Fifty Orwell Essays

by George Orwell

Catholic Church, etc--are judged before they are read, and in effect

  before they are written. One knows in advance what reception they will

  get in what papers. And yet, with a dishonesty that sometimes is not

  even quarter-conscious, the pretence is kept up that genuinely literary

  standards are being applied.

  Of course, the invasion of literature by politics was bound to happen.

  It must have happened, even if the special problem of totalitarianism

  had never arisen, because we have developed a sort of compunction which

  our grandparents did not have, an awareness of the enormous injustice

  and misery of the world, and a guilt-stricken feeling that one ought to

  be doing something about it, which makes a purely aesthetic attitude

  towards life impossible. No one, now, could devote himself to literature

  as single-mindedly as Joyce or Henry James. But unfortunately, to accept

  political responsibility now means yielding oneself over to orthodoxies

  and "party lines", with all the timidity and dishonesty that that

  implies. As against the Victorian writers, we have the disadvantage of

  living among clear-cut political ideologies and of usually knowing at a

  glance what thoughts are heretical. A modern literary intellectual lives

  and writes in constant dread--not, indeed, of public opinion in the wider

  sense, but of public opinion within his own group. As a rule, luckily,

  there is more than one group, but also at any given moment there is a

  dominant orthodoxy, to offend against which needs a thick skin and

  sometimes means cutting one's income in half for years on end.

  Obviously, for about fifteen years past, the dominant orthodoxy,

  especially among the young, has been "left". The key words are

  "progressive", "democratic" and "revolutionary", while the labels which

  you must at all costs avoid having gummed upon you are "bourgeois",

  "reactionary" and "Fascist". Almost everyone nowadays, even the majority

  of Catholics and Conservatives, is "progressive", or at least wishes to

  be thought so. No one, so far as I know, ever describes himself as a

  "bourgeois", just as no one literate enough to have heard the word ever

  admits to being guilty of antisemitism. We are all of us good democrats,

  anti-Fascist, anti-imperialist, contemptuous of class distinctions,

  impervious to colour prejudice, and so on and so forth. Nor is there

  much doubt that the present-day "left" orthodoxy is better than the

  rather snobbish, pietistic Conservative orthodoxy which prevailed twenty

  years ago, when the CRITERION and (on a lower level) the LONDON MERCURY

  were the dominant literary magazines. For at the least its implied

  objective is a viable form of society which large numbers of people

  actually want. But it also has its own falsities which, because they

  cannot be admitted, make it impossible for certain questions to be

  seriously discussed.

  The whole left-wing ideology, scientific and Utopian, was evolved by

  people who had no immediate prospect of attaining power. It was,

  therefore, an extremist ideology, utterly contemptuous of kings,

  governments, laws, prisons, police forces, armies, flags, frontiers,

  patriotism, religion, conventional morality, and, in fact, the whole

  existing scheme of things. Until well within living memory the forces of

  the Left in all countries were fighting against a tyranny which appeared

  to be invincible, and it was easy to assume that if only THAT particular

  tyranny--capitalism--could be overthrown, Socialism would follow.

  Moreover, the Left had inherited from Liberalism certain distinctly

  questionable beliefs, such as the belief that the truth will prevail and

  persecution defeats itself, or that man is naturally good and is only

  corrupted by his environment. This perfectionist ideology has persisted

  in nearly all of us, and it is in the name of it that we protest when

  (for instance) a Labour government votes huge incomes to the King's

  daughters or shows hesitation about nationalising steel. But we have

  also accumulated in our minds a whole series of unadmitted

  contradictions, as a result of successive bumps against reality.

  The first big bump was the Russian Revolution. For somewhat complex

  reasons, nearly the whole of the English Left has been driven to accept

  the Russian r�gime as "Socialist", while silently recognising that its

  spirit and practice are quite alien to anything that is meant by

  "Socialism" in this country. Hence there has arisen a sort of

  schizophrenic manner of thinking, in which words like "democracy" can

  bear two irreconcilable meanings, and such things as concentration camps

  and mass deportations can be right and wrong simultaneously. The next

  blow to the left-wing ideology was the rise of Fascism, which shook the

  pacifism and internationalism of the Left without bringing about a

  definite restatement of doctrine. The experience of German occupation

  taught the European peoples something that the colonial peoples knew

  already, namely, that class antagonisms are not all-important and that

  there is such a thing as national interest. After Hitler it was

  difficult to maintain seriously that "the enemy is in your own country"

  and that national independence is of no value. But though we all know

  this and act upon it when necessary, we still feel that to say it aloud

  would be a kind of treachery. And finally, the greatest difficulty of

  all, there is the fact that the Left is now in power and is obliged to

  take responsibility and make genuine decisions.

