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BS: george orwell comment
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Subject: george orwell comment From: The Sandman Date: 25 Feb 19 - 06:58 AM England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own culture. In left wing circles it is always felt there is something slightly disgraceful about being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at suet puddings, horse racing morris dancing and traditional music. it is a strange fact but most intellectuals would feel more ashamed of standing for god save the king than from stealing from the poor box
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Subject: RE: george orwell comment From: Dave the Gnome Date: 25 Feb 19 - 07:03 AM I'm left wing and love suet puddings, Morris dancing and traditional music. Not sure about horse racing or why anyone would consider that particularly English though. Maybe I am just not intellectual enough. |
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Subject: RE: george orwell comment From: Dave Hanson Date: 25 Feb 19 - 07:19 AM I'm with you Dave, when I was a young soldier I was looked down on and had the piss taken for displaying a bit more intelligence than the average squaddie. Dave H |
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Subject: RE: george orwell comment From: Backwoodsman Date: 25 Feb 19 - 07:29 AM I'm with you on the suet puddings, Morris Dancing, and traditional music Dave. Horse-racing is nothing more than an opportunity for a bunch of crooks to take a great deal of money out of the pockets of piss-heads and, in entertainment terms, is little better than that other waste of TV broadcasting-time, golf. And there's no question - I'm not intellectual enough! ;-) |
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Subject: RE: george orwell comment From: GUEST,akenaton Date: 25 Feb 19 - 07:34 AM Sandman, you have uncovered a great truth concerning Anglophobic lefties.....good luck with the discussion. Our colonial history left a lot to be desired but their ideology allows them to ignore present reality and let historic crimes bolster the myths. Most are idiotic hypocrites. We can learn from history but must not be riled by it. |
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Subject: RE: george orwell comment From: gillymor Date: 25 Feb 19 - 07:40 AM In spite of it's reference to Morris Dancing and trad music this thread belongs below the line. It's main focus is cultural and political, not music.
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Subject: RE: george orwell comment From: mayomick Date: 25 Feb 19 - 03:03 PM What do intellectual Englishmen think about including references to morris dancing and trad music in a "quote" that were not there in the original? |
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Subject: RE: george orwell comment From: Marje Date: 25 Feb 19 - 03:37 PM Well spotted, mayomick. What Orwell said was "every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings". No mention of morris or music. Marje (intellectual British woman) |
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Subject: RE: george orwell comment From: GUEST Date: 25 Feb 19 - 03:57 PM I think it was an Englishman but probably not Orwell who made the observation that "America" (meaning the US) was the only country to go from barbarism to decadence without an intervening period of civilization. |
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Subject: RE: george orwell comment From: GUEST,akenaton Date: 25 Feb 19 - 04:29 PM A bit of nit picking here, Sandman was not making a direct quote but referencing some traditional English pursuits. His point is still valid. |
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Subject: RE: george orwell comment From: meself Date: 25 Feb 19 - 04:41 PM Why do I have the feeling that this thread is not headed anywhere good? |
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Subject: RE: george orwell comment From: peteglasgow Date: 25 Feb 19 - 04:49 PM george orwell also said that the english people despise a bully. his own sense of decency and international solidarity took him to fight fascism in spain and to oppose every evil little bigotry that still plagues our nation. for me, my own patriotism means loving our countryside, our pubs and the people in them, the music, the art, the radical tradition and the small, fading culture of gardens, parks, libraries and allotments - and less than successful football teams( i was standing by ken loach on saturday watching bath city beat slough town (2-0) before that my oldest friend and i had been in the royal oak for a couple in an overpowering smell of bleach followed by 2 delicious pints of i can't remember what. it's just occurred to me what a lovely, patriotic, life-affirming experience that was) |
