1 00:00:01,720 --> 00:00:04,320 Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media. 2 00:00:04,640 --> 00:00:06,720 Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, 3 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:11,400 Speaker 2: your weekly podcast about cool people who did the cool stuff. 4 00:00:12,039 --> 00:00:14,360 Speaker 2: One of the people who did cool stuff is doctor 5 00:00:14,400 --> 00:00:18,440 Speaker 2: kavejda House of pod. Some of the cool stuff you've 6 00:00:18,480 --> 00:00:23,680 Speaker 2: done in clothes, saving people's lives with medicine and entertaining 7 00:00:23,720 --> 00:00:25,000 Speaker 2: people with podcasts. 8 00:00:25,480 --> 00:00:29,800 Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. I like to think that I'm saving people 9 00:00:29,800 --> 00:00:34,080 Speaker 3: with my podcasts, saving them from boring medical podcasts. That's 10 00:00:34,240 --> 00:00:35,720 Speaker 3: what I feel like I'm saving them from. 11 00:00:36,240 --> 00:00:38,519 Speaker 2: But I have a question, because like I have to 12 00:00:38,600 --> 00:00:40,680 Speaker 2: kind of gas myself up to think that what I 13 00:00:40,720 --> 00:00:43,879 Speaker 2: do is meaningful and impactful. How does it feel to 14 00:00:43,880 --> 00:00:45,839 Speaker 2: be both like, Oh, I do this thing that's a 15 00:00:45,880 --> 00:00:47,680 Speaker 2: little bit more direct, and then I do this other 16 00:00:47,720 --> 00:00:49,160 Speaker 2: thing that's a little bit more ephemeral. 17 00:00:49,760 --> 00:00:52,560 Speaker 3: Uh. I'll tell you that's a really good question. First 18 00:00:52,560 --> 00:00:56,080 Speaker 3: of all, do not downplay what you do, Margaret. I 19 00:00:56,160 --> 00:01:00,040 Speaker 3: feel like your sphere of influence is bigger than even you, 20 00:01:00,040 --> 00:01:04,479 Speaker 3: you know, And so I think that your show is 21 00:01:04,760 --> 00:01:07,160 Speaker 3: really great. And I'm not just saying that because I'm 22 00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:12,680 Speaker 3: on it now. Although it helps, but there are a 23 00:01:12,720 --> 00:01:16,000 Speaker 3: lot of times in medicine where when you're doing things 24 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:20,440 Speaker 3: to help somebody, it's not so obvious, like sometimes it's 25 00:01:20,520 --> 00:01:23,000 Speaker 3: really obvious, like if someone is having an emergency and 26 00:01:23,040 --> 00:01:26,039 Speaker 3: I fix it for them, that's great, it's super satisfying. 27 00:01:26,640 --> 00:01:29,479 Speaker 3: A lot of what you do is stuff where if 28 00:01:29,480 --> 00:01:34,679 Speaker 3: you're doing it right, the patient doesn't even notice it 29 00:01:34,720 --> 00:01:37,960 Speaker 3: doesn't and doesn't even like you don't get that immediate satisfaction. 30 00:01:38,040 --> 00:01:40,080 Speaker 3: That's a lot of what you do, and so you 31 00:01:40,240 --> 00:01:42,280 Speaker 3: kind of it's almost like you know, when you're talking 32 00:01:42,400 --> 00:01:45,840 Speaker 3: into this microphone and you know that you're doing you're 33 00:01:45,880 --> 00:01:48,640 Speaker 3: reaching people, but you can't see them. So it's a 34 00:01:48,640 --> 00:01:50,280 Speaker 3: little bit of a different feeling. It's kind of like 35 00:01:50,280 --> 00:01:52,880 Speaker 3: that in medicine a lot too. Or it's like I 36 00:01:52,960 --> 00:01:54,880 Speaker 3: know a lot of what I'm doing is very important 37 00:01:54,800 --> 00:01:58,000 Speaker 3: in helping somebody, but it won't show for many years 38 00:01:58,360 --> 00:02:00,680 Speaker 3: or maybe they'll never notice it all. That's how I 39 00:02:00,720 --> 00:02:03,280 Speaker 3: know I did a good job. So it's actually kind 40 00:02:03,280 --> 00:02:04,680 Speaker 3: of similar, I guess, is what I'm saying. 