Orwell On Media Mischief

Eric Blair, a.k.a. George Orwell

This year I have been on something of an Orwell jag. After reading 1984 and Animal Farm last year I dove into Thomas E. Ricks' Churchill and Orwell this spring, which ignited a renewed interest in reading more Orwell. According to Ricks, both Churchill and Orwell produced their best work at the end of their writing careers.

In the case of Orwell, the books 1984 and Animal Farm were his best, but Ricks cited Homage to Catalonia as a turning point. I thus purchased Homage to Catalonia, in part because of the Ricks endorsement and in part because of a recurring interest in the Spanish Civil War. 

But Ricks also noted that Orwell, whose birth name was Eric Blair, wrote innumerable essays in the twilight of his career. (He only lived to be 47.) Currently I have been dipping in to a collection of narrative essays assembled under the title Facing Unpleasant Facts.

The essay currently in my hands during my bedtime reading is titled Looking Back On The Spanish War. In the fourth section of the essay he discusses the manner in which the media cover events, not just the specificities of the Spanish conflict but media in general. It is no wonder that people are so misinformed, as all the events we read about are mediated to us. We are not there and so we rely on others to convey what is happening.

Here's what Orwell has to say about this.

The struggle for power between the Spanish Republican parties is an unhappy far off thing which I have no wish to revive at this date. I only mention it in order to say: believe nothing, or next to nothing, of what you read about internal affairs on the Government side. It is all, from whatever source, party propaganda--that is to say, lies.

A little further down the page he writes:

Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports that did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie.

I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traders, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing those lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various "party lines.”

These observations seemed to jump off the page in light of current events and a few experiences from my own lifetime. 

Something to think about.

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Related Links

Orwell's Homage to Catalonia Is Instructive on Many Levels, Plus a Good Read

Staying Human Is What Is Important

Bertrand Russell's Free Thought and Official Propaganda Has Much to Say about the Current State of Cancel Culture

He Who Controls the Narrative Controls the People

Orwell's Homage to Catalonia Is Instructive on Many Levels, Plus a Good Read

After reading Thomas E. Ricks' Churchill and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom, I knew I had to read Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, the book Orwell wrote preceding Animal Farm and 1984. To paraphrase one Amazon reviewer, almost no war is both more pivotal to 20th century history and less understood by young and old alike today.

I've long been fascinated by the Spanish Civil War without fully comprehending what really happened there. Picasso's Guernica was inspired by an event in that conflict. Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls provides images of horrors that took place at that time, placing a microscope on the characters interacting in a specific event.

When I was in high school I took an interest in Leon Trotsky (because my first name is Leon) with very little understanding of Communism, socialism or any other ism. I knew that he was assassinated in Mexico but I didn't know why he was living there.

When we went to Mexico in 1980 to work at an orphanage in Monterrey, I was only partially surprised to see the hammer and sickle insignia painted on walls there. By then I'd already known that 40,000 communists fled Spain after Franco took power. I did not understand that the communists and socialists were splintered into additional factions, one of them being the Trotskyites. These were the ones who fled to Mexico because of Stalin's efforts to eradicate adversaries and consolidate power.

In short, this book helps illuminate a somewhat confusing period of history.

On a larger scale, the Spanish Civil War was a place where modern technology was used to subdue opponents in a new destructive way as never before. Hitler and Mussolini helped arm Franco and the Fascists. In return they gained many insights that would be applied in the coming global conflict

* * * 

The big surprise for me as I began this book was learning that Orwell went to Catalonia not as a journalist but to fight. Most of the book is about his experiences in the trenches or in training. It is a detailed account of the war's degradation and insanity. He does not gloss over anything with regards to the smells, the lice, the confusion. Late in the book he is shot through the neck and his descriptions here are remarkably detailed. Had he not survived we'd never have had the opportunity to be enriched by Animal Farm and 1984.

Orwell's book, among other things, clearly aims to dispel the notion that war is glamorous.

