… George Orwell outside the whale - New Statesman. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In profound reaction at the end of the Thirties to the intrusion of ideology, of “correct” thinking into private thought and public discourse, and full of contempt for what he called “orthodoxy sniffing”, alarmed by the totalitarian states of Germany, Russia and Italy, Orwell saw himself in a civilisational struggle. The great literatures of Europe for 400 years were built, despite the supremacy of Christianity, on the idea of an autonomous individual, on intellectual honesty. Hence the much quoted, “The first thing that we ask of a writer is that he shan’t tell lies, that he shall say what he really thinks, what he really feels.”
I don’t agree entirely with all that is said in this because, but I take all of it seriously, most especially the matter of being able to disagree respectfully.
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