41 00:02:05,200 --> 00:02:07,120 Speaker 2: No, that actually that actually makes a lot of sense 42 00:02:07,160 --> 00:02:10,560 Speaker 2: to me. Yeah, today we're going to talk about someone 43 00:02:10,720 --> 00:02:15,359 Speaker 2: who both directly and indirectly, like did both things right, 44 00:02:15,440 --> 00:02:18,040 Speaker 2: and in this case, it was fighting fascism and totalitarianism. 45 00:02:18,120 --> 00:02:18,639 Speaker 3: I can't wait. 46 00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:21,520 Speaker 2: I can't wait, Cave, have you ever heard of books? 47 00:02:22,480 --> 00:02:27,120 Speaker 3: But I've seen them. I've seen them. I had a 48 00:02:27,160 --> 00:02:30,639 Speaker 3: couple when I was younger. I experimented a little bit, 49 00:02:30,639 --> 00:02:32,000 Speaker 3: if I'm being honest, in college. 50 00:02:32,560 --> 00:02:36,280 Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, and well. 51 00:02:36,120 --> 00:02:39,000 Speaker 3: Now I don't have so many of them because it's 52 00:02:39,080 --> 00:02:42,040 Speaker 3: all in the interwebs. But yeah, I'm familiar with the concept. 53 00:02:42,440 --> 00:02:46,440 Speaker 2: Okay, Kave is wearing a book shirt right now, just 54 00:02:46,480 --> 00:02:47,320 Speaker 2: to H. 55 00:02:47,480 --> 00:02:48,960 Speaker 3: Powell's City of Books. 56 00:02:49,320 --> 00:02:51,320 Speaker 2: Yeah, just amazing bookstore. 57 00:02:51,480 --> 00:02:53,160 Speaker 4: Ah my peoples. 58 00:02:54,680 --> 00:02:56,920 Speaker 2: Yeah, today, you guys, we're going to talk about a 59 00:02:56,919 --> 00:02:59,640 Speaker 2: guy who made some books, some of which readers have 60 00:02:59,680 --> 00:03:02,800 Speaker 2: probably readers listeners have probably read. 61 00:03:03,600 --> 00:03:05,720 Speaker 3: Yeah, there's probably people reading this podcast, so I'm sure 62 00:03:05,760 --> 00:03:07,279 Speaker 3: that there's people just doing the conscriptions. 63 00:03:07,360 --> 00:03:11,440 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. A couple months ago, I talked about 64 00:03:11,639 --> 00:03:14,359 Speaker 2: one of the people who is the most commonly misquoted, 65 00:03:14,520 --> 00:03:18,840 Speaker 2: constantly misunderstood writer with way better politics than anyone realized. 66 00:03:18,960 --> 00:03:22,639 Speaker 2: His name was Oscar Wilde. Oh, and this week we're 67 00:03:22,639 --> 00:03:28,360 Speaker 2: going to talk about another constantly misquoted, constantly misunderstood writer 68 00:03:28,680 --> 00:03:32,440 Speaker 2: who had way better politics than anyone realized. This guy 69 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:35,880 Speaker 2: was a big fan of Oscar Wilde. Wild was a 70 00:03:35,880 --> 00:03:39,800 Speaker 2: major political influence on him. His name you might have 71 00:03:39,880 --> 00:03:42,279 Speaker 2: heard of before is George Orwell. 72 00:03:42,680 --> 00:03:46,200 Speaker 3: Oh wow, oh yeah, I've heard I've heard of George orwell, yeah, 73 00:03:46,240 --> 00:03:47,320 Speaker 3: that's how you know he's big. 74 00:03:47,720 --> 00:03:53,000 Speaker 2: Yeah. I feel like most people who h read in 75 00:03:53,120 --> 00:03:57,160 Speaker 2: English have heard of George Orwell. That is my hypothesis here. 76 00:03:57,840 --> 00:03:58,920 Speaker 3: That's a fair. 77 00:03:59,040 --> 00:04:01,640 Speaker 2: That's fair, And I'm going to make a bunch of 78 00:04:01,680 --> 00:04:03,680 Speaker 2: claims about him. One of is that some people hate him, 79 00:04:03,680 --> 00:04:05,440 Speaker 2: and they usually hate him for the wrong reasons. There 80 00:04:05,440 --> 00:04:10,600 Speaker 2: are reasons to hate him, but I don't, and we'll 81 00:04:10,600 --> 00:04:11,120 Speaker 2: talk about that. 82 00:04:11,760 --> 00:04:14,760 Speaker 