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Subject: RE: george orwell comment From: Joe Offer Date: 25 Feb 19 - 06:31 PM Well, since it's based on a falsified quote that originally had nothing to do with music, I think it belongs in the BS section. Dick, it's not really fairplay to falsify quotes like that. If you quote, quote exactly. If not, it's a lie. -Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: The Sandman Date: 26 Feb 19 - 04:18 AM jOE OFFER,The essence is the same, the misquote was accidental a mis remembrance now can we continue without being pedantic? |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Dave the Gnome Date: 26 Feb 19 - 05:33 AM It makes a massive difference, Dick. Your version made it about folk music and dance whereas the original had nothing to do with that. It is dishonest to falsify quotes and in this age of having everything at your fingertips there is no excuse for getting them wrong. |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Mr Red Date: 26 Feb 19 - 05:37 AM The essence is the same No! A quote is a quote. Change a word and it slowly morphs into something else. The original words have different impacts on differing peoples. To you the meaning is equivalent, but for the guy sitting next to you the formula has parameters that you don't recognise, and to him (her) the equation is unbalanced. The essence is near/close. But ................ The English culture is one of incessant football, football and more football. Look at TV schedules, advertising revenue jumps fourfold cf anything else (I have inside info). But my nationality has only a historic footnote about the tribal warfare (don't even get me started) that is soccer. And for that the ball wasn't remotely spherical, (or ovoid). But (I concede) warfare it was! |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Big Al Whittle Date: 26 Feb 19 - 05:58 AM I think it was John Peel who said he'd try anything once, except incest and morris dancing. Orwell was a wonderful writer but he was ex-Etonian - and as such distrusted liberals. If you read the wonderful essay "A Hanging" - theres this episode where he tells about an episode when he's in the colonial police in India. Some cops are roughing up some suspects in the police station. A vicar walks in and he is horrified at what's going on. Orwell says, even some bloody fool of a vicar could see I had a rotten job. Else where (I think in The Road to Wigan Pier )- Orwell is equally dismissive of vegetarians. I suppose we lost working class morris dancers when we lost the generation who perished in the trenches of WW1. Orwell and Peel saw Morris dancing as the preoccupation of Cecil Sharp, Ralph Vaughan Williams - whereas they saw working class music as being in the music halls, and in Peel's case, punk rock. I sort of sympathise with the viewpoint. Perhaps the reason that Jim Carrol is so defensive is to do with the fact that hat his quarry has to be hunted in isolated traveller families and the like. |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Jim Carroll Date: 26 Feb 19 - 06:14 AM I find the suggestion that left-wingers find it more than a litle offensive that Left Wingers are ashamed of being English - that is a right-wing trope Left wingers have the intelligence to separate the actions of the ordinary people from those of the political establishment - that is what we are ashamed of and deservedly so Go find out how the privileged sneer and deride the English institutions ordinary working people participate in - that is the most disgraceful display of anti-Englishness you will get What the **** are you talking about Al (and how dare you talk about me behind my back) And please explain what I am "defensive" about - I haven't the slightest idea of what you are referring I do hope toyu are not taking a pop at much maligned and persecuted people Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Iains Date: 26 Feb 19 - 07:08 AM I must congratulate the mudelf that moved this thread below the line. Joe's fears were well founded. we're off! |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Jim Carroll Date: 26 Feb 19 - 07:12 AM Incidentally As much as I enjoyed 'Homage to Catalonia' and 'Down and Out in Paris and London', according to my father, Orwell had a reputation among those who actually did the fighting, for spending more time in the bars of Spain than he did on the battlefields He was typical of the middle class 'Socialists' who became 'left' when it was fashionable to do so Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Iains Date: 26 Feb 19 - 07:23 AM Orwell penned the following. People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. A fact that lefties refuse to admit. |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: The Sandman Date: 26 Feb 19 - 07:26 AM he wrote some excellent books, and predicted much that has happened, he will be remembered long after some of the gnomesized small minded intellectualpedants who contribute to this thread[ no not you Jim