Thanks for this, Mark, such an indepth look and so much context and with
interesting questions raised along the way, sort of the pulse of some particular
action, or how an action is the intersection of many things, so many frailties
here intersecting, I'm in your debt, for this helped me to understand something
and not just of Orwell, so thanks,

Rebecca


---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 01:31:54 -0500
>From: Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: orwell
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>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