3: I can't wait. I have to admit I don't know 83 00:04:14,800 --> 00:04:18,880 Speaker 3: a ton. I know like nineteen eighty four in Animal Form, 84 00:04:19,200 --> 00:04:21,400 Speaker 3: and when I was very very young the nineteen eighty 85 00:04:21,400 --> 00:04:23,440 Speaker 3: four movie came out. I think it came out like 86 00:04:23,560 --> 00:04:25,920 Speaker 3: I was too young to watch it, but I remember 87 00:04:25,920 --> 00:04:27,839 Speaker 3: seeing it on like HBO once when I was like 88 00:04:27,920 --> 00:04:30,880 Speaker 3: way too young, and it traumatized me in a deep, 89 00:04:30,960 --> 00:04:31,599 Speaker 3: deep way. 90 00:04:31,960 --> 00:04:35,680 Speaker 2: So I just rat on his face or whatever. 91 00:04:35,920 --> 00:04:38,000 Speaker 3: He's a broke I remember him just being totally broken 92 00:04:38,120 --> 00:04:43,360 Speaker 3: at the end of it, and so that affected me deeply, deeply, 93 00:04:43,400 --> 00:04:46,080 Speaker 3: So I Yes, I'm very excited to learn more about him. 94 00:04:46,160 --> 00:04:51,360 Speaker 2: Yeah, he's an emotionally effective writer, which is interesting because 95 00:04:51,400 --> 00:04:54,680 Speaker 2: he's not an emotionally expressive person. And we'll talk about that. 96 00:04:54,720 --> 00:04:57,720 Speaker 2: Some of his biggest sort of some of the misunderstandings 97 00:04:57,800 --> 00:05:00,120 Speaker 2: or correct understandings of him are around the fact that 98 00:05:00,160 --> 00:05:05,200 Speaker 2: he did not express much emotion. George Orrell was a 99 00:05:05,240 --> 00:05:08,840 Speaker 2: man who went from privileged son of the empire to 100 00:05:09,040 --> 00:05:13,880 Speaker 2: colonial cop to anti fascist fighter who took a bullet 101 00:05:13,920 --> 00:05:17,960 Speaker 2: to the neck fighting Franco in Spain, to going on 102 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:20,279 Speaker 2: to write some of the best English language commentary on 103 00:05:20,320 --> 00:05:24,119 Speaker 2: totalitarianism and being a major anti imperialist writer at the time. 104 00:05:25,120 --> 00:05:28,680 Speaker 2: This was a man whose sole guiding principle was he 105 00:05:28,720 --> 00:05:33,440 Speaker 2: believed in what he called common decency. And while he's 106 00:05:33,480 --> 00:05:36,240 Speaker 2: often painted as an anti socialist because his works are 107 00:05:36,279 --> 00:05:41,960 Speaker 2: critical of the USSR, he was very explicitly a democratic 108 00:05:41,960 --> 00:05:44,600 Speaker 2: socialist to the end of his days. He was absolutely 109 00:05:44,640 --> 00:05:46,960 Speaker 2: on the left, and he put all of his money 110 00:05:47,040 --> 00:05:51,120 Speaker 2: towards making the world a better place, and he lived 111 00:05:51,160 --> 00:05:53,000 Speaker 2: really modestly, and he also put a lot of money 112 00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:56,200 Speaker 2: towards his son. So that's like what he did with 113 00:05:56,240 --> 00:05:59,919 Speaker 2: his money. So far liking it, unliking where this is headed. 114 00:06:01,320 --> 00:06:05,800 Speaker 2: He's a complicated figure. His homophobia and unaddressed misogyny are 115 00:06:05,839 --> 00:06:11,000 Speaker 2: woven throughout his writings. However, I'm going to complicate especially 116 00:06:11,040 --> 00:06:13,960 Speaker 2: his misogyny, in a minute. His actions did not always 117 00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:17,400 Speaker 2: live up to his lofty ideals, especially when he was younger. 118 00:06:18,240 --> 00:06:21,200 Speaker 2: He is my problematic fave. He's just problematic for different 119 00:06:21,200 --> 00:06:23,920 Speaker 2: reasons than some of the listeners who are already mad 120 00:06:23,960 --> 00:06:27,920 Speaker 2: at me for talking about him. Assume, huh, so. 121 00:06:27,880 --> 00:06:29,680 Speaker 3: It's people that are mad about this already. 