WEBVTT - Part Two: George Orwell and the War for Common Decency 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:06.040 Cool Zone Media, Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:09.160 Cool Stuff, your weekly reminder that people can do good 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:13.119 things and response to bad things, and also sometimes that 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:14.680 people can become better people than. 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:18.520 They started off. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and my 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:22.479 guest today is Cavea, who's host of House of Pod 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:25.439 and a doctor. And you know, oh hi, yeah. 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:28.560 No, I'm a better person now for having been through 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:32.479 episode one of these two parter learning things about how 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:33.400 to improve as a person. 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:37.640 Yeah, exactly. And you know he needs doctors a lot, 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:41.320 George orwell, oh, I thought you're gonna say me, Well, 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:46.720 I'm going to get to that too. Also is a 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:50.120 is our producer Sophie, who I would not have said 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:53.240 that about on air, but Sophie said about on air, 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:58.920 how do you like our sickly hero pop this week? 0:00:59.360 --> 0:00:59.760 I don't know. 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:04.200 I think that. Uh, I don't know. I can't get 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:06.600 past some of the things, so I just don't like him. 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:10.560 That's fair, that's working fair. I did not like him 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:12.440 for a very long time after I learned. 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:17.920 Thought yeah, yeah, but you know, empathy to people who 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:19.160 also need to live in a bubble. 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:26.680 Yeah, also in our bubble of social helping create this 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:30.959 podcast is our audio engineer, Daniel and Hi Daniel H. 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:34.839 Danel, Danel. I liked it and. 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:39.160 Our theme musical was written forced by unwoman and yeah, 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:42.679 no it's Sophie. I like, I feel you about it. 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:45.640 I I don't know. It took me a really long 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:48.520 time to be like, I'm going to give this man 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:52.680 a time a day. Our hero, George Orwell, are complicated here. 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:56.080 George Orwell, he's in Spain and he joins a Marxist militia, 0:01:56.600 --> 0:02:00.360 the Poum Poum. They're a smallish unit and they're like 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:02.960 famous in history because George Orwell wrote one of the 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.640 main books about the Spanish Civil War. They're not historically 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:11.280 important particularly, but they became important because warwells in it. 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:14.040 And they're Marxists. But the whole thing is that they're 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:16.600 not attached to Stalin. Stalin actually tries to kill them 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:19.920 all soon enough, and he wanted to join the anarchists 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:22.400 because they weren't but they weren't going where he wanted 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:25.280 to go. He wrote quote, as far as my purely 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:27.880 personal preferences went, I would have liked to join the anarchists. 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:34.799 And George ends up an officer soon enough, he was 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:37.200 a few years older, and he had basically had paramilitary 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:41.040 training from being a colonial cop. There was military rank 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:44.120 in terms of structure in these militaries, but not in 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:47.680 terms of social treatment. He said that quote. There was 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:51.079 no titles, no badges, no heel clicking, and no saluting, 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.200 and everyone from general to private drew the same pay ate, 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:57.640 the same food, wore the same clothes, and mingled on 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:00.079 terms of complete equality. 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:02.040 Why he wanted to be with the anarchists because he 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:05.800 just didn't like the pageantry of the military and being 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:07.359 like a cop and all that stuff. 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:09.920 Well, so he had like kind of come from like 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:11.640 he had this period already where he had been an 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:15.280 anarchist for a little bit. But actually it's this Marxist 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:18.440 militia is also like that. The Marxist militia that he's 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:22.120 part of is also complete social equality, even though there's 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:25.680 a command structure embedded within it, also within the anarchists, 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:29.360 or very similar structurally. But yeah, no, I think he 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:33.120 just he like kind of likes the anarchists. He's still 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:35.280 not one. He's a democratic socialist. He actually comes there 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:38.480 as part of the Labor Party, the Independent Labor Party, 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:41.240 distinct from the Labor Party. They move in and out 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:45.240 in British politics are very confusing to me, and so 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:48.440 