The Paradox of Being a Good Person - George Orwell's Warning to the World

this video is sponsored by the book summary app blinkist discover learn from and refresh yourself on the world's best books use the link in the description and you'll receive a 7-Day free trial and 40% off blinkist premium membership George Orwell is perhaps one of the most widely read and reference literary figures of all time certainly of the 20th century cited and mentioned by nearly every contemporary ideology in political worldview his voice Echoes down the halls of History his insights about the power of language and Technology as well as his warnings about the manipulation of truth

and the threat of totalitarianism being relevant to rooms on both sides of the hall left and right transcend the walls of any one moment movement or ideology Orwell was born in 1903 in Bengal India which at the time was part of the British Empire he was born with the name Eric Arthur Blair and would only become George Orwell many years later when using the name as a pseudonym to protect his family and their reputation as well as his own as a child Orwell socioeconomic conditions were unusual his mother being the daughter of a wealthy man

had the attitude and tastes of someone well off but by the time Orwell was born his family had little money and his father was working as a civil servant Orwell would later refer to his upbringing as lower upper middle class a sort of amalgamation of impoverishment and snobbery after his family returned from India to England where they originally from with the help of some family connections Orwell was sent to an English preparatory school here both his unusual temperament and his Brilliance became apparent receiving both ridicule from other students as well as scholarships to England's leading

schools Wellington and Eaton at an early age however Orwell found the academic environment miserable and so he would never go on to University instead in 1922 he entered the British Imperial Service and worked as a colonial police officer he was posted in Burma a province of British India at the time he also found this experience miserable and conflicting with his values 5 years later he would resign over the subsequent few years Orwell would work several low-paying service jobs throughout Paris and London including a part-time assistant job in a secondhand book shop around this time he

would also begin writing and Publishing books of his own including burmes days a clergyman's daughter and keep the aspidistra flying surely influenced by his unique upbringing and his diverse experiences across Burma France and London Orwell would develop a fondness for what he referred to as Ordinary People and ordinary life in individuals who worked normal jobs were not obsessed with material Goods had minimal education and didn't strive for nor achieve any sort of prominence power or so-called greatness in contrast he developed a disdain for intellectuals ironically of course Orwell would soon become one perhaps one of

the most prominent intellectuals of the 20th century Orwell's rise to prominence as an intellectual and literary figure can be largely attributed to the catalyzing experiences he had after traveling to Spain in 19 1936 initially he went to Spain as a journalist to report on the Spanish Civil War but he soon enlisted as a volunteer in the Republican militia to fight against the fascist opposition if you had asked me why I had joined the militia I should have answered to fight against Fascism and if you had asked me what I was fighting for I should have

answered common decency Orwell later wrote during his time in the war Orwell was shot in the throat and nearly killed by a sniper perhaps even more affecting for him however was what he witnessed in the the coverage and portrayal of the War years later he wrote 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 which 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 traitors and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the Heroes of imaginary victories and I saw newspapers in London retailing these 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 Orwell's observations reveal to him a degradation of the value

placed on objective truth objective truth was being replaced more and more by the faith and subjective truths of ideologies and political parties I'm willing to believe that history is for the most part inaccurate and biased but what is peculiar to our own age is the abandonment of the idea that history could be truthfully written Orwell wrote the consequences of this for Orwell risk leading to totalitarianism a form of government in which individuals lack freedom and instead are subordinate to and controlled by the central authority of the state when there is no belief in objective truth

truth solely exists in the human mind becoming easily malleable and man atable for Orwell this threat looms regardless of any specific ideological and political leaning be it left or right it is just the common basis of agreement of Truth with its implication that human beings are all one species of animal that totalitarianism destroys he wrote during the early and mid 20th century these consequences were unfolding and totalitarianism was spreading and Germany Italy Spain the Soviet Union as well as in Orwell's mind England and Beyond in response to this Orwell believed that literature could be used

to help warn against this development it could be used to shed light on the circumstances of the world and help people fend against the increasing threat to Freedom truth and well-being what I have most wanted to do throughout the past 10 years is to make political writing into an art my starting point is always a feeling of partisanship a sense of Injustice when I sit down to write a book I do not say to myself I'm going to produce a work of art I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose

