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
-
Show this thread
-
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?
1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
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
2 replies 1 retweet 20 likes -
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.
1 reply 2 retweets 22 likes -
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
1 reply 1 retweet 17 likes -
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?
3 replies 4 retweets 33 likes -
It extremely bothers me tbh
1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes -
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
1 reply 1 retweet 11 likes -
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
2 replies 5 retweets 24 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @LadyIsak and
I cried over Boxer the horse so much as a kid.
1 reply 1 retweet 6 likes
Boxer's story is the best thing in this book And it applies equally to the lies told to the working class under American market capitalism or Soviet state capitalism/"communism" And it's reprehensible this gets taught as something that only happened in Russia
-
-
Replying to @arthur_affect @LadyIsak and
I think part of why it made me so sad is I recognized that. My Dad was regularly injured by the physical demands of his job and it was always a ticking time bomb if he would recover before being fired.
1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes -
Replying to @omendreamer @LadyIsak and
The quote in A Raisin in the Sun where Mama tries to find words for how much life her husband's job stole from him, that he barely even moved or spoke when he got home "Every night... he looked at the rug... and he looked at me..."
2 replies 0 retweets 5 likes - Show replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.