I genuinely think it's time to cancel Orwell Not because he was personally problematic or had problematic politics (though there's an argument for both) But because his Internet fanbase are the most insufferable human beings known to modern science
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Replying to @arthur_affect
George Orwell got shot in the throat fighting fascists in the Spanish Civil War. What have you done to earn your keep?
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Replying to @dsoper3
I'm actually gonna go so far as to seriously say that whatever he did in the war, it does have to be balanced against giving the Cold War paranoiacs a massive blunt instrument they've wielded against the Left in general for 70 years Intentionally or not, that's how it was used
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Replying to @arthur_affect @dsoper3
I mean he wasn't wrong about Stalinist Russia, but I could pay off my student loans with a nickel for every conservative who's yelled "hAvE yOu ReAd OrWeLl" at me after Sean Hannity told them Animal Farm was a metaphor for Obamacare.
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Replying to @andrewdridgway @dsoper3
It's honestly kind of messed up, however you feel about Animal Farm as history, that when he wrote it he was telling this snarky parable about current events that his audience was generally familiar with and could pick up on
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But now it's the reverse High school kids are learning about the history of the Russian Revolution *from Animal Farm* Their *initial exposure* to the conflict between Stalin and Trotsky is through the cutesy metaphor about Napoleon and Snowball Doesn't that bother anyone?
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It extremely bothers me tbh
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Replying to @LadyIsak @arthur_affect and
— and like, I’m a Soviet Jew, much of my family remained commies, and like! Orwell’s tidy little Aesop elides a fuckton of nuances, especially the complex ethnocultural + racial power dynamics in the USSR in general and among the Bolsheviks in particular
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The worst thing about Animal Farm if you treat it as actual history and not just anti-Stalinist polemic is how much it relies on making all the other animals "dumb animals" Shitting on poor benighted Russians for being misled by con men because they don't know better like us
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Replying to @arthur_affect @LadyIsak and
(I want to grab all those high school teachers and scream "WORK THROUGH THE METAPHOR WHO ARE *YOU* IN THIS STORY YOU ARE ONE OF THE SHEEP ON THE NEIGHBORING FOXWOOD ESTATE AND YOU THINK MR. PILKINGTON REALLY LOVES HIS ANIMALS")
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Also his grim prediction of the future at the end of the book is just wrong The USSR does not, after the founding of the UN, settle in and become just another one of the community of nations
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Replying to @arthur_affect @LadyIsak and
Unless you're a hardcore conspiracy theorist, most of us would agree the Cold War was a real conflict, and a really viciously fought one In real life Mr Pilkington didn't actually just relax and accept Napoleon was a human now, he didn't rest until he was bacon
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Replying to @arthur_affect @LadyIsak and
I need to do more reading on this but Parenti made such a strong case for the viciousness under the hood of the Cold War that we really don't hear about due to all the mythology
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