some fact fact to which I want to draw attention and my initial concern is to get a hearing Orwell wrote the Orwell had already written and published several relatively successful books by around the year 1939 his real rise to Global mainstream prominence came after the publication of his Nolla Animal Farm in 1945 and it was here that Orwell's mission to spread important ideas and warnings about the threats of the time and future times began to successfully ensue at scale in Animal Farm there is no real main character rather the protagonist of the book is a

population of anthropomorphized animals living on a farm known as Manor Farm each species of animal represents a different archetype or group of humans in society one day on the farm a pig named old major expresses to the other animals that they are being exploited by the humans who own the farm and if they work together the animals can and ought to overtake the humans and create a better future for themselves a revolution happens the animals take over and a new philosophy known as animalism is established two pigs named snowball and Napoleon take lead over the

new conditions of the farm which soon becomes just Napoleon after he has snowball chased off though things appear to go well initially hell soon breaks loose and the pigs who lead the farm begin to lead with malice selfishness manipulation and violence ultimately becoming the equivalent of the humans that the animals had revolted against the creatures outside look from pig to man and from man to Pig and from pig to man again but already it was impossible to say which was was which reads the final line of the book broadly Animal Farm is a thinly veiled

critique of the Russian Revolution and the subsequent rule of Joseph Stalin over the Soviet Union it showcases and warns against the fallibilities and susceptibilities of revolutionary movements and the potential threats of counter revolutions what arguably makes this Nolla so unique and important however is its ability to cut through the surface of any single social or political Target and instead reveal Timeless truths about social political and psychological phenomena and to do so with animals in the form of a fable like that of asop or Disney Orwell brings the complexities of social and political movements into an

accessible easily understandable allegorical format that can appeal to mass audiences across time and space and that's exactly what animal farm did and does selling 500,000 copies within the first year of publication and then going on to sell millions and millions more the same year Animal Farm was released Orwell lost his wife while she was undergoing a routine surgery only a year or two later he began to fall ill himself with tuberculosis he would however muster everything he had left and work on one last book after collapsing multiple times while writing his science speculative and dystopian

fiction novel 1984 was released in 1949 in brief 1984 focuses on a character named Winston Smith who lives in what was once London but is now a province of the superstate of Oceania Oceania is run by a totalitarian government known as as the party which follows the doctrines of English Socialism or inok and is led by a dictator figure known as Big Brother in Oceania citizens are under constant surveillance and are ruthlessly punished for even so much as thinking thoughts that counter the party's ideological doctrines devices known as telescreens are put in everyone's homes where

they both consume broadcasted content and are constantly observed by the party what are known as the th police are also always looming ready to arrest anyone who commits what are known as thought crimes or simply thinking the wrong things about the party moreover the party is constantly producing propaganda in the form of manipulated information data statistics and language language is simplified and reduced in Oceania through what is known as New speak where words are eliminated from the vernacular in order to prevent the likelihood of nuanced critical thinking words are also often used in a contradictory

manner in order to undermine the true nature of the things they describe for example labor camps are referred to as Joy camps torture takes place in the ministry of love the military is referred to as the min Ministry of Peace the department responsible for falsifying data and facts is known as the ministry of truth and the slogans of Oceania are war is peace freedom is slavery ignorance is strength all of this causes citizens to engage in what is known as double think a sort of cognitive dissonance in which they both have their own perceptions and

understanding of what is true and yet they accept what they are being told by the party as true despite any contradictions at the beginning of the novel Winston writes in his diary down with big brother by the end of the novel The narrator concludes referring to Winston two Gins scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose but it was all right everything was all right the struggle was finished he had won the victory over himself he loved big brother like Animal Farm 1984 would obtain immediate success which Orwell was able to witness in his