C] |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Dave the Gnome Date: 26 Feb 19 - 07:40 AM His words will indeed be remembered, Dick. But not by you it seems. |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Jim Carroll Date: 26 Feb 19 - 07:45 AM "he wrote some excellent books" I've just named what I believe to be two of his best, the others I could take or leave That the establishment uses the 'rough men' (workers) as cannon fodder to create and maintain unequal society for the privileged few society has never been a matter of dispute as far as the left are concerned Jim |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Jim Carroll Date: 26 Feb 19 - 07:45 AM "he wrote some excellent books" I've just named what I believe to be two of his best, the others I could take or leave That the establishment uses the 'rough men' (workers) as cannon fodder to create and maintain unequal society for the privileged few society has never been a matter of dispute as far as the left are concerned Jim |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Jos Date: 26 Feb 19 - 08:07 AM Regarding Big Al Whittle's "I think it was John Peel who said he'd try anything once, except incest and morris dancing." I have heard the quotation “You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing” (and variations on this) being attributed to many people, such as Sir Thomas Beecham, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Noel Coward ... One candidate is Sir Arnold Bax, who included it in his autobiography Farewell My Youth, quoting ‘a sympathetic Scot’. But then, maybe this Scot was in turn quoting someone else. |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: The Sandman Date: 26 Feb 19 - 08:25 AM dave the gnome, i said his books, do not misquote mei know you call yourself gnome, is this because you physically resemble a gnome?or is it a reference to your intellectual pedantry and smallmindeness |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Jim Carroll Date: 26 Feb 19 - 08:48 AM "I think it was John Peel " Thomas Beecham appears to be the most likely candidate Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Dave the Gnome Date: 26 Feb 19 - 08:52 AM do not misquote me Sez the man who misquotes Orwell :-) As to your question, figure it out yourself. I have no idea if other Gnomes are particularly pedantic or small minded. I have never found another to discuss it with. |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Iains Date: 26 Feb 19 - 09:41 AM That the establishment uses the 'rough men' (workers) as cannon fodder to create and maintain unequal society for the privileged few society has never been a matter of dispute as far as the left are concerned A perfect illustration of how communism thrived. Whereas the educated know that democracy has inbuilt checks and balances to prevent such a situation arising. When steptoe senior quotes Marx in Parliament we know further discussion with the left is a lost cause. Now metropolitan labour has ignored their heartlands I look forward to their utter annihilation come the next election. It may partially compensate for the betrayal of the democratic vote to leave the EU. |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Mrrzy Date: 26 Feb 19 - 10:56 AM And let's not forget the noonday sun. |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Big Al Whittle Date: 26 Feb 19 - 01:10 PM Behind your back.....! Mudcat is more like under your nose! You're on here nearly every day. There was not the slightest chance that the comment would escape your attention. And defensive....yes I think that's a fair comment. Folk is your balliewick and you truculently defend it against ignoramuses, chancers and all comers. Sometimes chucking out music that nourishes and vitalises the folk music of these islands with the bath water. IMHO. |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Donuel Date: 26 Feb 19 - 02:06 PM Good catch Joe. In 20 years your insistence for exactitude has not waivered. I think it is more than bureaucratic training and service. I thank you for your advice regarding satirical fake news. Things change and what worked in the past is now broken and a distraction. Keep up the voodoo that you do. Please more Orwell and less embarrassment. |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Jim Carroll Date: 26 Feb 19 - 02:10 PM "Mudcat is more like under your nose! " Bad form to criticise somebody who is not in the room Al - I looked into this thread by accident You people need to make up your mind - one minute I'm defensive, the next - aggressive 'm neither - just persistent, and I feel no reason to apologise for that Take your music comments to the appropriate side of the lane Jim |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: meself Date: 26 Feb 19 - 02:41 PM "A fact that lefties refuse to admit." Orwell admitted it - or was he not a 'lefty'? |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Big Al Whittle Date: 26 Feb 19 - 02:45 PM Well its certainly a vigorous defence, anyway the point I was trying to make - but obviously failed 1) Its not uncommon for otherwise sophisticated English men like Orwell and Peel to regard folk music as the something practiced by middle class twits. 