these militias fight despite there being no force, making them 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:52.840 nothing but class loyalty. Orwell wrote quote in May. For 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:55.200 a short while, I was acting lieutenant in command of 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:58.480 about thirty men, English and Spanish. We had all been 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:01.200 under fire for months, and I never had the slightest 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:03.600 difficulty in getting an order obeyed or in getting men 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:08.680 to volunteer for a dangerous job. Discipline was built by 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:12.560 spreading revolutionary ideas, not as jargon and most as sloganeering, 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.320 but by quote, I'm a sneeze. Please cut this whole one, 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:18.480 or I'm going to acknowledge them with sneeze, and it's 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:22.920 not gonna happen. And you should include it because it's first. Yeah, 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:25.479 just include it. I hope people find it amusing that 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:26.719 I sometimes have to sneeze. 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:29.480 Look up at the sun. You can trigger an ocular 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:33.520 reflex if there's one available to you. There's a lamp. 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:38.240 Although it is midsummer as we're recording this, I'm sure 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:43.479 there's a sun outside somewhere. So they spread this discipline 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:47.600 by spreading revolutionary ideas by quote, endless arguments and explanations 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:50.040 as to why such and such a thing was necessary, 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:53.520 rather than being like, well, come on, man, dialectical marks 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:57.760 as materialism says that you should go to run into 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:03.000 that machine gun you know. Oh wait, maybe with sneeze again. 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:05.240 Who knows gonna happen at any time. 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:05.800 I don't know. 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:09.800 I'm not convinced. Almost certainly, oh, he also wrote quote 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:12.599 almost certainly. The main reason why the Spanish Republic could 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:14.040 keep up the fight for two and a half years 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:17.080 against impossible odds was that there was no gross contrasts 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:21.000 of wealth. The people suffered horribly, but they all suffered alike. 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:24.760 When the private soldier had not a cigarette, the general 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:28.800 had not won either. The militias held the line while 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:32.320 a regular army assembled and trained behind them, but eventually 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:34.920 the communist forces, and by this I mean the Stalinist forces, 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:39.160 swallowed it all. After about a year, the militias disbanded 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:42.320 or were absorbed into the communist controlled popular army, with 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:44.600 all the usual bullshit like officers getting paid a ton 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:49.599 more than the regular soldiers, or well described it, The 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:52.200 undoubted purpose of this change was to strike a blow 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:56.800 at equalitarianism in every Department, the same policy had been followed, 0:05:57.160 --> 0:05:59.400 with the result that only a year after the outbreak 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:02.960 of the war, you get what was in effect an 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:06.960 ordinary bourgeois state with in addition a reign of terror 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:10.320 to preserve the status quo. And like when he says 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:13.279 preserve the status quo, he means that, like when the 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:16.440 revolution first broke out, everyone's like running around and collectivizing 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:19.200 farms and stealing land back from the landlords and shit 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:21.920 like that. Right, the Communists were like, no, no, you can't 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:24.719 do that yet. You're not allowed to collectivize property anymore, 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:26.240 and we will fucking kill you if you try. 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:30.680 So I'm look confused, though, Yeah, you're confused, so he 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:35.760 said a little bit. Yeah, okay again, I'm I'm not 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:37.280 socially just asking. 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:41.880 But I feel like that would have been a Communist 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:44.839 thing to do though, or were they There's like, no, 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:48.679 we're the ones to do that, not you people doing 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:49.440 it willy nilly. 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:53.120 So there's this thing that at this time the Communist 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:56.600 Party was kind of the right wing of the left 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:01.400 because they believed one they were like totalitarian right and 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:03.760 they believed in Stalin and all this stuff, right, But 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:07.040 they specifically were like, we can't have the revolution yet 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:10.679 because we don't want to piss off the rich, because 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:14.520 we want to consolidate power. They were specifically around politicking 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:18.280 and playing power rather than having a communist revolution. So 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:21.760 they're hypocrites and they are like counter revolutionary, is how 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:24.720 I Everyone who listens to this podcast knows, I have 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:28.360 a very low opinion of the USSR. But yeah, so 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:32.960 they are running around preventing the revolution in the name 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:36.680 of the greater revolution. Basically. Part of it also is 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:40.880 that Russia doesn't care about Spain except as a chess 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:44.880 piece on a global board, right, and so Russia is 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:50.240 afraid that if Spain goes communists too soon, the UK 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:53.040 and France are not going to have it, and they're 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:55.200 going to like try to stop Russia. 