  Left governments almost invariably disappoint their supporters because,

  even when the prosperity which they have promised is achievable, there

  is always need of an uncomfortable transition period about which little

  has been said beforehand. At this moment we see our own Government, in

  its desperate economic straits, fighting in effect against its own past

  propaganda. The crisis that we are now in is not a sudden unexpected

  calamity, like an earthquake, and it was not caused by the war, but

  merely hastened by it. Decades ago it could be foreseen that something

  of this kind was going to happen. Ever since the nineteenth century our

  national income, dependent partly on interest from foreign investments,

  and on assured markets and cheap raw materials in colonial countries,

  had been extremely precarious. It was certain that, sooner or later,

  something would go wrong and we should be forced to make our exports

  balance our imports: and when that happened the British standard of

  living, including the working-class standard, was bound to fall, at least

  temporarily. Yet the left-wing parties, even when they were vociferously

  anti-imperialist, never made these facts clear. On occasion they were

  ready to admit that the British workers had benefited, to some extent,

  by the looting of Asia and Africa, but they always allowed it to appear

  that we could give up our loot and yet in some way contrive to remain

  prosperous. Quite largely, indeed, the workers were won over to

  Socialism by being told that they were exploited, whereas the brute

  truth was that, in world terms, they were exploiters. Now, to a
ll

  appearances, the point has been reached when the working-class

  living-standard CANNOT be maintained, let alone raised. Even if we

  squeeze the rich out of existence, the mass of the people must either

  consume less or produce more. Or am I exaggerating the mess we are in? I

  may be, and I should be glad to find myself mistaken. But the point I

  wish to make is that this question, among people who are faithful to the

  Left ideology, cannot be genuinely discussed. The lowering of wages and

  raising of working hours are felt to be inherently anti-Socialist

  measures, and must therefore be dismissed in advance, whatever the

  economic situation may be. To suggest that they may be unavoidable is

  merely to risk being plastered with those labels that we are all

  terrified of. It is far safer to evade the issue and pretend that we can

  put everything right by redistributing the existing national income.

  To accept an orthodoxy is always to inherit unresolved contradictions.

  Take for instance the fact that all sensitive people are revolted by

  industrialism and its products, and yet are aware that the conquest of

  poverty and the emancipation of the working class demand not less

  industrialisation, but more and more. Or take the fact that certain jobs

  are absolutely necessary and yet are never done except under some kind

  of coercion. Or take the fact that it is impossible to have a positive

  foreign policy without having powerful armed forces. One could multiply

  examples. In every such case there is a conclusion which is perfectly

  plain but which can only be drawn if one is privately disloyal to the

  official ideology. The normal response is to push the question,

  unanswered, into a corner of one's mind, and then continue repeating

  contradictory catchwords. One does not have to search far through the

  reviews and magazines to discover the effects of this kind of thinking.

  I am not, of course, suggesting that mental dishonesty is peculiar to

  Socialists and left-wingers generally, or is commonest among them. It is

  merely that acceptance of ANY political discipline seems to be

  incompatible with literary integrity. This applies equally to movements

  like Pacifism and Personalism, which claim to be outside the ordinary

  political struggle. Indeed, the mere sound of words ending in '-ism' seems

  to bring with it the smell of propaganda. Group loyalties are necessary,

  and yet they are poisonous to literature, so long as literature is the

  product of individuals. As soon as they are allowed to have any

  influence, even a negative one, on creative writing, the result is not

  only falsification, but often the actual drying-up of the inventive

  faculties.

  Well, then what? Do we have to conclude that it is the duty of every

  writer to "keep out of politics"? Certainly not! In any case, as I have

  said already, no thinking person can or does genuinely keep out of

  politics, in an age like the present one. I only suggest that we should

  draw a sharper distinction than we do at present between our political

  and our literary loyalties, and should recognise that a willingness to

  DO certain distasteful but necessary things does not carry with it any

  obligation to swallow the beliefs that usually go with them. When a

  writer engages in politics he should do so as a citizen, as a human

  being, but not AS A WRITER. I do not think that he has the right, merely

  on the score of his sensibilities, to shirk the ordinary dirty work of

  politics. Just as much as anyone else, he should be prepared to deliver

  lectures in draughty halls, to chalk pavements, to canvass voters, to

  distribute leaflets, even to fight in civil wars if it seems necessary.

  But whatever else he does in the service of his party, he should never

  write for it. He should make it clear that his writing is a thing apart.

  And he should be able to act co-operatively while, if he chooses,

  completely rejecting the official ideology. He should never turn back

  from a train of thought because it may lead to a heresy, and he should

  not mind very much if his unorthodoxy is smelt out, as it probably will

  be. Perhaps it is even a bad sign in a writer if he is not suspected of

  reactionary tendencies today, just as it was a bad sign if he was not

  suspected of Communist sympathies twenty years ago.

  But does all this mean that a writer should not only refuse to be

  dictated to by political bosses, but also that he should refrain from

  writing ABOUT politics? Once again, certainly not! There is no reason

  why he should not write in the most crudely political way, if he wishes

  to. Only he should do so as an individual, an outsider, at the most an

  unwelcome guerrilla on the flank of a regular army. This attitude is

  quite compatible with ordinary political usefulness. It is reasonable,

  for example, to be willing to fight in a war because one thinks the war

  ought to be won, and at the same time to refuse to write war propaganda.