2) this general lack of comprehension perhaps lies behind the passion to define and mark out the boundaries of folk music. just perhaps..... |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Joe_F Date: 26 Feb 19 - 03:35 PM Jim Carroll: Orwell did get shot, and it wasn't in a bar. meself: He said "I belong to the left and must work within it". That entailed being pissed off a lot. |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Iains Date: 26 Feb 19 - 03:41 PM "A fact that lefties refuse to admit." Orwell admitted it - or was he not a 'lefty'? A bit more complex than that. I think his quoted socialism was a utopian ideal tinged with a hatred of communism and fascism. He said, that Socialists did not claim that they could make the world perfect, but they were trying to improve it. He also argued that if there were no more very rich and no more very poor people, such a society would still have a vast number of other problems to solve, because a society which is balanced in wealth, is not a perfect society. In Orwell's point of view most of the labour parties of Europe were just parties in the hand of trade unions, that were concerned just with local problems and especially wages. I would say his major point was that when negotiation fails brute force is required or else you acquiesce and succumb, or gentle illusions can can be allowed a superficial face because dark realities can be brought into play to maintain the illusion. You can probe his meaning on many levels. I think his politics was complex and not easily pigeon holed. I wonder what message/s he was trying to convey with his writings? |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Big Al Whittle Date: 26 Feb 19 - 04:44 PM i think if you read Koestler and Orwell and Stephen Spender- the overwhelming thing you get about the Spanish Civil WAr is confusion. Communists executing fellow communists. Unbelievably - professed anarchists fighting alongside fascists. I think anyone would be forced to take a rather cynical view of professed political ideals - right, or left. i loved Orwell's writing. I loved his literary idealism. He really tried to be worthy of a place alongside his heroes - Dickens, Conan Doyle, etc. Its fifty years or so since I read most of his stuff. I read Homage to Catalonia, before I went to Spain in my thirties. I didn't want to go while Franco was still in charge. I'm sorry if you don't get him. I typed out a play about him for a friend of mine that was put on at Bristol Old Vic. So I got to know a fair bit about his life. He was wounded in combat, shot in the throat - so his voice was never again above a whisper. He had his faults. Writing was the whole game to him. I think maybe he wasn't as understanding to his wife as he could have been during her final illness. ANd I don't suppose he would have a great morris dancer . still i think he's worthy of our respect. |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Donuel Date: 26 Feb 19 - 04:46 PM I think your politics are complex. Your gift of gab is still intact and makes for an interesting read. |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: The Sandman Date: 27 Feb 19 - 03:27 AM Trostky got shot. it wasnt in a bar killed indirectly by Stalin."You people need to make up your mind - one minute I'm defensive, the next - aggressive 'm neither - just persistent," you are all three, and tedious |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: The Sandman Date: 27 Feb 19 - 03:35 AM correction not tedious, more like predictable persistent aggressive and defensive |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Big Al Whittle Date: 27 Feb 19 - 03:57 AM yes the politics of the Spanish Civil War and indeed WW2 were complicated, I think maybe all politics is complicated. I think Orwell's sheep bleating 'four legs good , two legs bad', have several close relations on mudcat. Animal Farm was based on Orwell's disgust with politicians after his experiences in Spain. There was a widespread misunderstanding on the time that it was based on the Russian revolution - Major/Lenin, Snowball /Trotsky, Napoleon/Stalin. But it was Spain and the sufferings of the ordinary people and the equivocations and callousness of the politicos, that inspired it. There was an attempt by the English government to suppress Animal Farm because it was thought it would piss off Stalin, who was our ally at the time. |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Jim Carroll Date: 27 Feb 19 - 04:21 AM "Animal Farm was based on Orwell's disgust with politicians after his experiences in Spain." Perhaps he should have got out of th bars more "Trostky got shot" Trotsky died of