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:57.040 Got you, right, gotcha. 0:07:57.320 --> 0:08:00.640 They're playing forty chess with yeah, people's lives instead of 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:04.840 having ideological consistency and trying to, you know, create a 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:09.000 communist society. Everyone else's trying to create a communist society 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:12.880 except the communists, is what's happening. The Labor Party is 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:16.960 down there trying to fucking cause a communist society because 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:19.400 the left wing of the or the Independent Labor Party 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:22.040 is to the left of the Communists. 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:26.480 Is the Labor Party back then it all similar to 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:27.720 the one that exists now. 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:30.920 No, So okay, so I'm gonna get this a little 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:33.080 bit messy. So there's the Independent Labor Party and then 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:35.280 there's the Labor Party, and then they kind of intertwine 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:38.560 back and forth every now and then. And I think 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:41.679 by like the mid nineteen forties, the Independent Labor Party 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:45.880 becomes the left wing of the Labor Party, which comes 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.480 into power. And it's around then I think that the 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:54.040 Labor Party starts getting a little bit more boring centrist, 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:58.920 even kind of sometimes center right, and that's like Or 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:01.319 will die shortly there after, and like, so we actually 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:03.240 don't know what he would have kind of done politically, 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:06.800 whether he would have like kept fighting for the left 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:08.320 wing of the Labor Party or whether he would have 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:10.800 peaced out on it. But he's down there with the 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:12.119 Independent Labor Party. 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:12.360 At this time. 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:16.720 So it's it is distinct at this time, and there's 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:21.080 no official English intervention, like the government is of Britain 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:25.200 is not intervening, but individuals are like, we gotta go 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:28.720 stup fascism. Yeah, I'm also going to just out of nowhere. 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:32.440 Read my favorite quote from this book because I like it. Quote. 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.559 I have no particular love for the idealized worker as 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:38.200 he appears in the bourgeois communist mind. But when I 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:40.920 see an actual flesh and blood worker in conflict with 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:44.160 his natural enemy, the policeman, I do not have to 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:45.680 ask myself which side I am on. 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.040 Wow that's pretty. That's a. That's a. It's a major 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:52.640 character arc from where he started. 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:53.760 I know he was a cop. 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.360 Yeah, wow, Yeah, that's pretty. 0:09:57.400 --> 0:09:59.679 It's pretty interesting. I mean, we're going to get to it, 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:02.320 but I'm I'm like bummed to hear that he died 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:04.160 at forty six, Like I really wonder what would have 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.679 happened if, like, you know, he kept going. 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:10.719 No and everyone conjectures and they would have been like, 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:12.400 he would have been on my team. And I do 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:16.280 that a little bit too, But like everyone's wrong, you know. 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:21.200 Right soon after he gets down there, Eileen comes to 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:23.760 and we don't have as much of her words. He 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:26.560 didn't write much about her the famous war. His book 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:28.640 on the war, Homage to Catalonia, doesn't mention her by 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:30.840 name anywhere in it, and doesn't talk about what she's doing. 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:33.920 Really Some have read this as evidence of him ignoring 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:36.200 her and taking it for granted. Again, my read of 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.080 the situation, which could be wrong, is that it was 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:43.000 private and that neither of them wanted her dragged into it. Yeah, 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:46.040 but she went down there, and she was coordinating logistics 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:49.079 for all the independent labor union soldiers, and so she's 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:52.440 running supply and communications and financial stuff and producing a 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:56.280 newspaper and a radio show. And there's like photos of 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:58.000 her on the front lines and stuff. She's not fighting 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:00.000 on the front lines, but she's making it happen. 