Hah! Orwell was Right!
Dec. 7th, 2008 07:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsNo, not about 1984.
Back in late October, I attended a get-together of the local Democratic "active" party membership, and got a feel for the whole local party scene. My impression was a sour one, fouled mostly by the presence of anti-vaccination, anti-flouridation, New Age apocalyptic vision crazies who were not only respected activists in the party, but former elected officials themselves.
I was reminded if that encounter while reading George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier, a book about Orwell's experiences among the lower middle class in England. Toward the end of the book, Orwell, a socialist himself, rails against the way the socialist project in England is operating, and gives his reasons for why socialism is such a failure. His section on the adherents of socialism in his country is timeless:
Back in late October, I attended a get-together of the local Democratic "active" party membership, and got a feel for the whole local party scene. My impression was a sour one, fouled mostly by the presence of anti-vaccination, anti-flouridation, New Age apocalyptic vision crazies who were not only respected activists in the party, but former elected officials themselves.
I was reminded if that encounter while reading George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier, a book about Orwell's experiences among the lower middle class in England. Toward the end of the book, Orwell, a socialist himself, rails against the way the socialist project in England is operating, and gives his reasons for why socialism is such a failure. His section on the adherents of socialism in his country is timeless:
As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.And Seattle, apparently.
The first thing that must strike any outside observer is that Socialism, in its developed form is a theory confined entirely to the middle classes. The typical Socialist is not, as tremulous old ladies imagine, a ferocious-looking working man with greasy overalls and a raucous voice. He is either a youthful snob-Bolshevik who in five years' time will quite probably have made a wealthy marriage and been converted to Roman Catholicism; or, still more typically, a prim little man with a white- collar job, usually a secret teetotaller and often with vegetarian leanings, with a history of Nonconformity behind him, and, above all, with a social position which he has no intention of forfeiting. This last type is surprisingly common in Socialist parties of every shade; it has perhaps been taken over en bloc from. the old Liberal Party. In addition to this there is the horrible-- the really disquieting-- prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words 'Socialism' and 'Communism' draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.