lifetime before dying of tuberculosis the next year in 1950 ultimately it is unclear how cynical Orwell truly was was but the cynical endings to his two Masterworks are arguably not a declaration of total hopelessness but a warning for the potential hopelessness that the future could exhibit the future we are living in now since Orwell's passing his work has only continued to become increasingly popular and culturally relevant 1984 is likely one of the most widely read books certainly of the dystopian speculative genre finding itself still 75 years later a part of many if not most high

school English literature classes as well as college courses Orwell has become one of the few writers in history to have a term created out of his work orwellian most broadly orwellian refers to any conditions reminiscent of Orwell's work in which the welfare and freedom of citizens are undermined or at the risk of being undermined typically by a central political power and ideology but arguably orwellian is not purely defined by totalitarian conditions but by the means in which totalitarian conditions are carried out specifically it refers to the intention Distortion and manipulation of language and information for

the purposes of serving some ulterior power for power's sake like Orwell's work itself however this term is often misunderstood misrepresented or altered in service to whatever cause the user favors often causes in ideologies that Orwell himself would likely have disagreed with the term orwellian can apparently be orwellian itself what is clear and important to note however is that although the party of Oceania in 1984 originated from socialism orell was not a Critic of socialism he was a Critic of totalitarianism regardless of its origins or political leaning he was in fact a proponent of democratic socialism

a political democracy with a socially run decentralized economy every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written directly or indirectly against totalitarianism and for Democratic socialism as I understand it Orwell wrote furthermore he was anti- capitalist and believed capitalism incentivizes conditions of suffering and leads to small concentrations of power and wealth this certainly makes those who reference Orwell in favor of capitalism and against socialism especially and ironically orwellian ultimately regardless of whether you agree with Orwell or like his writing there is no denying his influence and there is no denying

the value and relevance of exploring the topics and ideas that he did his insights into how human psychology plays out in the arena of politics and how the use and control of language influences and controls the thoughts and opinions of a population is likely a Timeless and immensely relevant insight to all societies past present and future his unique ability to use language to convey this insight and warn against the power and influence of language is something only a brilliant writer could even try to do and his ability to bring incredibly complex and typically dry Concepts

down into the realm of Mass Appeal and interest perhaps has helped ensure that the developments of aspects of the world remain on a track that leads to at the very least a less dystopian destination in truth we are always susceptible to our own malice and ignorance when we aren't paying attention individually and collectively tyranny is not a part of History it is a part of humanity humanity is always on the brink of slipping into it of chasing the rabbit of Hope into dystopian wonderlands Orwell realized this that tyranny was always possible and can occur even

in a society in which the intentions are noble or in a society in which the conditions appear prosperous and Democratic IC perhaps Our Only Hope somewhat countering Orwell's view is realizing that in fact there is no ultimate objective Truth at least that we have access to and that subjective truth is likely all there is and all there will ever be for us we must accept this as a consequence of our condition of ignorance and limitation our fragmented perceptions and dissenting values but perhaps when we take this realization to the extreme we realize that all individuals

all groups all organizations and all ations are fallible and wrong there's no one idea or truth to follow or believe in perhaps in doing this we burn up all the fuel of totalitarianism and at the bottom of the tank we find the collective realization of simple decency the kind in which Orwell advocated for the kind in which we arrive at mutually beneficial inter subjective truths based on humility and compassion toward the differences and Mal abilities of humanity across time and space rather than an ultimate rightness and finality right now of course this is far far

easier said than done but in the words of Orwell when referring to the conditions of 1984 the moral to be drawn from this dangerous nightmare situation is a simple one don't let it happen it depends on you some of the best books we will ever read in our lives are books we have already read and many books that would completely change our lives are possibly books we will never even come across both returning to Classic instrumental books from our lives and discovering new books that help further shape our lives are extremely important for expanding our

understanding and keenness about ourselves and the world but with near infinite options of books to choose from it can be extremely difficult and timec consuming to do this successfully however with this video sponsor blankest you can much more easily overcome this challenge create better habits around reading and learning transform your perception and constantly be improving the way you think with over 7,500 non-fiction books and podcasts across tons of different categories and topics blinkist beautifully curates and breaks down titles into around 15-minute summaries and key takeaways which can be both read and listen to blinkist also

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