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.080 Sounded sad upon the radio. Sorry, I had to get 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:05.400 into Dixie being that runner. 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:08.960 Nice, well done you. 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:11.040 Eventually I find a way. 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:15.800 I only know, come on, Eileen, that the chorus you know, Oh. 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:19.480 God, I don't know. I love that song so much. 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:22.840 It is the greatest one hit wonder, even better than 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:26.240 PoCA Bell's canon. It's that good a one hit wonder. 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:27.560 That's how much I love that song. 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:31.160 It does something really well, which is like be a 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:36.400 like upbeat sad song. Yeah, exactly, that's right. Yeah, I 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:41.240 do like that about it. So, while George is fighting 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:44.199 at the front, a fascist soldier shoots him through the throat. 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:47.520 There's so many people who hate Orwell who write about Orwell, 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.560 And there's like this one writer who writes about everything 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:52.720 bad that happens to orwell's his own fault, and like 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:55.440 how he died of sickness as his own fault because 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:59.480 he kept being like dumb, you know. And so this 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:04.880 author whose name I genuinely forget, was like, oh, he 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:08.600 was really tall and he stood up and so they 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:10.840 he got shot and he should have known better because 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:12.000 he was tall and not to stand. 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:13.920 Should never have stood up in that war. 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:19.480 Yeah, and he's like the same versus like he he 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:21.640 was slumming and that's how he got sick and destroyed 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.640 his health. So fuck him. And I'm just like damn. 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:26.599 And it's not even one of the people who was 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:28.040 writing about the bad thing he did. 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:29.200 Yeah, that's right. 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:33.319 Anyway, he gets shot in the throat, but he survives. 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:35.960 If he had been shot a millimeter in another direction, 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:38.280 we probably wouldn't have had the book nineteen eighty four. 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:40.800 Yeah, those a little important things going through your neck. 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:43.079 Yeah yeah, bad place to get shot. Yeah. 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:44.520 I was gonna ask, as a doctor, is like is 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:46.480 that a good spot? Like I know, he just turned 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:47.120 out the best. 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:52.600 Yeah, turned to kit it really tight. Yeah, yeah, that's 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.319 a really bad place. I mean, aside from the blood 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:59.000 vessels that are major to bleed out very easily, the 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:03.160 is you know, you could get swelling from the wound 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:05.560 or the edemon and that could cause a restriction on 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:08.840 your air and your breathing, so not to mention your 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:12.200 spinal cord. So there's all there's a lot of stuff 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:13.960 in there, I mean, unless it just nicks you on 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:18.200 the side. Yes, it's not a good place to get shot. Yeah. 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:21.880 No, it's definitely threw the throat, not of graze, and 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:27.000 he definitely was apparently like millimeters from an artery and goodness, 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:30.040 but he's lucky in some ways. 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:30.960 Yeah. 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:33.160 One thing that wasn't lucky is that while he was 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:37.000 at the front, the Communists had started attacking the Marxists 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:40.520 and the anarchists, and they started disappearing POM members, the 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:43.920 militia that he's part of. They start torturing them, they start, 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:47.600 but don't worry. The communist officers who did this disappearing 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:50.840 and torturing of their political rivals then got disappeared and 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:56.120 tortured by the Communist officers who replaced them, because it's 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:58.800 no one is good at killing communists like Stalin. 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:04.200 I mean, like why just to like we didn't like 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:07.120 the way you tortured and killed the anarchists. We're going 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:07.640 to do it. 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:11.200 Better or like yeah, like now they're politically untrustworthy, like 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:14.000 Stalin is like fucking paranoid. 