" Orwell not only foresaw the communist victory (he saw that victory everywhere, in fact) but also foresaw that Russia and China would not form a monolithic bloc but would be deadly enemies. There, his own experience as a Leftist sectarian may have helped him. He had no Rightist superstitions concerning Leftists as unified and indistinguishable villains. He knew they would fight each other as fiercely over the most trifling points of doctrine as would the most pious of Christians."
Sometimes you gotta hand it to em lmao
[Orwell's] enemy was Stalin, and at the time that 1984 was published, Stalin had ruled the Soviet Union in a ribbreaking bear hug for twenty-five years, had survived a terrible war in which his nation suffered enormous losses and yet was now stronger than ever.
Beat me to it.
I'm so glad I was able to call out this book being shit way back when I read it in High School. The entire dystopian genre is kinda shit, come to think of it.
The only good dystopian novel is Lord of the Flies, change my mind.
George Orwell may have been a rat piece of shit who turned on everyone the second he got a chance and provided a little too much critical support when he should have been wiping his own ass, but it's hilarious to see Republican grifters use a socialist's work to prove their point
Except he shit on Bohemian socialists in Road to Wigan Pier, and he "LARPed" by charging a fascist outpost on the Aragon front.
How about not making stuff up that sounds good but is the opposite of reality
No he was full on anarchist and praised the complete equality that they implemented in Catalonia. He hated the liberals and Stalinists who opposed it.
Do some basic reading. At least read Chapter 5 of Homage to Catalonia where he breaks down what happened and where all the opposing forces (fascists, liberals, Trots, Stalinists, and anarchists) stood
You and I are 100x more larpers than someone who was part of a revolution and shot fascists.
Name those historians and their work. Like no shit liberals and MLs dont like being blamed for losing in Spain, so they have their own version of events. But let's hear their counter arguments
Okay I had time to read this. This corroborates Orwell's account. He knows the Stalinists' arguments well, he states them in Homage to Catalonia, and he rebuts them. You haven't said anything new, unfortunately, I was hoping you would.
He joined a socialist militia thinking everyone was on the same side, until he realized the Stalinists were with the liberals and attacked the POUM and anarchists. He was in the POUM not the anarchists, but he exhuberantly praised both for instituting full equality.
That's close enough. What you consider "full on" is irrelevant to me. What Orwell actually wrote lovingly praising what he saw, the comraderie of everyone being equal without ranks and differential pay, is incredible to read.
Didn't move anything. Being pedantic isnt a virtue. And you're the only one here being an asshole, so have fun with that
The venn diagram of cc and r/bookscirclejerk seems to be a cirle :dril:
Everyone always shits on me when I said I didn't enjoy the book. I could barely get through the ending and my brain has been wiped of it, clean and smooth.
God i'm glad there's a redemption arch.
I mean the ending is good in the sense that it twists the entire narrative on it's head: The protagonist thought he was being a rebel but surprise "Big Brother is Watching You" was always correct.
But Asmiov's review/re-read of the book essay points out how absurd that is when you actually think about it.
It's not a great book to be honest. Everything else aside and taken purely on its literary merits, the world building is sub par with various gaping plot holes that are innefectively papered over by handwaving away how 'history has been rewritten.' The protagonist is just so dull and lifeless, even after his bid for freedom and rebellion that in the later chapters you're practically egging his torturers on. The other characters somehow manage to be even more underdeveloped and two dimensional and frankly the only cleaver thing it does is the grand reveal at the end. Not worth slogging through the rest of the book for the last half chapter when there are far better books out there in the dystopian sci fi category.
He probably thought it was just about the year 1984 and remembered how much coke he was doing back then.
I guess some of them were, which is why /r/DaveRubin is what it is, which is not a fan subreddit.
Yes, insert obligatory "Orwell was a POS" remark here, but didn't Orwell himself say that the book wasn't *only* about decaying vanguard socialism and could apply to any kind of society that gets to that level of mass-surveillance and individual restriction?
With your knowledge of what kind of a person Orwell was, why would you trust his word on this?
I mean, it makes sense with the book. With the Internet and the amount of surveillance that both the US government and big tech companies are doing, people living in the US now are under a lot more surveillance than anyone in the Eastern Bloc ever was. Of course, clowns like Rubin will never understand that this surveillance will be used against those who threaten power and capital, not right-wing grifters.
EDIT: But perhaps that's just literary analysis. He definitely had shitting on communists in mind when he wrote the book.
Rubin will never understand that this surveillance will be used against those who threaten power and capital, not right-wing grifters.
Oh he knows. This is purely an act for the rubes.
Counterpoint: Rubin specifically is very dim. The others know though.