122 00:06:29,800 --> 00:06:35,320 Speaker 2: Yeah, authoritarian communists hate him. Everyone else wants to claim him. 123 00:06:35,600 --> 00:06:38,200 Speaker 2: The right wing wants to claim him, the center left, 124 00:06:38,279 --> 00:06:42,679 Speaker 2: the anarchists, everyone is like, he's our guy, right except 125 00:06:42,680 --> 00:06:44,760 Speaker 2: the authoritarian left, who are like, we hate this man 126 00:06:44,800 --> 00:06:46,200 Speaker 2: with the burning heat of a thousand sons. 127 00:06:46,720 --> 00:06:50,160 Speaker 3: Okay, all right, Can I ask a question. Yeah, I 128 00:06:50,279 --> 00:06:52,760 Speaker 3: hear the term tanky used a lot. 129 00:06:54,640 --> 00:06:59,560 Speaker 2: So yes, tankies hate him. Okay, I'm using the term correctly. Yes, 130 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:03,719 Speaker 2: minitarian socialists specifically who are like totally fine with the 131 00:07:03,760 --> 00:07:05,240 Speaker 2: worst excesses of the USSR. 132 00:07:05,720 --> 00:07:08,680 Speaker 3: Okay. I apologize to your listeners in advance because I 133 00:07:08,720 --> 00:07:13,400 Speaker 3: asked some very stupid questions. No, very actively pro those 134 00:07:13,480 --> 00:07:16,560 Speaker 3: kinds of questions being esca and Orwell would be very 135 00:07:16,600 --> 00:07:20,320 Speaker 3: happy that you were asking these questions too, because one 136 00:07:20,360 --> 00:07:23,840 Speaker 3: of Orwell's whole things was fuck jargon. He was like, 137 00:07:24,200 --> 00:07:25,920 Speaker 3: if you are writing, I'm going to get to it later. 138 00:07:25,960 --> 00:07:29,320 Speaker 3: We're gonna talk about rules of writing. He's like, only 139 00:07:29,400 --> 00:07:31,800 Speaker 3: used jargon if it is the only word to describe 140 00:07:31,800 --> 00:07:33,160 Speaker 3: what you're saying. Got it. 141 00:07:33,640 --> 00:07:36,000 Speaker 2: A million books have been written about George Orwell, and 142 00:07:36,040 --> 00:07:38,120 Speaker 2: I haven't read them all. An awful lot of books 143 00:07:38,160 --> 00:07:40,640 Speaker 2: were written by George Orwell, and I've read a lot 144 00:07:40,640 --> 00:07:44,000 Speaker 2: of them, but I haven't read all of them. Some 145 00:07:44,040 --> 00:07:45,560 Speaker 2: of the books I haven't read are the ones he 146 00:07:45,600 --> 00:07:48,400 Speaker 2: says he wished he hadn't written, So I feel fine. 147 00:07:49,080 --> 00:07:53,360 Speaker 2: He's not a fan of his early work. Yeah, I 148 00:07:53,360 --> 00:07:54,840 Speaker 2: read read one of his books that he says he 149 00:07:54,880 --> 00:07:56,680 Speaker 2: didn't wish he hadn't read, and that actually was a 150 00:07:56,760 --> 00:07:59,080 Speaker 2: kind of an interesting book. It's called Keith the Asperdistra Flying, 151 00:07:59,120 --> 00:08:02,920 Speaker 2: and it's about a middle class guy who wants to 152 00:08:02,960 --> 00:08:06,360 Speaker 2: be poor in this slumming it and ends up therefore 153 00:08:06,400 --> 00:08:08,440 Speaker 2: just sort of taking advantage of his girlfriend because she 154 00:08:08,480 --> 00:08:10,160 Speaker 2: has a middle class job, and he refuses to have 155 00:08:10,160 --> 00:08:12,520 Speaker 2: a middle class job. And it was actually like probably 156 00:08:12,600 --> 00:08:15,560 Speaker 2: useful to me for me to read as like a 157 00:08:15,560 --> 00:08:18,200 Speaker 2: squatter who often stayed with partners, you know. 158 00:08:18,360 --> 00:08:20,760 Speaker 3: Anyway, Yeah, that's an interesting I'm sure there's an interesting 159 00:08:20,760 --> 00:08:24,360 Speaker 3: insight into that, Like I could see also why people 160 00:08:24,400 --> 00:08:27,000 Speaker 3: from the right try to claim him and anything they 161 00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:30,960 Speaker 3: don't like that seems kind of like weirdly authoritarian. They'll 162 00:08:31,040 --> 00:08:35,720 Speaker 3: like reference like nineteen eighty four. I've seen both sides reference. 