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A terrible signal.
Too weak to even recognize.
— Talking Heads, “The Overload” (more…)
Counter-Currents
Tag: George Orwell
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2,583 wordsWhenever a conservative or Right-winger accuses Leftists of acting like the Party from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, the unerring refrain from the Leftist chorus is “Don’t you know George Orwell was a socialist!” The implication is that, especially in these politically polarized times, Orwell is the property of the Left. He wore their uniform, and so Right-wingers are, by invoking his name, committing a kind of theft.
Orwell’s best-known writings, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, are dark satires of that exact attitude: A man’s thoughts ought to belong to a political faction, and that political faction has some sort of right to them. (more…)
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Friends of Dorothy Julian and Sandy speaking palare with Kenneth Horne on Round the Horne.
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What stood out was the magical notion that the mere pronunciation of words in a ritual manner could effect a change in the character of material objects. — Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic
Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. — Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland (more…)
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Winston & Julia, 1984
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Love is best. — last line of Robert Browning’s “Love among the Ruins”
He loved Big Brother. — last line of George Orwell’s 1984 (more…)
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The singer Édith Piaf famously, and throatily, regretted nothing about anything. But the poet John Betjeman wished that he’d had more sex. And the economist John Maynard Keynes that he’d drunk more champagne. Me? I regret two things much more important than recreational sex or champagne. (more…)
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2,542 wordsAnthony Burgess
1985
London: Hutchinson, 1978Anthony Burgess of A Clockwork Orange fame celebrated thirty years of Nineteen Eighty-Four with his 1985. It is in two parts: a discussion of Orwell and freedom, and a novella updating Winston Smith’s struggle. (more…)
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1,729 words“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.” (more…)
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2,340 wordsDavid Ryan
George Orwell on Screen
Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 2018This book took me down a rabbit hole when I discovered it last June. For several days I didn’t want to do anything but watch old television dramatizations and documentaries about George Orwell’s works and life. There have been a surprising number of them, and most of the key ones can be found online or in other digital media. (more…)
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2,921 words1. John Sutherland
Orwell’s Nose: A Pathological Biography
London: Reaktion Books, 2016This small but brilliant volume is a joy to read, maybe the best single Orwell critique in recent years. “A Quirky and Snarky Treat” somebody at Amazon called it, and that it certainly is. “The lower classes smell,” Orwell famously offers as an upper-class folk belief, in The Road to Wigan Pier. (more…)
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Soviet propaganda poster from 1931 telling the workers that the 5-year plan can be completed in 4 years with enough enthusiasm.
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4. Doublethink
Among the many useful concepts bequeathed to us by Orwell, “doublethink” tops the list. It is a priceless tool for understanding how “normies” function within the repressive, PC societies of the West. The novel offers us two separate discussions of doublethink, which complement each other. The first occurs early in the story, and is the most famous passage dealing with the term:
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6,674 wordsPart 1 (Part 2 here)
1. Introduction
Everyone thinks he knows what’s in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Is there really anything left to say? It’s as if George Orwell’s masterpiece has been sucked dry. At least, that’s what I thought until I recently reread it, for the first time in over thirty years. (more…)
