Orwellian propaganda vanitysite.net
[ citing Orwell in an Orwellian fashion is so postmodern. Or maybe not if done by Kelly, I hear irony and all that other pomo stuff is verboten on the right. ]
By Zizka
Online Journal Contributing Writer
April 1, 2002—Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Michael Kelly published two vicious attacks on "pacifists," in the course of which he cited George Orwell in support of his position . More recently two British supporters of the present war, Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan, have also been anointed as Orwell's heirs. However, by the time he wrote his best books, the polemical writings on which these authors rely had been renounced by Orwell.
In his denunciation of pacifists, Michael Kelly cites Orwell's 1942 Partisan Review article: "Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me.'''
Unfortunately for Kelly, Orwell's phrase "objectively pro-Fascist"—standard-issue Stalinist polemic, though Orwell was never a Stalinist—was later rejected by Orwell. In 1944 he confessed that he had been driven to use language he regretted by "the lunatic atmosphere of war," and later that year specifically rejected the use of the phrase "objectively pro-Fascist" to smear people who are not fascists at all, but who do things which others believe are helpful to fascism.
Kelly also falls aggressively short of the mature Orwell on grounds of civility. He concluded his original piece by saying "That is the pacifists' position, and it is evil," but apparently felt that he had not been savage enough. In his second piece he asks, ""Do the pacifists. . . . wish to live under an occupying power? Do they wish to live under, say, the laws of the Taliban or the Baath Party of Iraq?. . . ." and concludes by calling them "Liars. Frauds. Hypocrites." Orwell could not have come up with such a mixture of hysteria and venom. (In point of fact, toward the end of his life became close friends with Julian Symons and George Woodcock, two of the pacifists he had originally denounced.)
As for Hitchens and Sullivan, according to Ron Rosenbaum, "as part of their intellectual birthright, both are in possession of, both are possessed by the spirit of George Orwell. Both have quoted him during the current crisis." But besides being British, what do these two writers have in common with Orwell?
Well, Sullivan cited some of the same anti-pacifist writings by Orwell that Kelly did: "In so far as it hampers the British war effort, British pacifism is on the side of the Nazis." And as for Hitchens—apparently his great Orwellian achievement is nothing more than a bit of spin (what used to be called agitprop). Rosenbaum: "Mr. Hitchens' brilliant stroke was to come up with. . . . a coinage that has, I think, been devastatingly effective in describing who the terrorists, the Al Qaeda–Taliban nexus, really are. "Islamo-fascists. It's a coinage that has caught on. . . ."
This kind of taunting label is exactly what Orwell was rejecting in "Politics and the English Language" It is true that Hitchens' coinage has some slight originality, but in that essay Orwell was not calling for newer and fresher clichés and smears. He was asking that clichés and smears be avoided. It is hard to imagine Orwell admiring Hitchens' "brilliant stroke" very much.
In all three cases, the Orwell comparison fails. It is true that Orwell made some harsh statements about pacifists, but he renounced these statements later. It's true that Orwell supported the war against Hitler in 1940, and that Hitchens, Sullivan, Kelly support the war against whoever it is that we're fighting against now, but the analogy between the two situations is not compelling. (No one but Kelly believes that Al Qaeda plans to conquer the US.)
In the case of Hitchens you can say that, like Orwell, he is a radical who dared to part company with other radicals, but the same does not apply to Sullivan or Kelly, and in any case it does not take much courage to break with the powerless American Left. After Sept. 11, in fact, opposition to war was almost non-existent, and Hitchens, Sullivan, and Kelly were doing nothing more difficult than climbing on a bandwagon. Orwell's reputation is grounded on the integrity he showed throughout his life, often at considerable personal sacrifice, and his scrupulous commitment to fairness and accuracy in his best work. In this respect, I find little similarity to Orwell in these three authors.
Orwell is not honored today for his World War II attacks on pacifism. He is honored above all for his firm rejection of the dishonest, bullying misuse of language represented by phrases like "objectively pro-Fascist" and "objectively pro-terrorist." Orwell was a saint who repented of the sins of his youth. Hitchens, Sullivan, and Kelly imitate the sins rather than the repentance, and thereby drag Orwell's name through the mud. Their use of Orwell's writings is Orwellian—in the bad sense of the word.
War is Peace, and Oceania is now at war with Eurasia (or maybe Eastasia). |
