lmao he probably lived to watch czechoslovakia hit the communism button
edit: apparently the nazis named him the second most wanted person in czechia? but didnt realize he died of pneumonia during the occupation. his brother however was caught and died in the Bergen Belsen camp near the end of the war :\
the thing in his wiki page "inspired by american pragmatic liberalism" is eyebrow raising. He seems good generally but very anti-communist and of that intellectual class that Orwell belongs to, the one that saw communism and nazism as the same thing. Which turned out not so great for his nation in the end. Didn't even the liberal leaders say they would face Germany and the Entente's wrath so long as Stalin was willing to fight alongside them?
yes i just read his discussion on why he isnt a communist and its mostly gibberish. it was also written in 1924 so no one had yet seen the receipts of communism in action yet. he says he cares so much for the poor but offers no solutions. he says the communists act like they care for the poor but are like him, they offer no solutions. but what he does acknowledge is the communists certainly do destroy the previous order that impoverished people, though he believes they would just end up the same. but of course, no receipts yet for communist leadership because russia was still mired in conflict. he would also complain about how communists kept saying 'wait 2 more years or 4 more years' to poor people, saying that even waiting that long is a travesty. but obviously that wasnt being fixed in that timeframe by the capitalist government, right? the capitalist government never would even give a timeframe!
heres one of the stupidest quotes:
I have already said that real poverty is no institution but a disaster. You can reverse all orders but you will not prevent human beings from strokes of bad luck, from sickness, from the suffering of hunger and cold, from the need of a helpful hand. Do whatever you like, disaster presents human beings with a moral, not a social task. The language of communism is hard; it does not talk of the values of sympathy, willingness, help and human solidarity; it says with self-confidence that it is not sentimental. But this lack of sentimentality is the worst thing for me, since I am just as sentimental as any maid, as any fool, as any decent person is; only rogues and demagogues are not sentimental. Apart from sentimental reasons you will not hand a glass of water to your neighbor; rational motives will not even bring you to help and raise a person who has slipped.
Jesus that is undiscernible from a modern libertarian or Vaush or something. "doesn't talk of the values of solidarity"? The Soviets put solidarity in every other word. "Moral, not social task" for a playwright he sure does seem to not know how to use words or at least is unwilling to define terms.
I can see the "pragmatic liberalism" which is to say Progressive Era American politics, in which you see social ills and human suffering as individual moral failings that those endowed with wealth and status are responsible for helping out a bit thus making them enlightened. Andrew Carnegie did lots of donations in my home of Pittsburgh, he gave a decent helping hand at times and genuinely seemed to want to bring "culture" to the poor......he also murdered strikers, caused their abject poverty, and saw misery as a test for him personally and morally and not a problem he caused. It's what is aggravating about the progressive era, you have houses set up for "at risk women" for instance, but they really served to shame single mothers and "fix" the poor (ie the people who are poor) instead of fixing poverty. Settlement Houses played a massive role in gentrification and embodied the sentimentality fetish that views suffering from the pov of the middle class or higher taking pity, never from that of the workers themselves
Sadly the playwright was an anti-communist dick.
lmao he probably lived to watch czechoslovakia hit the communism button
edit: apparently the nazis named him the second most wanted person in czechia? but didnt realize he died of pneumonia during the occupation. his brother however was caught and died in the Bergen Belsen camp near the end of the war :\
the thing in his wiki page "inspired by american pragmatic liberalism" is eyebrow raising. He seems good generally but very anti-communist and of that intellectual class that Orwell belongs to, the one that saw communism and nazism as the same thing. Which turned out not so great for his nation in the end. Didn't even the liberal leaders say they would face Germany and the Entente's wrath so long as Stalin was willing to fight alongside them?
yes i just read his discussion on why he isnt a communist and its mostly gibberish. it was also written in 1924 so no one had yet seen the receipts of communism in action yet. he says he cares so much for the poor but offers no solutions. he says the communists act like they care for the poor but are like him, they offer no solutions. but what he does acknowledge is the communists certainly do destroy the previous order that impoverished people, though he believes they would just end up the same. but of course, no receipts yet for communist leadership because russia was still mired in conflict. he would also complain about how communists kept saying 'wait 2 more years or 4 more years' to poor people, saying that even waiting that long is a travesty. but obviously that wasnt being fixed in that timeframe by the capitalist government, right? the capitalist government never would even give a timeframe!
heres one of the stupidest quotes:
Jesus that is undiscernible from a modern libertarian or Vaush or something. "doesn't talk of the values of solidarity"? The Soviets put solidarity in every other word. "Moral, not social task" for a playwright he sure does seem to not know how to use words or at least is unwilling to define terms.
I can see the "pragmatic liberalism" which is to say Progressive Era American politics, in which you see social ills and human suffering as individual moral failings that those endowed with wealth and status are responsible for helping out a bit thus making them enlightened. Andrew Carnegie did lots of donations in my home of Pittsburgh, he gave a decent helping hand at times and genuinely seemed to want to bring "culture" to the poor......he also murdered strikers, caused their abject poverty, and saw misery as a test for him personally and morally and not a problem he caused. It's what is aggravating about the progressive era, you have houses set up for "at risk women" for instance, but they really served to shame single mothers and "fix" the poor (ie the people who are poor) instead of fixing poverty. Settlement Houses played a massive role in gentrification and embodied the sentimentality fetish that views suffering from the pov of the middle class or higher taking pity, never from that of the workers themselves