George Orwell: Notes on Nationalism

**mongoose** · October 21, 2007, 04:59 PM

http://www.george-orwell.org/Notes_o...onalism/0.html

A few excerpts:

INDIFFERENCE TO REALITY. All nationalists have the power of not seeing
resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend
self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of
inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own
merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of
outrage--torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations,
imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of
civilians--which does not change its moral colour when it is committed
by 'our' side.

Indifference to objective truth is encouraged by the sealing-off of one
part of the world from another, which makes it harder and harder to
discover what is actually happening. There can often be a genuine doubt
about the most enormous events. For example, it is impossible to
calculate within millions, perhaps even tens of millions, the number of
deaths caused by the present war. The calamities that are constantly
being reported--battles, massacres, famines, revolutions--tend to
inspire in the average person a feeling of unreality.

(v) PACIFISM. The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure
religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to the taking of
life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there
is a minority of intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted
motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration of
totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that
one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings
of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any
means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely
against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule
condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of western
countries.

**Vladimir Lenin** · October 21, 2007, 06:29 PM

Yes, Orwell fought in an anti-fascst milita in Spain. He wrote about the experinces in Homage to Catalonia (slaughtered word)

**Bokks** · October 22, 2007, 10:27 AM

Slaughtered word? Is that the name of a work by Orwell, or do you think you spelled something wrong, because I don't think you did.
'Course I'm a bad speller myself...

Anyway, we talked about this in class... not Orwell specifically, but the whole nationalist and hypocracy thing. Like people being up in arms with Clinton, and yet Giuliani spanked more than he did. Well, maybe as much, I doubt Hugh Heffner or Howard Hughes was able to get more than Billy, but that's not the point, the fact is some people who condemned Clinton still back Rudy due to party lines.
And Israel and Iraq, we condemn Hussein for not following UN protacol, yet we back Israel.
That's actually the synaps we used in class, personally I see that as a whole different cup-o-tea, since Saddam was given multiple chances over years to comply with a simple peace force to check his goings-ons after he lost a war in the early 90's, and Israel was given no chance to comply with a back breaking cease-fire against an enemy that was actively bombing the Israeli border, after they've been nothing but faithful to an increasingly corrupt UN.

That's my opinion, anyway. You can get the fire-squads if you want...

**Bwaho** · October 22, 2007, 11:29 AM

Yes, Orwell fought in an anti-fascst milita in Spain

yeah, with a group that beat and killed unarmed priests and attacked churches.

**Yuiis** · October 22, 2007, 11:45 AM

Originally Posted by Bwaho

yeah, with a group that beat and killed unarmed priests and attacked churches.

A few uncontrolled minority, an infimous number compared to all the military and fascists that couped against a democratically elected republic, killing thousands of unarmed men, women and children (whatever their job was) that they knew/thought/suspected of not following their ideals. And these were not uncontrolled anarchists, that responded (excesively) to an attack they were an organized army that was responsible for the beggining of the conflict.

It is a falacy to compare and make both sides equally guilty in this conflict, in fact it is what far-right neofascist groups try to lie about all the time nowdays.