* * * 

An Amazon reviewer from the UK wrote this about Homage:

I had to buy this again. I was 21 when I read this. Now, I'm 45. I'm a life long socialist and this book sums up perfectly how the left always fights itself more than the opposition. This is the book I always quote whenever the left turns in on itself (which is always!.) "My cause is more important than your cause etc." is pretty much the left. 70 odd years later, it's still the same lol

Charlie Calvert, another Amazon reviewer, wrote:

This classic book is a cure for idealism. It raised my political awareness about the Spanish Civil War and human nature. The tale Orwell has to tell is relentlessly depressing and frequently shocking. Soldiers are rushed into battle with little training and fewer weapons. Idealists take charge and murder innocents on the slightest of pretexts. The weather is terrible, the food worse and despite the optimism of the troops, one feels they know there is little chance of beating Franco.

 

For those unfamiliar, Catalonia is a section of Spain located in the far Northeast, a triangle of four counties adjacent to France and the Mediterranean.

* * * 

One reason this war was so complicated is that historians wrote little about it, or oversimplified it because that is always the easy way out. If taught at all, this was a Civil War between the Nationalists and the Republicans. Orwell dissects these two groups into multiple factions that include fascists, anarchists, socialists, Stalinists, Trotskyists, POUM, UGT, CNT, revolutionaries and foreign mercenaries. All together it was a mishmash of groups with differentiating agendas.

Orwell shows the uses to which propaganda was being used to manipulate public opinion. When Stalin began to purge the Trotskyists from the program, the word had a fluid meaning so that anyone the Stalinist regime didn't like could be called a Trotskyist with no opportunity for a trial. In order to win public opinion against Trotskyists the papers printed stories that said Trotskyists were actually Fascists posing as revolutionaries.

* * * 

Orwell saw first-hand the ways in which propaganda helped lay the groundwork for mass manipulation. Propaganda was a key feature in both Animal Farm and 1984. During this period of upheaval in Spain, Stalin was actively consolidating his power. 

For writers, there are some really nice sentences. I liked this one, for example:

"We were near the front line now, near enough to smell the characteristic smell of war--in my experience the smell of excrement and decaying food."

Here's another:

"The hills opposite us were grey and wrinkled like the skins of elephants."

* * * 

Whereas the book is helpful in giving us a richer understanding of the Spanish Civil War, I believe you will also see many lessons for the times we live in today. I believe astute readers will see many takeaways from this account.

Throwback Thursday: For Whom the Bell Tolls

I was re-introduced to Hemingway in the late '70s through his first collection of short stories titled In Our Time. I was stunned by the power of Hemingway's prose. Though I'd never worn glasses, the stories there were like being a grandma who gets hit in the face with a fist, glasses flying across the room from the impact. I read the book continuously two and a half time through. The description of the doctor in The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife is so loaded with tension, yet achieved with sleight of hand, never once saying the guy was mad or outraged, or any such thing... it is nothing short of miraculous how he accomplishes so much with such simple prose.

I'd read Old Man and the Sea in high school, which is likely out of favor now due to his overbearing machisimo and politically incorrect attitudes. It is, however, a good read. The story did make an impression.

The first Hemingway novel that followed my return to classic literature during this period in my life was For Whom the Bell Tolls. Its setting is the Spanish Civil War. The hero's quest turns out to be a futile mission. The characters are vividly drawn, and tragic. Can one man make a difference? Robert Jordan believes he can.

The real tragedy of the Spanish Civil War was the pillaging of a section of European real estate in order to try out new war technologies. Franco fascists were not armed with Mussolini's planes for nothing. Hitler and friends watched with avid interest as the peoples were subjugated. Technology, not ideology, proved the winning variable in this situation.

In the novel, idealism and realism collide. Pablo, the local leader of a small guerilla band of anti-fascists, represents one shade of realism. Pilar, his wife, epitomizes another. Robert Jordan, the American teacher who has joined the war effort, is the idealist.

