i wonder then if their inclusion into american’s grade schoolers’ reading lists is indicative of anything.
i mean it’s clear that it supports america capitalist/imperial perspectives, but other titles that “american patriots” label as subverse and try to ban over and over again like “i know why the caged bird sings” and “catcher in the rye” are on those same reading lists as well.
He was yet another in the long line of people accurately identifying the abuses of capitalism but attributing them to communism.
I don’t know if that’s really fair characterization? I know Orwell in pop culture has essentially been a CIA op but having read Animal Farm I think its more accurate to say that he was accurately identifying the abuses of capitalism and claiming that communism under Stalin had essentially become a mirror image of them.
Now obviously that’s a take I know many on this site would heavily push back on but still…what I know of Orwell strikes me more as being the quintessential “westsplainer”. IE: the equivalent of modern day leftist thinkers in the west who denounce China for being not real communism and/or doing the thing wrong.
Genuinely curious how you see Orwell criticizing capitalism in Animal Farm? That would be a level of nuance that I didn’t take away from it when reading it as a kid, and certainly not one I have ever seen from anyone who considers it an important work. It has always been presented to me as a pretty straightforward critique of the Stalinist USSR.
The allegory gets dicey when you consider the distinction between Capitalism and Feudalism but: the story begins with the revolution against the Farmer Mr. Jones who obviously is a symbolic stand-in for the ruling class. The story ends with the pigs under napoleon playing cards and drinking with the local human farmers from the surrounding areas and the other animals watching them and finding human and pig being literally and figuratively indistinguishable from one another. The essence of the story is a cautionary tale about how revolutionary politics can end with the same systems of oppression and class being replicated and reinstated. Orwell I think was pretty explicit in his critique of the USSR and Stalin, but the entire reason why Napoleon and the Pigs in Animal farm are the villains is that they ultimately betray the spirit of the revolution and choose to enrich themselves and effectively become no different than the ruling class they overthrew.
That makes sense, I guess. I think it’s generous to Orwell to read this as any kind of meaningful criticism of capitalism, when his focus is so clearly on those who betray the revolution, rather than what came before the revolution. But I guess this reading does track with Orwell being a favourite read of Trots and other purity-obssesed western leftists who would rather support a capitalist system (or even outright fascism) rather than an imperfect socialist one. It’s essentially a cautionary tale that revolutions aren’t worth it, because they’re corruptible.
He was yet another in the long line of people accurately identifying the abuses of capitalism but attributing them to communism.
i wonder then if their inclusion into american’s grade schoolers’ reading lists is indicative of anything.
i mean it’s clear that it supports america capitalist/imperial perspectives, but other titles that “american patriots” label as subverse and try to ban over and over again like “i know why the caged bird sings” and “catcher in the rye” are on those same reading lists as well.
I don’t know if that’s really fair characterization? I know Orwell in pop culture has essentially been a CIA op but having read Animal Farm I think its more accurate to say that he was accurately identifying the abuses of capitalism and claiming that communism under Stalin had essentially become a mirror image of them.
Now obviously that’s a take I know many on this site would heavily push back on but still…what I know of Orwell strikes me more as being the quintessential “westsplainer”. IE: the equivalent of modern day leftist thinkers in the west who denounce China for being not real communism and/or doing the thing wrong.
Genuinely curious how you see Orwell criticizing capitalism in Animal Farm? That would be a level of nuance that I didn’t take away from it when reading it as a kid, and certainly not one I have ever seen from anyone who considers it an important work. It has always been presented to me as a pretty straightforward critique of the Stalinist USSR.
The allegory gets dicey when you consider the distinction between Capitalism and Feudalism but: the story begins with the revolution against the Farmer Mr. Jones who obviously is a symbolic stand-in for the ruling class. The story ends with the pigs under napoleon playing cards and drinking with the local human farmers from the surrounding areas and the other animals watching them and finding human and pig being literally and figuratively indistinguishable from one another. The essence of the story is a cautionary tale about how revolutionary politics can end with the same systems of oppression and class being replicated and reinstated. Orwell I think was pretty explicit in his critique of the USSR and Stalin, but the entire reason why Napoleon and the Pigs in Animal farm are the villains is that they ultimately betray the spirit of the revolution and choose to enrich themselves and effectively become no different than the ruling class they overthrew.
That makes sense, I guess. I think it’s generous to Orwell to read this as any kind of meaningful criticism of capitalism, when his focus is so clearly on those who betray the revolution, rather than what came before the revolution. But I guess this reading does track with Orwell being a favourite read of Trots and other purity-obssesed western leftists who would rather support a capitalist system (or even outright fascism) rather than an imperfect socialist one. It’s essentially a cautionary tale that revolutions aren’t worth it, because they’re corruptible.