>I think it's odd to expect people to be pure or without contradiction, or to
>expect writers to behave with perfect moral probity, or not to be, at times,
>grossly mistaken or even criminal. They are not, surely, exemplars like
>saints, but human beings who think and live in their times, like all of us,
>and who in one way or another dramatise or think through what that might
>mean, through their work.
I don't know where you derive this expectation of writers behaving 'with perfect
moral probity' or expecting 'people to be pure or without contradiction.' ?
It is odd, in that I don't know how my being troubled by at Orwell's particular
action to try and black list 125 people implies some expectation of "people to
be pure or without contradiction" or "writers to behave with perfect moral
probity"?
Is wondering at such a political and public act particularly by one who is so
critical of the name blackening Wodehouse suffered based implicitly upon an
assumption of purity? It just seems to me a particularly rotten thing to do, and
I'd think the action was particularly rotten if a janitor did it. Being troubled by
someone trying to send 125 people to some sort of gulag is hardly tsk tsking at
imperfect 'moral probity.'
As a reader, one ought to read what they wrote
>and go from there, rather than judging their lives, which are not our
>business.
I think it's possible to consider this particular _action_ of Orwells, vounteering
to provide this black list to the government, without that constituting "judging
his life" or his work. It seems to me that particular action exists in its own right
and can be considered and weighed in the same way it would be if a politician
or other public figure made speeches about the mistaken ferreting out of 'small
rats' like Wodehouse and found it a scapegoating process of the 'guilty hunting
the guilty" and then who engaged in such ferreting himself, with a different sort
of bigger rat.
I'd guess that if this were a politican who talked against witch hunting in
defense of Wodehouse and then attempted to witch hunt 125 people, it could be
called hypocrisy or a lie or a moral failure of one's principles. Writers aren't
exempt; if they are truly 'like us' then their various actions can be questioned
just as a politician's might be, which isn't to say that their lives should be
judged or that their work should be evaluated or read on this basis, but the
action itself can be questioned and wondered at, as it can be with any public
figure, or as any of us can be, at these profound contradictions, particularly
when it is a public and political action.
Also, in terms of the 'exemplar,' as for instance in the Wodehouse essay, Orwell
is writing very much as a 'voice of conscience' , a gadfly questioning these sorts
of issues in his society and times, and if he is taking on the unfair treatment of
Wodehouse, I think his own attempt to blacklist others can be questioned too,
and in the same way. One's writing, or being a writer, anymore than one's work
as a carpenter, or being a machinist, isn't really a refuge or exemption from that
questioning,
Best,
Rebecca
---- Original message ----
---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 14:05:29 +1100
>From: Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: orwell
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>No, I think it's another passage in another essay. Maybe the one on
>nationalism.
>
>On 24/1/05 12:56 PM, "Rebecca Seiferle" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> But what do we call this? what do we call it now?
>
>A dilemma?
>
>I think it's odd to expect people to be pure or without contradiction, or to
>expect writers to behave with perfect moral probity, or not to be, at times,
>grossly mistaken or even criminal. They are not, surely, exemplars like
>saints, but human beings who think and live in their times, like all of us,
>and who in one way or another dramatise or think through what that might
>mean, through their work. As a reader, one ought to read what they wrote
>and go from there, rather than judging their lives, which are not our
>business. That's for those who knew them well, or who suffered by their
>actions. If Orwell had lived longer, it might have been interesting to see
>whether he revised some of his views. I somehow think he would have; but we
>will never know.
>
>In any case Orwell, in many ways so admirable, is a case study of the
>dangers of uncritical reading (his hijacking by the Right seems to me a case
>of bad reading - he never eschewed socialism or social justice). I can't
>accept some of the things he says, although I find myself deeply engaged in
>others. But that's true of most writers I really like.
>
>Hypocrisy is when one professes one thing and secretly does another. Orwell
>is not, I think (it's debateable, of course) a hypocrite.
>
>Best
>
>A
>
>
>Alison Croggon
>
>Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
>Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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