having an ice pick being driven into the top of his head by his secretary's boyfriend, a Stalinist agent Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: peteglasgow Date: 27 Feb 19 - 04:39 AM i have a close friend who has spent his adult life deciding which party/cause to support - green, labour, snp, scottish socialist etc and has a good knowledge of all their various policies. many people care about the question time show (and PMQs) and see the whole game as fascinating and important but - aside from always voting (after weeks of considering where to put his vote) he never gets involved in any party. i see something i like and work for how to achieve it (currently the labour party manifesto) and i've been in scottish socialists, swp, greens at various times and always in my union. i'd just like to see a left party in power pursuing left policies for a refreshing change. of course i'm well aware that all parties and many individuals within them have flaws but you have to make your choice without being too picky and ineffectual. i have read a lot of -nearly all- orwell and i'm aware of his flaws but you give him your support because he wanted to make a positive change and was prepared to get his hands dirty in pursuing it. i'm not too keen on his novels - but his essays are great. really he was more of a political journalist than anything. i love his belief that every sentence he wrote should be easily understood by anyone who read it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Big Al Whittle Date: 27 Feb 19 - 04:51 AM Orwell was close enough to the combat to get a serious wound. He saw many of his comrades in the POUM murdered by people supposedly on the same side. I think maybe you are confusing him with Ernest Hemingway (another writer who wrote about Spain) whom as rumour had it 'liberated Paris from the Paris from the bar of the Ritz' https://www.thelocal.fr/20140822/when-hemingway-took-back-the-ritz-bar |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: The Sandman Date: 27 Feb 19 - 05:33 AM yes jim might be confused |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Big Al Whittle Date: 27 Feb 19 - 05:43 AM or the friend that informed him.. Orwell had no great bibulous reputation, whereas poor old Ernie was a real pisshead. killed him in the end - well suicide from the depression thus caused. Great writer though. |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Jim Carroll Date: 27 Feb 19 - 05:55 AM I know of the internal battles that took place in Spain, but overall, it was a United Front against a Fascist takeover Th+ POUM and the Communist Party slugged it out over whether it should have been a revolution - not particularly complicated Orwell's reputation for drinking rather than fighting was widespread Didn't mean he didn't fight Jim |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Big Al Whittle Date: 27 Feb 19 - 06:06 AM well it didn't spread as far as any of his biographers. |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Big Al Whittle Date: 27 Feb 19 - 06:09 AM 'slugged it out' = executed hundreds of people on your own side complicated enough for most people! |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Jim Carroll Date: 27 Feb 19 - 06:57 AM "complicated enough for most people!" It really isn't that complicated Al The Anarchists (POUM) and the Trotsyists thought it a good opportunity to create a s Socialist State - the Communist Party, backed by The Soviet Union opposed the idea Some people complained that Stalin's support for Spain was limp-wristed - out of date weapons etc;others said that Russia was recovering from two wars and preparing for another My dad and I argued over this endlessly The nearest most of Orwell's biographers got to Spain was the Costa del Sol The 'friend that informed me' was my dad who fought there and spent a deal of time in hospital and a prison camp That was the reputation Orwell had Jim |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Big Al Whittle Date: 27 Feb 19 - 08:22 AM fair enough! game, set and match to you, I'd say. All I can say is, he must have been a spectacularly colourless drunk. Unlike Hemingway, Dylan Thomas, Kavanagh, and other literary drunks there don't seem to be oft repeated tales. |
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Subject: RE: BS: george orwell comment From: Jim Carroll Date: 27 Feb 19 - 09:24 AM Most drunks are colourless except for their noses - Brendan Behan excluded of course Favourite story of Behan was when he wa the next door neighbour of fellow author J P Donleavey on leavey used to write out his work by hand After a long bout of work, which included a great deal of crossing out, Donleavey decided to go for a walk On his return he found the latch o the Frenchwindows forced and the door of the drinks cupboard open When he retuned to his desk, he found someone had scrawled at the bottom of some of the crossed-out pages "LEAVE IT IN" Jim |
