That's a very American perspective, of course, and I'm sure it looked different to Orwell as a British socialist in Atlee's England whose friends were all British socialists and who basically never interacted with Tories except via letters to the editor etc
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Replying to @arthur_affect @fennecfoxguy and
Plus Stalin winning and expanding influence into Germany. I get it, it's just wrong.
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Replying to @mssilverstein @fennecfoxguy and
It was World War II that really messed him up (and, well, that's understandable, it messed up a lot of people) His dislike with fellow leftists really curdled into disgust and hatred after what he saw as the massive backstab of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
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Replying to @arthur_affect @mssilverstein and
The patriotic middle class Englishman inside of him he'd never been able to fully shake off got awakened again, with him getting all gung-ho volunteering for the Home Guard (while his wife literally worked in the Ministry of Truth, in the Censorship Office of the MOI)
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Replying to @arthur_affect @mssilverstein and
Knowing that Churchill was a Tory imperialist piece of shit but feeling his heart go all aflutter at his speeches anyway Giving himself permission to love England again because for once they had an unambiguous devil as their enemy in the form of Hitler All predictable stuff
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Replying to @arthur_affect @mssilverstein and
It feels a LOT like his disciple Hitchens starting to totally lose his mind after 9/11 Getting all red in the face screaming at his fellow leftists "HOW CAN YOU BOTH-SIDES THE NAZIS/AL-QAEDA?"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @mssilverstein and
"CHURCHILL/BUSH IS THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN STOP HITLER/BIN LADEN! YOU HAVE TO PICK A SIDE HERE! WE ARE AT WAR FOR OUR SURVIVAL! AND YOU'RE ON THE SIDE OF (ISLAMO)FASCISM!"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @mssilverstein and
I hasten to add that I think, obviously, the existential threat of Nazism was way more real than the threat of "global Islamic extremism" Hitchens wasn't fit to tie Orwell's boots and the fact that his right turn almost feels like a *conscious imitation* of Orwell is deep cringe
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Replying to @arthur_affect @mssilverstein and
But anyway It's fascinating to think that another one of my childhood icons, Tolkien, was an enormous contrast on this Tolkien actually being a conservative and yet someone who did in fact hate war on a visceral level way more than Orwell
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Replying to @arthur_affect @mssilverstein and
And who, therefore, although he hated Hitler deeply (as one must, to avoid going to hell) also hated the Allies and Churchill and avoided ever saying anything nice about them and got really fucking mad when people said Churchill was Gandalf or whatever
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He especially hated those Home Guards assholes like Orwell Bunch of cringey dudes too old to fight in the war for real so they had to go around cosplaying as soldiers and bullying their neighbors to feel like they were "doing their part"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @mssilverstein and
He did not view the whole Dad's Army thing with affection, a bunch of reviewers said the petty thugs pushing everyone around and acting like badasses in the Scouring of the Shire was a very unsubtle swipe at the Home Guard
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Replying to @arthur_affect @fennecfoxguy and
Oh, man, if I ever feel bad about being American, I can at least be glad I'm not English.
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