Would George Orwell spin in his grave if he knew that right-wingers use him for their own agenda?
"The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." — George Orwell, Why I Write George Orwell remained a socialist and was active within left-wing circles until his death. Despite this, his most famous works on totalitarianism, 1984 and Animal Farm, have been widely used by his opponents to demonstrate what socialism inevitably will lead to. That is very unlike George Orwell's original intention, which was to warn fellow socialists against autocratic personalities within the socialist movement. He would clearly have been enraged if he knew that his literature and name had been tainted in this manner by his ideological enemies. Just consider Animal Farm. It is unreasonable to claim that Orwell would have supported the humans (capitalists) in the book. Instead he portrayed the pigs (the communist leadership) as turning into humans, or "capitalists", themselves. Neither being slaves to the humans nor the pigs were then considered the best circumstances — neither capitalism nor totalitarian "communism". Instead it was the brief moment of freedom and egalitarianism which stands out shortly after the revolution, and before it was stamped out by Napoleon, which was Orwell's ideal. Again, it was clearly a critique against Stalin and the Soviet Union, as well as a warning to fellow socialists to not let autocratic personalities to become leaders. So why do right-wingers keep insisting on proclaiming George Orwell to be one of them? Do they even know that he took a bullet in the throat fighting for the socialists against the fascists in the Spanish Revolution?
How is capitalism portrayed in George Orwell's '1984'?
Capitalism is not portrayed in 1984. Their society is more like communism, at least Orwell's conception of it.
As a left-leaning American, what threats do you perceive to the nation that many conservatives seem willing to ignore?
As a left-leaning American, what threats do you perceive to the nation that many conservatives seem willing to ignore?Capitalism. I can hear the groans and see the eyes rolling now, but please bear with me. US American culture is steeped in capitalist ideals. The “American Dream” is a common myth that many still believe: that no matter how poor or disenfranchised one is, hard work is all that’s needed to make a good life.This myth came to be at the height of global resource exploitation that the European conquest of the Americas allowed. Forced removal of countless indigenous populations, slavery, and environmental destruction allowed white, land-owning US Americans, and those in business with them, to extract untold fortunes.Those vast fortunes were used to build the world we have today, a world entirely dependent on this destructive and violent past. This wealth extraction has run its course. There are no more continents to conquer, no more indigenous empires to loot and pillage, no more forests to clear-cut. So where do we go from here?The average US American still believes they can just work hard, stick with a job and live a good life. They are the last holdouts of this capitalist machine which is running on the last fumes of this exploitative past, and many of them are falling into poverty despite their hard work. The sad truth is that I’m not sure anything can be done about it. We all participated in this charade, and we all helped create an economic organism that spans the globe. It’s too complex, and its momentum to great to be affected by anything other than the entire earth’s population working in unison.Sadly, only very left leaning people even see this, let alone understand it. It is a non-starter in just about any political circle. I still have hope that the younger generations have enough education to learn from the mistakes made in the past, and build toward a more sustainable future. That can only happen if education and healthcare remains accessible to middle and working class people, and so far it doesn’t seem like that will last much longer.