163 00:08:35,920 --> 00:08:38,360 Speaker 3: This is like nineteen eighty four. This is like thought 164 00:08:38,400 --> 00:08:42,079 Speaker 3: police nineteen eighty four, you know, on both sides, the 165 00:08:42,160 --> 00:08:44,079 Speaker 3: right in particular, I see using it. 166 00:08:44,440 --> 00:08:47,360 Speaker 2: Yeah, And he was Georgi Ro was incredibly critical of 167 00:08:47,400 --> 00:08:49,640 Speaker 2: the left. He was critical of the authoritarian left, and 168 00:08:49,679 --> 00:08:52,320 Speaker 2: he loved the democratic left and he loved the anarchist 169 00:08:52,400 --> 00:08:56,200 Speaker 2: left and more the democratic left is how he fully aligned. 170 00:08:56,240 --> 00:08:59,120 Speaker 2: But we're going to talk about later about how at 171 00:08:59,160 --> 00:09:01,440 Speaker 2: the end of his life he was like everyone who's 172 00:09:01,440 --> 00:09:05,400 Speaker 2: fighting for socialism, who isn't fighting for stalin, I'm I'm your. 173 00:09:05,280 --> 00:09:09,000 Speaker 3: Guy, bored with them, common decency, anti jargon. So far 174 00:09:09,080 --> 00:09:09,839 Speaker 3: I'm on board with this guy. 175 00:09:10,120 --> 00:09:12,720 Speaker 2: Yeah, No, no, especially end of his life or will. 176 00:09:12,920 --> 00:09:18,840 Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, this man is more fave less problematic, 177 00:09:20,720 --> 00:09:22,679 Speaker 2: and actually some of the ways he develops through is 178 00:09:22,720 --> 00:09:24,280 Speaker 2: kind of okay, well, we'll get to it, Okay. So 179 00:09:25,240 --> 00:09:26,560 Speaker 2: and I'm going to talk about his life and his 180 00:09:26,600 --> 00:09:28,800 Speaker 2: adventures and especially how was thinking developed and how he 181 00:09:29,080 --> 00:09:31,480 Speaker 2: always worked to improve himself and become less of an asshole. 182 00:09:32,559 --> 00:09:34,000 Speaker 2: And I'm going to focus more on the parts of 183 00:09:34,040 --> 00:09:36,000 Speaker 2: his life that are interesting to me, because there's also 184 00:09:36,640 --> 00:09:39,000 Speaker 2: I feel a bit dirty doing anything that presents it 185 00:09:39,040 --> 00:09:42,280 Speaker 2: as like the biographical sketch of this man, because in 186 00:09:42,360 --> 00:09:46,240 Speaker 2: his will, he was like, please don't write biographies about me. 187 00:09:48,840 --> 00:09:50,480 Speaker 3: He was I'm sure nobody listened. 188 00:09:50,720 --> 00:09:55,320 Speaker 2: Nobody listened. Actually, one of the sort of some of 189 00:09:55,360 --> 00:09:57,319 Speaker 2: the books, some of the books that came out kind 190 00:09:57,320 --> 00:09:59,480 Speaker 2: of right away after he died, were a little bit 191 00:09:59,480 --> 00:10:01,240 Speaker 2: more like we're auctions on his life and writing that 192 00:10:01,280 --> 00:10:03,320 Speaker 2: were a little bit like, hey, I knew the guy, 193 00:10:03,400 --> 00:10:05,200 Speaker 2: and I swear this isn't a biography. 194 00:10:06,679 --> 00:10:08,480 Speaker 3: He'd be cool with this. He'd be cool with this. 195 00:10:08,760 --> 00:10:10,560 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Like and it's like or it's even kind 196 00:10:10,559 --> 00:10:14,199 Speaker 2: of a like, hey, sorry, man, you know, like, don't worry, 197 00:10:14,240 --> 00:10:16,160 Speaker 2: I'm not going to get into everything. I just want 198 00:10:16,200 --> 00:10:18,440 Speaker 2: to talk You're important and we got to talk about you. 199 00:10:18,520 --> 00:10:19,160 Speaker 2: I'm sorry. 