i sometimes lament that the American high school English classes seem to treat 1984 and Brave New World as the only dystopian novels worthy of study, with maybe Fahrenheit 451 as a distant third. not saying these novels don't have value, but they establish a very limited range of possible totalitarian societies as acceptable, "serious" thought experiments
Possibly also male? I know that 1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451 were definitely written by white males … but it doesn’t seem that females are even considered in the genre before Atwood.
Yes, I agree that the US appropriation of 1984 is “color-blind” as it is part of the right-wing (who also appropriate Arendt) as well as in everything else in our “both sides” education system and general culture.
“ A long line of trucks, with wooden-faced guards armed with sub-machine guns standing upright in each corner, was passing slowly down the street. In the trucks little yellow men in shabby greenish uniforms were squatting, jammed close together. Their sad, Mongolian faces gazed out over the sides of the trucks utterly incurious.” Elsewhere they are described as expressionless, and as menacing stupendous and huge. Orwell is indeed focused on the relationship with Julia and the idea is no one in the crowd cares about the prisoners, as they have been thoroughly dehumanized otherized and villainized… I would have loved more from Orwell on the role of racism, and I guess his use of it is fairly standard and generic for his environment of English intellectuals whom he is criticizing.
Yea; I think I say that you do see racial difference in the margins, as in these passages. It’s not really a focus or something Orwell links to authoritarianism very clearly ( in contrast to more didactic passages)
Well, "Goldstein" was a direct reference to Trotsky, who Stalin really hated, and the feeling was mutual—Trotsky could see the Fascist that was barely hidden by Stalin's mouthing of Marxist phrases! Despite Trotsky originally being exiled to Kazakhstan and later deported to Turkey, Stalin considered him an eternal thorn in his side— so he let it be known that if Trotsky was assassinated, it would be a powerful blow for Stalinism—er, "global Communism".
Although Stalin was also antisemitic, come right down to it....
I don’t think I knew that! And yes stalin is as very antisemitic…though probably not as antisemitic as hitler? Not many ppl have been as antisemitic as hitler…
I...don't know for sure if he was as antisemitic as Hitler? I thought I had heard that TWELVE Million Jews had died in the U.S.S.R. under Stalin, but I can't find anything online that backs that number up, so it might have been some pro-Israeli/anti-Communist propaganda I'd heard....
For all the Soviet Union made a public issue of supporting ALL people as equal including Blacks and Gays, behind the scenes matters were much more starkly bigoted.
It's a phenomenon a lot of mid-20th Century writers had, to act as if the only people worth writing about were White people.
I find it significant that The John Birch Society, ostensibly an outfit meant to fight "Communist infiltration" of American institutions, was as racist as it was anti-Communist—Robert Welch, who founded the Birchers, sent around mailings in the Sixties claiming civil rights protests were "part of a Communist plot to establish a 'Soviet Negro Republic'!" (There was also a "documentary" film about that, of which I can only find a few segments online at https://www.budgetfilms.com/clip/15000/ .)
i sometimes lament that the American high school English classes seem to treat 1984 and Brave New World as the only dystopian novels worthy of study, with maybe Fahrenheit 451 as a distant third. not saying these novels don't have value, but they establish a very limited range of possible totalitarian societies as acceptable, "serious" thought experiments
It's part of the broader problem of a lack of texts by people who aren't white, I think.
Possibly also male? I know that 1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451 were definitely written by white males … but it doesn’t seem that females are even considered in the genre before Atwood.
The description of the pows to be executed publicly is pretty racist…
I'm not sure I remember that passage specifically; could you quote? or provide more detail?
Yes, I agree that the US appropriation of 1984 is “color-blind” as it is part of the right-wing (who also appropriate Arendt) as well as in everything else in our “both sides” education system and general culture.
Yeah; someone on notes was just using Orwell to justify transphobia. It’s pretty disheartening
“ A long line of trucks, with wooden-faced guards armed with sub-machine guns standing upright in each corner, was passing slowly down the street. In the trucks little yellow men in shabby greenish uniforms were squatting, jammed close together. Their sad, Mongolian faces gazed out over the sides of the trucks utterly incurious.” Elsewhere they are described as expressionless, and as menacing stupendous and huge. Orwell is indeed focused on the relationship with Julia and the idea is no one in the crowd cares about the prisoners, as they have been thoroughly dehumanized otherized and villainized… I would have loved more from Orwell on the role of racism, and I guess his use of it is fairly standard and generic for his environment of English intellectuals whom he is criticizing.
Also “Goldstein” seems like a reference to “The Jew”
Yea; I think I say that you do see racial difference in the margins, as in these passages. It’s not really a focus or something Orwell links to authoritarianism very clearly ( in contrast to more didactic passages)
Well, "Goldstein" was a direct reference to Trotsky, who Stalin really hated, and the feeling was mutual—Trotsky could see the Fascist that was barely hidden by Stalin's mouthing of Marxist phrases! Despite Trotsky originally being exiled to Kazakhstan and later deported to Turkey, Stalin considered him an eternal thorn in his side— so he let it be known that if Trotsky was assassinated, it would be a powerful blow for Stalinism—er, "global Communism".
Although Stalin was also antisemitic, come right down to it....
I don’t think I knew that! And yes stalin is as very antisemitic…though probably not as antisemitic as hitler? Not many ppl have been as antisemitic as hitler…
I...don't know for sure if he was as antisemitic as Hitler? I thought I had heard that TWELVE Million Jews had died in the U.S.S.R. under Stalin, but I can't find anything online that backs that number up, so it might have been some pro-Israeli/anti-Communist propaganda I'd heard....
For all the Soviet Union made a public issue of supporting ALL people as equal including Blacks and Gays, behind the scenes matters were much more starkly bigoted.
It's a phenomenon a lot of mid-20th Century writers had, to act as if the only people worth writing about were White people.
I find it significant that The John Birch Society, ostensibly an outfit meant to fight "Communist infiltration" of American institutions, was as racist as it was anti-Communist—Robert Welch, who founded the Birchers, sent around mailings in the Sixties claiming civil rights protests were "part of a Communist plot to establish a 'Soviet Negro Republic'!" (There was also a "documentary" film about that, of which I can only find a few segments online at https://www.budgetfilms.com/clip/15000/ .)