Some nerds were doing that thing where 40k fans are like "OH NO SEXZ IS HERESY!" when it's pretty definitively not and is basically one of the only things in 40k that isn't heretical (as long as you're not doing evil slannesh shit) and it got me thinking about repression of sex under "in bad country regimes".
And a whoooooooooooooooooooooooooole fucking thing in 1984 was how liberating and humanizing it was that the author's grungy middle aged self-insert was boning a 19 year old member of the Junior Anti-Sex League, and, like... America has several thousand different Junior Anti-Sex League and I'm not sure if the USSR ever had any? Like, yeah, maybe they did, but under capitalism Americans have literally convinced themselves they'll go to hell if they see a tiddy and the English famously just hate joy. So what the fuck was Orwell trying to critique with his "Junior Anti-Sex League" in spoooooky Stalinist England?
The greatest irony about 1984 is the the bulk of the concepts in it like "memory holes", "doublethink", "room 101", perpetual war ect. ect. were directly inspired from Orwell working in a British propaganda ministry during WW2. NOT THE SOVIET UNION. Orwell never even visited the Soviet Union and had an admiration for Hitler. Everything else in the book is literally just a rehash of tired old anti-communist memes from the 1930s.
Yeah 1984 is a great takedown of Churchill-era policy stretched to its extremes, which is why modern-day Britain and other capitalist countries fit the mold much better despite the anti-stalinist brainworms.
Source?
-- Review of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf"
I dunno, saying this is admiration is a mischaracterization. It is possible to find someone charismatic without admiring them. I mean, Orwell literally says he would kill Hitler if he had the chance - a sentiment I would not associate with an admirer.
You are correct. Orwell sucked and all, but saying he admired Hitler is at best stretching the meaning of his words and at worst outright slander; I see this take way too often in tankie spaces.
That said, I do find it kinda weird that he found Hitler having a persecution complex "deeply appealing". I think most well adjusted people would find Hitler to be a pissy little insufferable brat even if he didn't do the Holocaust.
It is deeply weird that Hitler was so effective as a politician, but then Trump is effective as a politician and that is also deeply weird. And Hitler was at least provably literate, at least enough to write a book.
you got your direct link but I highly recommend these as additional reading
Yeah Orwell was a bourgeois socialist
What's the connection between Britain and Room 101? Well, I guess they probably did a fair amount of torture.
Yeah, it's pretty standard for MI5 and MI6. The Met does it too but not on the same level and especially not recently. Orwell was a colonial cop, he likely had first or second hand knowledge of British torture practices. Never put that together before.