What really happened in Spain has still not fully been understood. The events of that time were significant, though soon lost in the shadows and mists of the world war that follow. Orwell lost his faith in communist socialism as a result of things he saw. Others were appalled by fascism's jackboot horrors. Picasso was inspired by the destruction of a town called Guernica to paint his famous statement decrying the brutality of this kind of "total war," which the U.S. continued to carry out in Viet Nam.

What follows here is an excerpt from one of Michael Mazza's reviews at amazon.com. I find reading reviews to be a mentally stimulating exercise. Movie reviews at imdb.com and the Amazon reviews are frequently cogent, insightful offerings from people who are thinking at least a little beneath the surface of things.

"Hemingway offers a grim and graphic look at the brutality of 20th century warfare. War is not glamorized or sanitized, and atrocities are described in unflinching detail. The characters explore the ethics of killing in war. As the story progresses, Hemingway skillfully peels back the layers of Jordan and other characters to reveal their psychological wounds. But the book is not all about pain and violence. In the midst of war Hemingway finds the joy and beauty that keep his characters going. He also incorporates storytelling as a powerful motif in the book; his characters share stories with each other, recall missing untold stories, or resist a story too hard to bear. In Hemingway's world storytelling is as essential a human activity as eating, fighting, and lovemaking."

THIS POST ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN JULY 2008

For Whom the Bell Tolls

I was re-introduced to Hemingway in the late '70s through his first collection of short stories titled In Our Time. I was stunned by the power of Hemingway's prose. Though I'd never worn glasses, the stories there were like being a grandma who gets hit in the face with a fist, glasses flying across the room from the impact. I read the book continuously two and a half time through. The description of the doctor in The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife is so loaded with tension, yet achieved with sleight of hand, never once saying the guy was mad or outraged, or any such thing... it is nothing short of miraculous how he accomplishes so much with such simple prose.

I'd read Old Man and the Sea in high school, which is likely out of favor now due to his overbearing machisimo and politically incorrect attitudes. It is, however, a good read. The story did make an impression.

The first Hemingway novel that followed my return to classic literature during this period in my life was For Whom the Bell Tolls. Its setting is the Spanish Civil War. The hero's quest turns out to be a futile mission. The characters are vividly drawn, and tragic. Can one man make a difference? Robert Jordan believes he can.

The real tragedy of the Spanish Civil War was the pillaging of a section of European real estate in order to try out new war technologies. Franco fascists were not armed with Mussolini's planes for nothing. Hitler and friends watched with avid interest as the peoples were subjugated. Technology, not ideology, proved the winning variable in this situation.

In the novel, idealism and realism collide. Pablo, the local leader of a small guerilla band of anti-fascists, represents one shade of realism. Pilar, his wife, epitomizes another. Robert Jordan, the American teacher who has joined the war effort, is the idealist.

What really happened in Spain has still not fully been understood. The events of that time were significant, though soon lost in the shadows and mists of the world war that follow. Orwell lost his faith in communist socialism as a result of things he saw. Others were appalled by fascism's jackboot horrors. Picasso was inspired by the destruction of a town called Guernica to paint his famous statement decrying the brutality of this kind of "total war," which the U.S. continued to carry out in Viet Nam.

What follows here is an excerpt from one of Michael Mazza's reviews at amazon.com. I find reading reviews to be a mentally stimulating exercise. Movie reviews at imdb.com and the Amazon reviews are frequently cogent, insightful offerings from people who are thinking at least a little beneath the surface of things.

"Hemingway offers a grim and graphic look at the brutality of 20th century warfare. War is not glamorized or sanitized, and atrocities are described in unflinching detail. The characters explore the ethics of killing in war. As the story progresses, Hemingway skillfully peels back the layers of Jordan and other characters to reveal their psychological wounds. But the book is not all about pain and violence. In the midst of war Hemingway finds the joy and beauty that keep his characters going. He also incorporates storytelling as a powerful motif in the book; his characters share stories with each other, recall missing untold stories, or resist a story too hard to bear. In Hemingway's world storytelling is as essential a human activity as eating, fighting, and lovemaking."