200 00:10:19,360 --> 00:10:21,480 Speaker 3: Why Why didn't he want this? Because he didn't want 201 00:10:21,520 --> 00:10:24,480 Speaker 3: people to focus on him and his story they want 202 00:10:24,600 --> 00:10:26,640 Speaker 3: he want people to focus on his works, or because 203 00:10:26,640 --> 00:10:28,720 Speaker 3: there's things in his past he didn't want people like 204 00:10:29,480 --> 00:10:30,240 Speaker 3: so talking about. 205 00:10:30,880 --> 00:10:33,960 Speaker 2: I think it's a combo a little bit of those. 206 00:10:34,000 --> 00:10:38,440 Speaker 2: He was deeply private, right, and so he really compartmentalized 207 00:10:39,200 --> 00:10:42,080 Speaker 2: what he wrote about and like what he lived, which 208 00:10:42,120 --> 00:10:43,840 Speaker 2: is interesting because a lot of his books, especially as 209 00:10:43,840 --> 00:10:47,719 Speaker 2: early books, are autobiographical. He writes these books about like slumming, right. 210 00:10:47,800 --> 00:10:49,360 Speaker 2: That's like kind of how he makes his name is 211 00:10:49,360 --> 00:10:51,920 Speaker 2: that he like literally dresses up as a tramp and 212 00:10:51,960 --> 00:10:55,120 Speaker 2: goes around and like lives as a hobo and for 213 00:10:55,160 --> 00:10:56,920 Speaker 2: a while when he's young and he's like from the 214 00:10:56,920 --> 00:11:01,800 Speaker 2: middle class, right, but he like still compartmentalizes out certain 215 00:11:01,800 --> 00:11:04,000 Speaker 2: parts of his life, especially like his intimate life, Like 216 00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:05,720 Speaker 2: he doesn't talk about his wife where you talk about 217 00:11:05,800 --> 00:11:07,480 Speaker 2: a bunch Like some people have been like, oh, because 218 00:11:07,480 --> 00:11:10,559 Speaker 2: he's a misogynist. I honestly, as best as I can tell, 219 00:11:10,880 --> 00:11:12,599 Speaker 2: I think it's because they had an agreement where it 220 00:11:12,679 --> 00:11:14,840 Speaker 2: was like, no, leave me out of your writing. Yeah, 221 00:11:14,880 --> 00:11:18,480 Speaker 2: you know, and so he compartmentalized, like hell he also 222 00:11:20,200 --> 00:11:22,560 Speaker 2: we'll talk about some of the there's two bad things 223 00:11:22,559 --> 00:11:23,920 Speaker 2: he did too, like big. 224 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:26,160 Speaker 4: Could he also be a guy with imposter syndrome? 225 00:11:27,360 --> 00:11:28,319 Speaker 2: Oh? Interesting? 226 00:11:29,280 --> 00:11:31,400 Speaker 4: That was my first thought. 227 00:11:31,760 --> 00:11:35,360 Speaker 2: I think. I think eventually he kind of came into 228 00:11:35,360 --> 00:11:37,120 Speaker 2: being like I am who I am? But he actually 229 00:11:37,160 --> 00:11:38,960 Speaker 2: I have read a bunch about how he he had 230 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:42,560 Speaker 2: sort of imposter syndrome in that he didn't under he 231 00:11:42,800 --> 00:11:44,920 Speaker 2: like because he was so used to people kind of 232 00:11:44,920 --> 00:11:48,679 Speaker 2: shitting on him that once he like kind of came 233 00:11:48,720 --> 00:11:52,439 Speaker 2: into his power, he wasn't always totally aware of it. 234 00:11:52,520 --> 00:11:53,360 Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting. 235 00:11:53,520 --> 00:11:56,280 Speaker 4: Is there two types of people that are like extreme 236 00:11:56,440 --> 00:12:01,079 Speaker 4: like of Orwellian success, that are like either like yeah, 237 00:12:01,240 --> 00:12:05,400 Speaker 4: that's me, or they have major imposter syndrome? 238 00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:07,800 Speaker 2: Yeah? No, that makes sense. 