Orwell’s Opinions

Orwell’s Opinions

1. ‘Why I write’ 1946

   • 4 great motives to write:
     • o Sheer egoism o Aesthetic enthusiasm o Historical impulse – desire to see things as they are, find out true facts o Political purpose – free from bias
   • Every line of serious work that i have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism
   • It seems to me, nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such subjects Everyone writes of them in one guise or another
   • The more one is conscious of political bias, the more chance on has of acting politically without sacrificing one’s aesthetic and intellectual integrity
   • Make political writing into an art. My starting point is always a feeling of partisan ship, a sense of injustice

2. George Orwell: A Life in Picture documentary

   • No book is completely free of political bias
   • Men exploit animals, as the rich exploit the poor
   • Language corrupts thought and thought corrupts language
   • Good prose is like a windowpane

3. Orwell’s Politics and the English Language 1946

   • In our time, political speech and writing was largely the defence of the indefensible
   • Thus political language has to consist of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness
   • The inflated style of political speech itself is a kind of euphemism
   • A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details
   • When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms
   • In our age, there is no such thing as keeping out of politics. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.
   • Inspired by Thomas Hobbes – philosopher
     • Life in the Natural State is nasty, brutish and short
     • Our lives are miserable, laborious and short