A very good article about Orwell's list by Timothy Garton Ash was published
in NYRB in 2003. It provides a lot of detailed context.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16550.
Mark
At 12:39 AM 1/24/2005, you wrote:
> >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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