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:16.920 You did what we told you to our colleagues, and 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:19.040 that shows us that you're not to be trusted, so 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:20.720 we are going to kill you now for it. 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:24.800 Yeah, basically, like like it's like it's almost inscrutable, like 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:28.040 Stalin has like the people closest to him are the 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:29.840 people who are getting killed, right, and so it's the 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:33.120 highest like it is the guy who disappeared a Pooh 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:35.320 member and was like the main torture guy. It's I 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:38.400 researched at different time, so I remember anyone's names who 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:42.600 like was then disappeared and tortured within months, you know, 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:48.240 And I don't know. I think that this is why 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:50.720 the Spanish Civil War, and other people argue that we 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:52.360 would have lost either way, but I think this is 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:54.800 why Franco won. There's certainly a big part of it. 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:58.040 It doesn't help when this kind of stuff happens. Yeah, 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:00.360 and so when he gets out of the hospit at all, 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.760 there's a warrnt out for his arrest from the Communists 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:08.240 because he's in and for him and Eileen, Eileen saves 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:10.240 the day. She has one eye on the exit the 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:14.160 whole time, and while he's recovering, she's like figuring out passport. 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:14.480 Shit. 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:17.120 I think they get out under an assumed name. It's 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:20.520 been a while since I read how much Catalonium and 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:23.920 gets them out of the country. And they were going 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:25.840 to be arrested and tried by the Communists. And we 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:30.080 know this because they were arrested and tried in absentia, 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:33.800 which is two things. One, what a way to start 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:35.880 a married life. They had been married for less than 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:39.040 six months when they go to this war. Yeah, and 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:41.400 it is like around their one year anniversary that they 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:44.800 are fleeing under assumed names from the Communists who they 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:46.400 were supposedly supposed to be helping. 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:48.960 Yeah, romance, I know. 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:53.960 And the other thing is that he hates Stalinists, and 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:58.120 with the burning heat of fiery son, the two things 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:02.360 he hates are fascists and Stalinists and he sees them 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:07.440 equally as bad. And because they killed probably an equal 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:12.080 number of his close friends during that war. Yeah, and 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:16.800 so yeah, Stalin gets stal George Horwell gets home, gets 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:20.680 really anti Stalinists at this point, and the left in 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:24.440 the UK fucking hates him when he gets back because 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.760 he doesn't like Stalin. Everyone's like, what, you can't be 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:31.760 mad at Stalin, the Man of Steele, He's our guy. 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.120 He couldn't get Homage to Catalonia published for a very 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:38.760 long time, and when he did, it's sold like a 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.680 couple hundred copies. He's like already a known author at 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:44.400 this point, right, but no one will buy it because 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:48.880 leftists right wing doesn't want it and the leftists don't 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.200 want it either. This is where Orwell starts getting taken 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:55.080 out of context constantly. His existing books are starting to 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:57.800 get taken out of context and being like, oh, or 0:16:58.000 --> 0:16:59.880 was not a real leftist. He said the following about 0:16:59.880 --> 0:17:01.560 the working class or whatever. Like there's this thing where 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:03.400 like in one of his books he was like the 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:06.480 working class smell, and you take that out of context, 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:07.280 that sure doesn't. 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:08.800 Sound great, right, yeah, sure. 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:11.960 And he's like talking about being like the sweat of 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:15.320 honest labor and hard lives and like bad hygiene caused 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:17.840 by poverty, and like, yes, there is actually a distinct 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:20.879 smell and you know, and so they're like, ah, or 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:23.359 Well just thinks that everyone, all the working class are 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:28.000 smelly idiots or whatever. Yeah, but Orwell remains a leftist 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.680 despite this, He wrote, quote, every line of serious work 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.280 I have written since nineteen thirty six has been written 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:40.320 directly or indirectly against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism. And 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:43.520 what's funny speaking of being taken out of context after 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:46.160 he dies and they like are reprinting Animal Farm and shit, 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.480 they start off with a intro introduction where they take 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:52.879 out the for democratic socialism. 