nonhocapito wrote:fbenario wrote:nonhocapito wrote:It is easy to see from his essays how Orwell despite all his wisdom really bought into post-war and cold war propaganda. He was convinced of the real threats of an upcoming nuclear war
Orwell died in 1950. If it's taken us until the current decade to conclusively determine nuclear weapons are fake, why would you hold it against Orwell - or anyone else on the planet at the time - that he saw nuclear crap as a threat?
I am not holding it against him, I am simply stating a fact. When we say that Orwell envisioned our world and made all these correct prophecies, we should also remember that many of his paradigms would be really narrow and almost unusable for us today. This does not diminish in any way the great value of his vision that the state of war, be it cold or hot, could be faked on a global level, and so could be shortages and various other threats that disrupt everyday life for the masses.
Interesting observations about Orwell, Nonhocapito. Was he quite what he seemed? He was an Establishment insider whose "war work" during WWII was in military propaganda at the BBC Eastern Service. So he knew his stuff. As such, 1984 must have had a propaganda vector, if only that of shifting the political paradigms. "Read this and brace yerselfs fer fascism yer 'orrible lot!" The Wikipedia entry for Old Etonian Orwell is overflowing with poop so it's hard to sift fact from fiction in trying to get to know the man.
Another pivotal figure of that era, Bertrand Russell, the 3rd Earl Russell, was clearly 'in the know', viz the non-existent Nuclear Threat. Yet Russell, supposedly the life-long peacenik, stayed at the forefront of Cold War Propaganda, stoking the public's fears with shite like the
Four Minute Warning, while juxstaposing himself as the enemy of war.
QUITE VILE: Lord Bertie RussellAs for 1984, how much of it was Orwell's own work? How much of the narrative was dictated from On High? Should we blame authors for propaganda published in their name? What of Raymond Briggs, the seemingly banal (but brilliant) cartoonist? Briggs was behind the popular children's stories
The Snowman,
Father Christmas and
Fungus the Bogeyman.
RAYMOND BRIGGS: The Snowman (suitable for 3+ yrs)
But going from the sublime to the ridiculous, Briggs was also the graphical mastermind of the animated film,
When the Wind Blows, which depicts a nuclear attack on the UK by the Soviet Union. Wikipedia Spoiler: "The film ends on an extremely bleak but hopeful note, with them all praying together in their fallout shelter as death approaches" (!) We were forced to watch that as schoolkids - it was a compulsory part of the school curriculum! "Best to get 'em young!", as Russell once said!
RAYMOND BRIGGS: Nuclear Holocaust (suitable for 3+ yrs)
But is it fair to charge Briggs with complicity in the Cold War Conspiracy, or Orwell for that matter?!
