POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND PUBLIC PURPOSE Series Editor: Michael J. Thompson POLITICAL AND CULTURAL PERCEPTIONS OF GEORGE ORWELL British and American Views Ian Williams Political Philosophy and Public Purpose Series editor Michael J. Thompson William Paterson University New Jersey, USA This series offers books that seek to explore new perspectives in social and political criticism. Seeing contemporary academic political theory and philosophy as largely dominated by hyper-academic and overly- technical debates, the books in this series seek to connect the politically engaged traditions of philosophical thought with contemporary social and political life. The idea of philosophy emphasized here is not as an aloof enterprise, but rather a publicly-oriented activity that emphasizes rational reflection as well as informed praxis. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14542 Ian Williams Political and Cultural Perceptions of George Orwell British and American Views Ian Williams Bard Center for Globalization and International Affairs New York, NY, USA Political Philosophy and Public Purpose ISBN 978-1-349-95253-3 ISBN 978-1-349-95254-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-95254-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017943666 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. 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The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY 10004, U.S.A. S e ’ F erieS ditor S oreword It may seem yet another reinvented wheel to spin out another tome on George Orwell, that sphinx of politics who has been claimed by too many in recent years. But Ian Williams’ small book points to what is sali- ent in Orwell’s ideas and his writing like few others have. Orwell seems to many a kind of prophet of an alienated modernity where administra- tive states have crushed individuality and where skepticism of political ideology is paramount. But Williams sees something more nuanced and singularly powerful than most others. He emphasizes Orwell’s subtle moralism, his penchant for auto-critique, and his unswerving allegiance to objective reality. These intellectual qualities are perhaps needed now more than in the past. With the increasing jargon of intellectual dis- course and the emergence of a post-fact informational environment that seems to be infecting both right and left, Orwell’s lessons about politics, language, and thinking should be consulted once again. For Williams, what seems to be most important about Orwell is not so much his own ideas and writing, but the way others of recent time have interpreted and used him. Williams brings out with real force the importance of Orwell’s sense of moral complexity, his sense that our attraction to moral binaries is a source of our inability to understand human affairs. But most of all, it is Orwell’s socialism that Williams highlights again and again, in one form or another. Orwell’s sense that socialism was an inherently and essentially democratic affair is paramount. It is his harsh antipathy to totalitarianism, to elite control, to v vi SErIES EDITOr’S FOrEWOrD social conformity, and to false consciousness that makes his voice more resonant today. Williams brings this Orwell back to life and as the crisis of liberal society deepens and the penchant for technocratic dominance looms, perhaps Orwell’s vision of a more fairer, more egalitarian, more humane society should become ours as well. If so, we will no doubt have Ian Williams to thank for it. New York City, USA Michael J. Thompson Spring 2017 A cknowledgementS Thanks are due to Tom Cushman, Danny Postel and the others whose inspiration at the 2003 Wellesley Orwell Centennial Conference refocused my views on the subject—above all John rodden whose Stakhanovite intellectual labors on Orwell have driven me to social- ist emulation over the years. And special thanks to Greg Zucker and Dr. Michael Thompson of Logos for commissioning some of these essays, and above all to the latter for persuading me to assemble this compendium. vii c ontentS 1 Introduction: Orwell: Good or Ungood? 1 Part I Choking with Rage: Doublethink and Criticism 2 In Defense of Comrade Psmith: The Orwellian Treatment of Orwell 9 3 The Orwellian Method 19 4 Orwell the Socialist 23 5 Tangential Criticisms 31 Part II In Memoriam—Retrospective Views 6 Orwell’s Own Airstrip One in 2014 37 7 The Persistence of Pessimism, Oceania 20 Years After Nineteen Eighteen-Four 41 8 Afterlife of an Atheist 45 ix x CONTENTS Part III Beyond the Telescreen—Snitching, Snooping and Surveillance 9 No Bother About Big Brother 59 10 Alexander Cockburn and “Snitching” 63 11 The List 69 Part IV What Is Left? 12 Disabusing Idiocy? Orwell and the Left 79 13 And Orwell and the Democratic Left 81 14 Striking Back at the Empire 87 Part V Interlude 15 Revolution Is No Tea Party but It’s Easier in a Salon: Reading the Leaves Afterwards 101 16 Orwell and the Left in the United States— The Under-Reported Side of Oceania! 107 17 Letters to Oceania? 127 18 Irving Howe, Orwell’s Prophet in the USA 131 Part VI Cover Bards—Hitchens the Orwell Emulator and His Detractors 19 Orwell’s Lives 145 20 Why Hitchens Matters 151