I don’t know enough about him but purely based on that, probably not. I don’t Marxism is necessarily a terrible thing.
I would definitely say that from where I am at the moment with 1984, he is describing a totalitarian state, and in some ways Fascist where control is completely in the hands of the government. To be honest, I haven’t paid much attention to this National Conservative drivel but can hardly describe it as “Fascist”. As said to Bracknell, I find the liberal use of the word tends to dilute its meaning. All bar none of the real fascists I used to know were far, far worse than that. As a side, where do you think, if anywhere, was Orwell alluding to in 1984….Germany or Russia ?
He has come out and said that he isn’t, although has read Das Kapital. But time and time again the right wing press label him as such…all to smear and stoke fear in the readership. It’s pathetic.
That may be so, and as I said to Stan, I’ve largely ignored the drivel because that’s as I see it….total drivel. But my point is, the word “Fascist”, shouldn’t be kept being used as an insult to those on the right we disagree with…all in my opinion of course
Like the word “Fascist”, in my opinion. And that’s my point. If you haven’t already, don’t bother with Das Kapital….it’s hard going and I only got a couple of chapters in before I found myself wanting to slash my wrists in boredom
I’m struggling through a pretty dull book on the history of betting so might give up on that and just read the Quran or something.
I don’t know how far you’ve read but I think he looked at both pre war Germany and USSR and also Japan and thought ‘what if you push this as far as it can go’ and ended up with 3 geographical blocks where the system of control had different names but were fundamentally identical. The original ideologies of ultra nationalism, class war and emperor worship eroded to nothing and systems aimed at maintaining complete power over their populations remaining. I find the National Conservative stuff sinister and creepy, regardless of whether it’s ‘fascist’ or not. I don’t think there is much going on which is genuinely fascist in the dictionary definition sense nowadays - “Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.” Even this definition should be challenged - ‘far right’ could include ultra nationalism, ultra individual libertarianism and ultra free market capitalism. The three do not necessarily go together and might actually contradict each other. ‘Right wing’ is a lazy and misleading catch all, a trap which I fall into often. ‘Fascist’ is just a meaningless insult which people don’t understand. Like Marxist.
Ahhh….that makes a lot of sense (1984) now, with the three blocks at constant war, or sometimes peace with each other but then always at war with another. Shame you can’t be there constantly to give a more insightful interpretation of the book…it makes more sense. Saying that, one of the twins is reading Animal Farm at school, and came up with the idea that of course Animal Farm is Russia….but that the other Farm is meant to be Germany. Might be a popular theory and glaringly obvious to some, but I’d never thought of it like that. Never too old to learn
And for your second piece about Fascism….you write down what I’m trying to say, far more eloquently than I ever can. Every revolution needs its academics, so I might just find a job for you yet ….come the glorious day