  Sometimes, if a writer is honest, his writings and his political

  activities may actually contradict one another. There are occasions when

  that is plainly undesirable: but then the remedy is not to falsify one's

  impulses, but to remain silent.

  To suggest that a creative writer, in a time of conflict, must split his

  life into two compartments, may seem defeatist or frivolous: yet in

  practice I do not see what else he can do. To lock yourself up in an

  ivory tower is impossible and undesirable. To yield subjectively, not

  merely to a party machine, but even to a group ideology, is to destroy

  yourself as a writer. We feel this dilemma to be a painful one, because

  we see the need of engaging in politics while also seeing what a dirty,

  degrading business it is. And most of us still have a lingering belief

  that every choice, even every political choice, is between good and

  evil, and that if a thing is necessary it is also right. We should, I

  think, get rid of this belief, which belongs to the nursery. In politics

  one can never do more than decide which of two evils is the lesser, and

  there are some situations from which one can only escape by acting like

  a devil or a lunatic. War, for example, may be necessary, but it is

  certainly not right or sane. Even a General Election is not exactly a

  pleasant or edifying spectacle. If you have to take part in such

  things--and I think you do have to, unless you are armoured by old age or

  stupidity or hypocrisy--then you also have to keep part of yourself

  inviolate. For most people the problem does not arise in the same form,

  because their lives are split already. They are truly alive only in

  their leisure hours, and there is no emotional connection between their

  work and their political activities. Nor are they generally asked, in

  the name of political loyalty, to debase themselves as workers. The

  artist, and especially the writer, is asked just that--in fact, it is

  the only thing that Politicians ever ask of him. If he refuses, that

  does not mean that he is condemned to inactivity. One half of him, which

  in a sense is the whole of him, can act as resolutely, even as violently

 
if need be, as anyone else. But his writings, in so far as they have any

  value, will always be the product of the saner self that stands aside,

  records the things that are done and admits their necessity, but refuses

  to be deceived as to their true nature.

  REFLECTIONS ON GANDHI

  Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent, but

  the tests that have to be applied to them are not, of course, the same in

  all cases. In Gandhi's case the questions on feels inclined to ask are:

  to what extent was Gandhi moved by vanity--by the consciousness of

  himself as a humble, naked old man, sitting on a praying mat and shaking

  empires by sheer spiritual power--and to what extent did he compromise

  his own principles by entering politics, which of their nature are

  inseparable from coercion and fraud? To give a definite answer one would

  have to study Gandhi's acts and writings in immense detail, for his whole

  life was a sort of pilgrimage in which every act was significant. But

  this partial autobiography, which ends in the nineteen-twenties, is

  strong evidence in his favor, all the more because it covers what he

  would have called the unregenerate part of his life and reminds one that

  inside the saint, or near-saint, there was a very shrewd, able person who

  could, if he had chosen, have been a brilliant success as a lawyer, an

  administrator or perhaps even a businessman.

  At about the time when the autobiography first appeared I remember

  reading its opening chapters in the ill-printed pages of some Indian

  newspaper. They made a good impression on me, which Gandhi himself at

  that time did not. The things that one associated with him--home-spun

  cloth, "soul forces" and vegetarianism--were unappealing, and his

  medievalist program was obviously not viable in a backward, starving,

  over-populated country. It was also apparent that the British were making

  use of him, or thought they were making use of him. Strictly speaking, as

  a Nationalist, he was an enemy, but since in every crisis he would exert

  himself to prevent violence--which, from the British point of view,

  meant preventing any effective action whatever--he could be regarded as

  "our man". In private this was sometimes cynically admitted. The attitude

  of the Indian millionaires was similar. Gandhi called upon them to

  repent, and naturally they preferred him to the Socialists and Communists

  who, given the chance, would actually have taken their money away. How

  reliable such calculations are in the long run is doubtful; as Gandhi

  himself says, "in the end deceivers deceive only themselves"; but at any

  rate the gentleness with which he was nearly always handled was due

  partly to the feeling that he was useful. The British Conservatives only

  became really angry with him when, as in 1942, he was in effect turning

  his non-violence against a different conqueror.

  But I could see even then that the British officials who spoke of him

  with a mixture of amusement and disapproval also genuinely liked and

  admired him, after a fashion. Nobody ever suggested that he was corrupt,

  or ambitious in any vulgar way, or that anything he did was actuated by

  fear or malice. In judging a man like Gandhi one seems instinctively to

  apply high standards, so that some of his virtues have passed almost

  unnoticed. For instance, it is clear even from the autobiography that his

  natural physical courage was quite outstanding: the manner of his death

  was a later illustration of this, for a public man who attached any value

  to his own skin would have been more adequately guarded. Again, he seems

  to have been quite free from that maniacal suspiciousness which, as E.M.

  Forster rightly says in A PASSAGE TO INDIA, is the besetting Indian vice,

  as hypocrisy is the British vice. Although no doubt he was shrewd enough

  in detecting dishonesty, he seems wherever possible to have believed that

  other people were acting in good faith and had a better nature through