Funny you mention his prose style. I had written a paragraph about how I could spend the next 1,000 words praising the quality of the prose in the diary entry (in a diary entry!!). I deleted it mindful of the instruction in Politics and the English Language to always cut out words if they can be cut out. Douglas Murray? An interesting suggestion. My "personal Orwell" right now is Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal. I know, I know, she's an unreformed Reaganite but she has Orwell's gift for observation exceeding anyone I read regularly, and can be an elegant prose stylist.
“The Left, as it is called, must always tell lies because it has such scant history to call upon in support of its arguments. It cannot face the facts, because it would be giving away its case. The Left has to rewrite history or invent new facts to make its case plausible.”
Interestingly, in that same letter to the Partisan Review, he says: "As for the accuracy of the news, I believe this is the most truthful war that has been fought in modern times. Of course, one sees enemy papers only rarely but in our own papers there is certainly nothing to compare with the frightful lies that were told on both sides in 1914-18 or in the Spanish Civil War." Can you imagine anyone able to make a similar statement today, never mind being taken seriously? That near-obsessiveness about acknowledging what is true has always drawn me to Orwell. As I tried to say in the substack post, people tend to think first of 1984 as a commentary on technology or dictatorship or technological dictatorship but it's fundamentally, I think, about being able to think truthfully – or at least in pursuit of truthfulness. Politics and the English Language: "(A)n effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts."
Mr Carney will fall victim to the Ottawa quicksand that inevitably consumes all politicians: i.e. what it takes to stay in power. He will find that in order to keep certain parts of country "on side", other, more prosperous parts, will have to "share". He will soon realize (if he hasn't already, which I am sure has), that patronage is necessary to ensure one's political party remains popular. Nobody gets elected by telling the general public the government is going to do less, people have to tighten their belts, your home doesn't get to rise in value exponentially annually, you might have to move to improve your opportunities, etc. There is no incentive for anybody to try and clean up the mess, and much incentive for those who require the mess to continue their caterwauling.
Refreshing ones self in Orwell serves to remind us how hard it is to see what is in front of our noses, yes, but mainly what a great prose stylist he was. Is Douglas Murray the latter day Orwell? Worth thinking about.
Thank you so much. What volume of the collected letters, essays journalism is that in, if you don't mind? When I couldn't find it, I asked ChatGPT to track it down. It said no such quote existed. So much for AI ruling the world.
Funny you mention his prose style. I had written a paragraph about how I could spend the next 1,000 words praising the quality of the prose in the diary entry (in a diary entry!!). I deleted it mindful of the instruction in Politics and the English Language to always cut out words if they can be cut out. Douglas Murray? An interesting suggestion. My "personal Orwell" right now is Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal. I know, I know, she's an unreformed Reaganite but she has Orwell's gift for observation exceeding anyone I read regularly, and can be an elegant prose stylist.
George Orwell: Notes on Nationalism (1945)
“The Left, as it is called, must always tell lies because it has such scant history to call upon in support of its arguments. It cannot face the facts, because it would be giving away its case. The Left has to rewrite history or invent new facts to make its case plausible.”
A theme also addressed in 'London Letter to Partisan Review':
"The weakness of all left-wing parties is their inability to tell the truth about the immediate future."
Interestingly, in that same letter to the Partisan Review, he says: "As for the accuracy of the news, I believe this is the most truthful war that has been fought in modern times. Of course, one sees enemy papers only rarely but in our own papers there is certainly nothing to compare with the frightful lies that were told on both sides in 1914-18 or in the Spanish Civil War." Can you imagine anyone able to make a similar statement today, never mind being taken seriously? That near-obsessiveness about acknowledging what is true has always drawn me to Orwell. As I tried to say in the substack post, people tend to think first of 1984 as a commentary on technology or dictatorship or technological dictatorship but it's fundamentally, I think, about being able to think truthfully – or at least in pursuit of truthfulness. Politics and the English Language: "(A)n effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts."
Mr Carney will fall victim to the Ottawa quicksand that inevitably consumes all politicians: i.e. what it takes to stay in power. He will find that in order to keep certain parts of country "on side", other, more prosperous parts, will have to "share". He will soon realize (if he hasn't already, which I am sure has), that patronage is necessary to ensure one's political party remains popular. Nobody gets elected by telling the general public the government is going to do less, people have to tighten their belts, your home doesn't get to rise in value exponentially annually, you might have to move to improve your opportunities, etc. There is no incentive for anybody to try and clean up the mess, and much incentive for those who require the mess to continue their caterwauling.
Refreshing ones self in Orwell serves to remind us how hard it is to see what is in front of our noses, yes, but mainly what a great prose stylist he was. Is Douglas Murray the latter day Orwell? Worth thinking about.
Thank you so much. What volume of the collected letters, essays journalism is that in, if you don't mind? When I couldn't find it, I asked ChatGPT to track it down. It said no such quote existed. So much for AI ruling the world.
Does anyone else think that, of the five clear criteria for national projects, if four and five are met it s almost certain that three will not be?
On another note, Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn are in the middle of a 4 part book review/discussion of 1984 and it’s amazing to listen to.
I’m eager to listen.
In summary - we will build nothing in Canada, ever. 👍 🇨🇦
Every rational Canadian: What's this? Another government department? *sigh* I think we need a little less bureacracy
Ottawa: We need MORE bureaucracy. Even more. MORE. MORE BUREACRACY, I SAY