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:55.399 No kidding, yeah, oh my, what did they did? They 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:57.600 replace it with something or they took up that line completely. 0:17:57.920 --> 0:17:59.800 Yeah, there's every line of serious work I've written is 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:01.400 against totalitarianism. 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:05.280 What point did he write animal Farm? Was this? Okay, 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:05.880 it's soon. 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:08.560 So he moves in with Eileen's family for a while, 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:10.480 and then they moved to another place and they got 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:12.600 a French poodle they named Marx and a rooster they 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:18.720 named Henry Ford. And he kept getting sick a bunch, 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:20.760 which is like, you know, his the style at the 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:23.439 time for him and a writer friend pays for them 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:26.919 to recover in French Morocco, and so he goes to 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:29.639 hang out in warmer air or whatever because he's stole 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:32.560 a middle class and by middle class and British standards 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:33.760 like vaguely boucheoisie guy. 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:34.080 You know. 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:39.040 Yeah, Eventually World War two does its whole thing like start. 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:41.760 And prior to the outbreak of the war, George actually 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:43.680 came back from Spain and he was a pacifist, which 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:46.320 was like the further left position, which doesn't mean that 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:48.439 he was against It doesn't mean what it means today, 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:51.840 like no violence. It means he didn't believe in England 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:57.120 joining a hypothetical European war. As soon as the war starts, 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:00.879 he won eighties and he is very pro war. There 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:03.280 are Nazis to kill and there's an England to defend. 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:08.639 Eileen is off to working in the censorship department at 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:13.920 the Ministry of Information. Yeah, they sounds very nineteen eighty four. 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:17.520 His life is very nineteen eighty four. George Orwell is 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:19.280 going to soon we'll talk about it. First he tries 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:21.040 to sign up for the military. He's like, well, I know, 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:23.159 my shit, I've been in a war. I you know 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:25.919 and say what you want about George orwell, he was 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:29.920 pathologically fearless. As far as I can tell, the Army, 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:32.479 the Navy, and the Air Force all reject him like 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:34.160 one after the other. 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:38.320 Your next buddy, you can't come. No, we're not taking you. 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:42.159 You are sickly, you are constantly down with pneumonia. And 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.600 also I think the fact that he's like a leftist 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.800 is part of this, right, like he's been. He actually 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:52.240 like kind of tries to join like more proper like 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:56.199 Ministry of Information type stuff, and I think and they 0:19:56.200 --> 0:20:00.560 don't let him because he's on there like sk lefty 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:03.800 watch list. Yeah but yeah, and he's in his late 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:06.280 thirties and shit, and he's like not medically fit for 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:09.280 the war. So he joins the Home Guard, and the 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:11.439 Home Guard is mostly made up of like brave but 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:13.600 too young or too old or too sick, people like 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:16.879 people who can join the regular military over under eighteen 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:21.120 over forty one. And they all were training to fight 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:24.720 as partisans in case Germany invaded the UK, which absolutely 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:27.399 could have happened. It didn't come super close to happening. 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:29.439 We now know, right because we can like look at 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:32.840 the war documents and shit, but it like absolutely could 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:36.840 have happened. Or well, wants to turn the Home Guard 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:39.920 into a socialist militia to have a socialist revolution during 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:40.640 World War Two. 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:44.240 It's strong, yes commitment. 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:48.200 He is not alone in this And basically he starts 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:51.320 talking about how we need to win the war against 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:54.040 Hitler for socialism to have a chance, but we also 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:56.320 need to have a socialist revolution in order for winning 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.800 the war to have a chance. And I mean, he's wrong. 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:02.720 They managed to defeat Hitler anyway without a socialist revolution. 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:04.960 And did you know what one result of us not 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:07.600