George Orwell
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Eric Arthur Blair, alias George Orwell (1903—1950) was a dirty socialist atheist[1] Britain's best-known anti-authoritarian writer. Many ideas and phrases from his novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four have entered the English language, especially "Big Brother is watching you," and, "some animals are more equal than others." He has gradually become one of those figures, like Jesus Christ and Ronald Reagan, whom people try to invoke when they want to win an argument without making an effort.
His work on diverse other topics is also notable; despite countless attempts by conservatives to claim him as one of their own,[2] he was one of many left-wing writers and journalists who fought against the Spanish Falangists led by Francisco Franco as a member of the Trotskyist POUM militia (he recorded this in his memoir Homage to Catalonia), and also he worked as a policeman in Burma; there, he criticized British imperialism in his novel Burmese Days.
Although he was already not very enamored with communism before his stint in the Spanish Civil War, while serving therein he witnessed atrocities committed by the Stalinist faction in the Spanish Civil War against their own allies. (He wrote up a memoir of his experiences in the war entitled Homage to Catalonia, which is one of his best-regarded books). Thus, he returned from the war a committed anti-Stalinist and advocate of democratic socialism; at one point he drew up a list[wp] of people he suspected of being Soviet infiltrators to use in British anti-communist propaganda efforts.[3] His negative view of Stalinism influenced his two best-known novels; Animal Farm being an obvious allegory for Stalin's Soviet Union and Nineteen Eighty-Four, which also criticizes fascism and imperialism.
Another well-known Orwell book was Down and Out in Paris and London, in which he exposed the unsanitary and rough working conditions in France's fine restaurants and in Britain's homeless shelters. He continued this theme with The Road to Wigan Pier, detailing the conditions of workers in the north of England and advocating for a broad-tent form of socialism that did not exclude workers or the lower middle class.
Orwell's ideas on Britishness and socialism still resonate today, more than 60 years after his death; indeed John Major, the 1990s Conservative Prime Minister, quoted him once when attempting to define what was worth preserving in the country.[4]
Orwell is also known for offering sage advice on the proper preparation of tea.[5]
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- ↑ We're exaggerating on that one; he was a semi-observant Anglican.
- ↑ Claiming Orwell is a popular right-wing sport in America, like hunting for baby seal pelts. [1] [2]
- ↑ The British government that accepted it was headed by... the Labour Party. (Get a head trauma team to the GOP headquarters, stat.)
- ↑ "He was...an eloquent eulogist of England - John Major's vision of warm beer, cricket on the village green and a redoubtable maiden aunt bicycling to morning communion through the mist was borrowed from Orwell" in [3]
- ↑ "A Nice Cup of Tea", 1946 essay