239 00:12:07,920 --> 00:12:11,199 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, something I'm very familiar with the medicine. It 240 00:12:11,280 --> 00:12:13,839 Speaker 3: was literally just talking to a group of medical students 241 00:12:14,280 --> 00:12:18,480 Speaker 3: just yesterday about this, and I prepared them and I said, listen, 242 00:12:18,520 --> 00:12:20,520 Speaker 3: you're going to have imposter syndrome, and you're going to 243 00:12:20,600 --> 00:12:23,560 Speaker 3: have it for probably the next thirty to forty years. 244 00:12:24,040 --> 00:12:25,240 Speaker 3: It's never going to go away. 245 00:12:25,280 --> 00:12:26,719 Speaker 2: I get told, well, then you're going to turn into 246 00:12:26,720 --> 00:12:28,320 Speaker 2: an assholeho thinks you know have better than all the 247 00:12:28,320 --> 00:12:31,040 Speaker 2: people who actually have been to med school more recently, 248 00:12:31,080 --> 00:12:32,160 Speaker 2: no more recent stuff. 249 00:12:32,200 --> 00:12:35,040 Speaker 3: Exactly, or you find a way to have both, which 250 00:12:35,080 --> 00:12:37,560 Speaker 3: is what a lot of doctors do. Okay, to be 251 00:12:37,600 --> 00:12:39,200 Speaker 3: assholes with imposter syndrome. 252 00:12:39,520 --> 00:12:44,520 Speaker 2: Okay, So for anyone who's unfamiliar with this man, which 253 00:12:44,520 --> 00:12:47,040 Speaker 2: is totally fair. The short version is that there was 254 00:12:47,080 --> 00:12:50,320 Speaker 2: an english Man who first wrote under and then lived 255 00:12:50,400 --> 00:12:52,800 Speaker 2: under the name George Orwell, but that wasn't his birthname. 256 00:12:53,760 --> 00:12:56,360 Speaker 2: He fought in the Spanish Civil War, where he was 257 00:12:56,760 --> 00:12:59,640 Speaker 2: soured on authoritarian leftism because of what he saw there. 258 00:13:00,160 --> 00:13:04,640 Speaker 2: He almost was killed by He stayed committed to democratic socialism, 259 00:13:05,080 --> 00:13:06,920 Speaker 2: but he wrote two of the most famous books ever 260 00:13:06,920 --> 00:13:09,960 Speaker 2: written against totalitarianism, the book Animal Farm, about a bunch 261 00:13:09,960 --> 00:13:12,880 Speaker 2: of farmyard animals that have a revolution, only to have 262 00:13:12,960 --> 00:13:15,120 Speaker 2: one group of those animals decide that they are more 263 00:13:15,160 --> 00:13:18,440 Speaker 2: deserving than the other animals, and the book nineteen eighty four, 264 00:13:18,960 --> 00:13:21,920 Speaker 2: about a totalitarian society that tries to control how everyone 265 00:13:21,920 --> 00:13:24,959 Speaker 2: thinks and how much that sucks. And he is famously 266 00:13:25,040 --> 00:13:28,160 Speaker 2: quoted by all kinds of people, including the kinds of 267 00:13:28,200 --> 00:13:35,719 Speaker 2: people that he actually threw grenades at fascists, and so 268 00:13:35,760 --> 00:13:39,400 Speaker 2: we're gonna talk about him. George Orwell was born Eric 269 00:13:39,640 --> 00:13:43,720 Speaker 2: Arthur Blair on June twenty fifth, nineteen oh three. People 270 00:13:43,760 --> 00:13:45,600 Speaker 2: often say George Orwell was a pen name, and you'll 271 00:13:45,640 --> 00:13:47,120 Speaker 2: kind of run across people and like, ah, I know 272 00:13:47,160 --> 00:13:49,800 Speaker 2: his real name. It's Eric Blair. It was a chosen name. 273 00:13:49,840 --> 00:13:51,360 Speaker 2: By the end of his life, the only people called 274 00:13:51,400 --> 00:13:53,720 Speaker 2: him Eric were like bank managers and shit, like you 275 00:13:53,720 --> 00:13:55,839 Speaker 2: saw Eric when he signed the checks, because he never 276 00:13:55,920 --> 00:13:59,280 Speaker 2: changed the paperwork on his name. I'm a fan of 277 00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:01,720 Speaker 2: choosing your owname. So I'm going to go with George throughout, 278 00:14:02,240 --> 00:14:04,080 Speaker 2: not because it's like a dead name to call him Erica, 279 00:14:04,120 --> 00:14:06,480 Speaker 2: but just you know, it's what I mean. 280 00:14:06,640 --> 00:14:10,839 Speaker 3: My only question is like, it's not I don't like 281 00:14:11,040 --> 00:14:11,880 Speaker 3: why why? 282 00:14:11,960 --> 00:14:14,440 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a horizontal move. It's like, yeah, this man 283 00:14:14,520 --> 00:14:15,360 Speaker 2: name is this man named? 