Thanks for posting an excerpt from this interesting essay. I read this with a group of students last fall (we were working our way through Orwell's journalism) and was especially brought up by this sentence: "The real problem is how to restore the religious attitude while accepting death as final." In general I think Orwell has a bit of a tin ear on the subject of religion and typically offers a rather crudely oversimplified interpretation of Christianity. So I found that comment quite interesting, because it is one of only a handful of places where Orwell expresses the need for that "religious attitude," even though he finds religion itself no longer possible to believe in.
As Edmund Burke pointed out, revolutionaries always devour their own. As typified by Lenin "the key question of any revolution is the question of Power." The people are there for the revolution, those who ran it, for the power.
You know you’re just a contrarian. Think outside the box. Read and think about all aspects of the question. Think of what was before and what is now. Revolutions are indeed dirty business as are all wars. They wouldn’t occur if they weren’t justified. They wouldn’t occur if people were granted their inalienable rights from birth and those rights were nurtured and protected accordingly by those in power. Edmund Burke knew this in his bones. He helped to prepare the world for liberating liberal revolutions. He was and is a hero of freedom. D
Your reply is appreciated, but what was the justification for the Crusades, the Thirty Years War, the Opium War, and the list goes on. By the time World War II happened, it was a matter of survival and self-defense for those who became the Allies. The number of just wars or even justifiable wars is paltry compared to the sheer number of wars.
If people left other people alone, to be who they are and live in peace with each other, would gladly agree with you, unfortunately humanity's history shows mankind blood in thought and weapon, with peace a rare entity in most nation's lives.
May have reacted to much to wars and not enough to revolutions. The revolutions that led to a better life, without unneeded bloodshed, once peace was established, were the American Revolution of 1776 and the Chinese Revolution of Sun Yat Sen, the list of violent ones, once control has been wrenched away from the leaders is considerably longer. Out side of Lobsters have no use for Thermidor, or any of the other blood letting revolutions that changed the leaders but not the system enough to justify it.
The headline on this excerpt diminishes the role of leftist revolutions in freeing billions of mankind ftom the terrible tyrannies of monarchism, fascism, greed, ethnic hate, and racism. But the most extreme aspects of capitalism and communism still prevail. More revolutions will be forthcoming in the future. Leftist liberation will persist but at great cost because the enemies of freedom savagely defend their slavish need for power and money. Witness Yrump’s America.
I can’t educate you out of ignorance, but you can. Read how the world was before socialist and communist ideas emerged. Ask the serfs, ask the slaves, ask the British colonies, ask the Chinese, Cubans, Russians, Guatemalans, Congolese, Asians, ask the subjugated throughout history. No rightist ever fought for the have nots. They only fought and fight for the privileged and powerful. Trump and Musk are the latest manifestations. Education requires thoughtful objectivity, not emotional justification. Freedom requires revolutionary ideas and revolutionary action because, as I wrote above, the enemies of freedom savagely defend their slavish need for power and money. The American Revolution and Civil War show this truth is self evident.
Thanks for posting an excerpt from this interesting essay. I read this with a group of students last fall (we were working our way through Orwell's journalism) and was especially brought up by this sentence: "The real problem is how to restore the religious attitude while accepting death as final." In general I think Orwell has a bit of a tin ear on the subject of religion and typically offers a rather crudely oversimplified interpretation of Christianity. So I found that comment quite interesting, because it is one of only a handful of places where Orwell expresses the need for that "religious attitude," even though he finds religion itself no longer possible to believe in.
Remarkably applicable to the present time.
As Edmund Burke pointed out, revolutionaries always devour their own. As typified by Lenin "the key question of any revolution is the question of Power." The people are there for the revolution, those who ran it, for the power.
You know you’re just a contrarian. Think outside the box. Read and think about all aspects of the question. Think of what was before and what is now. Revolutions are indeed dirty business as are all wars. They wouldn’t occur if they weren’t justified. They wouldn’t occur if people were granted their inalienable rights from birth and those rights were nurtured and protected accordingly by those in power. Edmund Burke knew this in his bones. He helped to prepare the world for liberating liberal revolutions. He was and is a hero of freedom. D
Your reply is appreciated, but what was the justification for the Crusades, the Thirty Years War, the Opium War, and the list goes on. By the time World War II happened, it was a matter of survival and self-defense for those who became the Allies. The number of just wars or even justifiable wars is paltry compared to the sheer number of wars.
If people left other people alone, to be who they are and live in peace with each other, would gladly agree with you, unfortunately humanity's history shows mankind blood in thought and weapon, with peace a rare entity in most nation's lives.
May have reacted to much to wars and not enough to revolutions. The revolutions that led to a better life, without unneeded bloodshed, once peace was established, were the American Revolution of 1776 and the Chinese Revolution of Sun Yat Sen, the list of violent ones, once control has been wrenched away from the leaders is considerably longer. Out side of Lobsters have no use for Thermidor, or any of the other blood letting revolutions that changed the leaders but not the system enough to justify it.
The headline on this excerpt diminishes the role of leftist revolutions in freeing billions of mankind ftom the terrible tyrannies of monarchism, fascism, greed, ethnic hate, and racism. But the most extreme aspects of capitalism and communism still prevail. More revolutions will be forthcoming in the future. Leftist liberation will persist but at great cost because the enemies of freedom savagely defend their slavish need for power and money. Witness Yrump’s America.
I can’t educate you out of ignorance, but you can. Read how the world was before socialist and communist ideas emerged. Ask the serfs, ask the slaves, ask the British colonies, ask the Chinese, Cubans, Russians, Guatemalans, Congolese, Asians, ask the subjugated throughout history. No rightist ever fought for the have nots. They only fought and fight for the privileged and powerful. Trump and Musk are the latest manifestations. Education requires thoughtful objectivity, not emotional justification. Freedom requires revolutionary ideas and revolutionary action because, as I wrote above, the enemies of freedom savagely defend their slavish need for power and money. The American Revolution and Civil War show this truth is self evident.
Well Done!