Secondly there is the fact that the intellectuals are more totalitarian in outlook than the common people. On the whole the English intelligentsia have opposed Hitler, but only at the price of accepting Stalin. Most of them are perfectly ready for dictatorial methods, secret police, systematic falsification of history etc. so long as they feel that it is on ‘our’ side. Read more»
George Orwell 1944 letter to Noel Willmett.
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Orwell’s remark about Britain and the United States not knowing defeat and severe suffering ignores the Scottish Gaidhealtachd in Britain and the American South in the United States, two cultures which have seen continual efforts at being erased from society.
Though Orwell understood the evil of Hitler and Stalin and despised them both, it seems to me he remained unreasonably optimistic about non-Stalinist communism. I wish I knew more about Orwell’s thought, but I perceive no biblical foundation to shape his otherwise clear assessment of what men and nations think and do. From the time of Francis Schaeffer’s description of willingness for reasons of “personal peace and affluency” to be complacent and complicit in the triumph of tyranny, I have anticipated this present day, and from Toqueville’s conclusion that this country would remain free as long as she remains good, I expect policy that redefines what is good in order to control America’s people. Finally, I don’t remember who said it, but I think it is true, that “freedom requires an educated citizenry” – educated, that is, to think and reason and discern rationally, relying on objective truth and moral commands.