Bobspez wrote:
Orwell was never a conservative. He was a socialist. He was against Hitler and he was against Stalin, and he was against British Imperialism. He was for the common man and against any sort of totalitarian state, whether fascist or communist. Anyone who read 1984 could not believe Orwell was ever or ever would be a conservative.
larryepage is mostly correct. George Orwell was a socialist when he was young, but changed his views after his adventures fighting against Franco in Spain and on seeing Stalin's totalitarian brutality. Anyone who has read "Animal Farm" could not believe that Orwell was a socialist. I don't think that "conservative" describes him, either. He was an original thinker, and doesn't fit in a neat box. Individualist, and Libertarian, I think, is a pretty good description.
“The enemies of intellectual liberty always try to present their case as a plea for discipline versus individualism. The issue truth – versus - untruth is as far as possible kept in the background.”
George Orwell - penname of Eric Arthur Blair, English novelist, essayist, journalist, anti-totalitarian social critic. (1903-1950)
“The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.”
George Orwell
“As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.”
George Orwell
“One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ' Socialism ' and ' Communism ' draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.”
George Orwell
“The tendency of advanced capitalism has been to enlarge the middle class and not to wipe it out, as it once seemed likely to do.”
George Orwell
“Liberal: a power worshipper without power.”
George Orwell
“So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot.”
George Orwell
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
George Orwell“ from "Animal Farm"
“In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”
George Orwell
"I worked out an anarchistic theory that all government is evil, that the punishment always does more harm than the crime and the people can be trusted to behave decently if you will only let them alone.”
George Orwell