1 option
Orwell your Orwell : a worldview on the slab / David Ramsay Steele.
Van Pelt Library PR6029.R8 Z793 2017
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Steele, David Ramsay, author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Orwell, George, 1903-1950--Criticism and interpretation.
- Orwell, George.
- Orwell, George, 1903-1950.
- Criticism and interpretation.
- Genre:
- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
- Physical Description:
- xxxiv, 374 pages ; 24 cm
- Place of Publication:
- South Bend, Indiana : St. Augustines Press, [2017]
- Summary:
- "To those who think they know what George Orwell is all about, this book unpacks surprise after surprise. Orwell Your Orwell reveals an Orwell very different from the one most people think of. It gives an unexpected yet convincing picture of Orwell's beliefs, every key point precisely documented. Orwell adopted a habitual rhetoric in which he portrayed himself as a lone, embattled dissident. But objectively examined, his opinions broadly corresponded with those of conventional leftwing thinking. Far from being skeptical of prevailing orthodoxies, Orwell emerges as a True Believer in the orthodoxies of the 1930s Left, though a believer who sharply drew attention to some of the serious problems with these ideologies. In his short life, Orwell underwent several dramatic conversions - such as his overnight switch in August 1939 from being fiercely anti-war to enthusiastically pro-war - while cleaving to some fixed positions - such as his opposition to the British Empire, totalitarianism, and birth control. Dr. Steele identifies both the conversions and the continuities, as well as some aspects of his thought which gradually evolved. As well as recovering Orwell's actual beliefs from the many accumulated misrepresentations, Dr. Steele also criticizes some of these beliefs, exposing the fallacies in Orwell's thinking on such issues as the economics of imperialism, the dangers of hedonism, the significance of the Spanish Civil War, and the efficacy of mind control."-- Provided by publisher.
- Contents:
- 1 The Purveyor of Orthodoxies 1
- Orwell and the Left 3
- Orwell's Orthodoxies 6
- Confirmation by Contrary Instance 10
- The Style of Propaganda 12
- Orwell's Artful Honesty 14
- Do the Lower Classes Smell? 17
- Why Orwell Matters, Really 22
- 2 The Follower of Intellectual Fashion 24
- The Left and the Empire 26
- Leftwing Anti-Fascism in the 1930s 29
- Orwell and Communism 31
- Russell and Orwell 32
- The Reception of Wigan Pier 35
- Dirty Spanish Linen 44
- The Delayed Acceptance of Animal Farm 50
- A Typical Leftwing Intellectual? 55
- 3 The Socialist 58
- What "Socialism" Meant in 1936 62
- The Doctrinaire Socialist 65
- Socialism Means Central Planning 69
- Arguments against Socialism 70
- The Non-Marxist 72
- The Anti-Trotskyist 75
- The ILP Member 80
- Socialism and Workers' Living Conditions 82
- The Labour Party Supporter 84
- 4 The Post-Socialist 87
- From Post-Socialist Anti-Socialist to Post-Socialist Socialist 88
- Orwell on Technology 92
- Why Orwell Was Wrong about Technology 95
- Orwell on Technology After Wigan Pier 99
- The World Wells Made 102
- Orwell's Attacks on Wells 103
- Some Writers Orwell Read 107
- Leavis's Post-Socialism 110
- The Intellectual Crisis of Socialism 113
- The Fin-de-Siècle Background of Post-Socialism 114
- The Myth of Mind Control 115
- 5 The Reactionary 118
- Two Anti-Degeneratist Theories 118
- The Falling Birthrate 121
- The Manly Man 123
- The Anti-Homo sexual 125
- Why the Anti-Degeneratists Were Wrong about Homosexuality 127
- The Degenerate Middle Class 128
- The Anti-Hedonist 129
- Confusion about Hedonism 130
- The Vacuity of Orwell's Anti-Hedonism 135
- The Anti-Rationalist 136
- Owell's and Huxley's Anti-Hedonism 137
- The Nostalgic Atheist 139
- Reservations about Jews 141
- 6 The Anti-Imperialist 144
- Worse than National Socialism? 145
- The Movement for Indian Independence 146
- Orwell's Equivocations on Independence 147
- A Money Racket 152
- Did British Workers Gain from the Empire? 154
- An Assumption in Search of an Explanation 155
- Were British Workers Living off the Backs of Starving Coolies? 159
- Did the Empire Hold Back the Development of the Colonies? 160
- The De-Industrialization that Probably Never Happened 162
- Hobson and Lenin 165
- Two Remaining Theories 167
- 7 The Spanish Soldier 171
- Civil War in Spain 173
- A War Between Two Coalitions 175
- Orwell in Spain 178
- Orwell's Conversion to the Revolutionary Left 182
- Tweedledum and Tweedledee 186
- The Instinctively Revolutionary Working Class 189
- The Revolution Runs Out of Enthusiasm 190
- Orwell's Defense of Leftist Atrocities 192
- The Conflict between Socialism and Syndicalism 193
- Spain in the Rearview Mirror 195
- 8 The Class Warrior 203
- Pacifism and the British Left 206
- The Class-War Anti-War Position 209
- A Dream Ends a Nightmare 215
- Pacifism Favors the Enemy 223
- Class War to Cold War 224
- 9 The Anti-Communist 226
- Orwell and the Communists 227
- Communists in the British Left 230
- Communist Zigs and Zags 232
- Exaggerating Communist Influence 239
- The Beliefs of 1930s Intellectuals 240
- Orwell's International Policy after 1944 249
- I've Got a Little List 250
- 10 The Inadvertent Anti-Socialist 255
- The Anti-Antisocialist Interpretation of Nineteen Eighty-Four 255
- The Rightwing Response 259
- The Anti-Orwell Leftists 260
- Immediate Contemporary Reactions 261
- Orwell's Reply 262
- The Ingsoc Regime 263
- The Challenge to Socialists 265
- Two Definitions of Socialism 267
- Capitalism Is Doomed 270
- Bad, Bad Capitalism 272
- Is Nineteen Eighty-Four about Capitalism? 273
- What if There's No Such Thing as Democratic Socialism? 279
- 11 Must Freedom Die? 284
- Socialism as Ultimate Democracy 285
- Collectivism without Democracy 285
- What to Make of the USSR? 289
- What to Make of Fascism? 293
- The Myth of Irrational Fascism 297
- The Myth of Unintellectual Fascism 298
- Orwell on Totalitarianism 299
- Totalitarian Influences in Culture 301
- The Death of Literature 304
- The End of Truth 307
- The Birth of Brainwashing 311
- The Stability of the Ingsoc Regime 312
- The Strange Death of Democratic Collectivism 314
- It Didn't Happen 315.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 9781587316104
- 1587316102
- OCLC:
- 965120240
The Penn Libraries is committed to describing library materials using current, accurate, and responsible language. If you discover outdated or inaccurate language, please fill out this feedback form to report it and suggest alternative language.