left you fool
NO to Oceania.
5:21 they HAVE orchestrated a cover-up though. Absolutely disgusting that you would deny this. Gross.
Yes and his wife wrote an essay 1984 15 years before Orwell also it was her idiology that infuenced him and she was in Spain but he fails to mention her in his Ode to Caledonia.
I think your spell check is on the blink
Better to misuse him than to copy him like Starmer.
Orwell is a massively overrated writer.
Is this an ironic statement which references something I’ve missed, or is this a straight forward statement which you actually believe?!
@@g.p616 he was a hypocrite, they never make good writers
@@PeterPotnoodleoh, you mean he wasn't perfect?