284 00:14:15,360 --> 00:14:17,600 Speaker 3: I mean, Eric Arthur Blair also sounds like a pretty 285 00:14:17,679 --> 00:14:20,280 Speaker 3: cool author name, like why why not? 286 00:14:20,480 --> 00:14:24,440 Speaker 2: Okay, George is a more working class name. It's sort 287 00:14:24,440 --> 00:14:28,480 Speaker 2: of like going by Joe in America, liking Joe the 288 00:14:28,520 --> 00:14:29,680 Speaker 2: Plumber or whatever. You know. 289 00:14:29,760 --> 00:14:30,760 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's still like. 290 00:14:30,840 --> 00:14:34,360 Speaker 2: Every man name, and he wants an every man name 291 00:14:34,400 --> 00:14:36,680 Speaker 2: because he's a middle class dude. Wo has imposter syndrome 292 00:14:36,720 --> 00:14:39,600 Speaker 2: as a working class person, right, because he wants to 293 00:14:39,640 --> 00:14:41,240 Speaker 2: be working classes. It's like his whole thing. It's in 294 00:14:41,320 --> 00:14:42,200 Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four too. 295 00:14:42,400 --> 00:14:46,760 Speaker 4: I just think his entire like ethosis imposter syndrome. That's 296 00:14:46,800 --> 00:14:49,280 Speaker 4: my Yeah, no's my theory going in. 297 00:14:49,640 --> 00:14:51,680 Speaker 2: I I actually and I want to see whether you 298 00:14:51,720 --> 00:14:52,960 Speaker 2: readdress it at the end, but I think it's just 299 00:14:53,000 --> 00:14:58,040 Speaker 2: going to get reinforced and orwell. Is the name of 300 00:14:58,080 --> 00:15:00,000 Speaker 2: a river that he lived in? 301 00:15:02,080 --> 00:15:04,239 Speaker 4: That's nice? 302 00:15:04,680 --> 00:15:09,280 Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's I think it's perfectly sweet. He was 303 00:15:09,280 --> 00:15:16,000 Speaker 2: born in Motihari, India, into not money but like English 304 00:15:16,040 --> 00:15:17,760 Speaker 2: fanciness and colonial evil. 305 00:15:17,920 --> 00:15:18,920 Speaker 3: He is his. 306 00:15:18,960 --> 00:15:22,960 Speaker 2: Great grandfather Charles Blair. His great great grandfather, Charles Blair 307 00:15:23,120 --> 00:15:26,000 Speaker 2: was a rich and powerful slaver who made his money 308 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:28,960 Speaker 2: owning people in Jamaica and married the daughter of an earl. 309 00:15:30,080 --> 00:15:33,400 Speaker 2: George's dad, Richard Blair, worked in the Opium Department and 310 00:15:33,440 --> 00:15:36,320 Speaker 2: the British Colonial Project in India, overseeing the growth of 311 00:15:36,360 --> 00:15:37,960 Speaker 2: opium and its sale to China. 312 00:15:39,040 --> 00:15:43,560 Speaker 3: So not good, Yeah, that this is This is a 313 00:15:43,600 --> 00:15:46,240 Speaker 3: more interesting start than I expected. I was expecting something 314 00:15:46,280 --> 00:15:50,880 Speaker 3: a lot more like, you know, uh, English downtrodden, like 315 00:15:51,160 --> 00:15:56,520 Speaker 3: industrial revolutionary sort of vibe. Yeah, it's worldly. I'll give 316 00:15:56,560 --> 00:15:57,600 Speaker 3: him that. It's worldly. 317 00:15:58,240 --> 00:16:01,560 Speaker 2: And what's interesting too is that his like the way 318 00:16:01,600 --> 00:16:04,720 Speaker 2: he says middle class, I'm like, is different than what 319 00:16:04,760 --> 00:16:06,760 Speaker 2: America thinks of his middle class, because middle class in 320 00:16:06,800 --> 00:16:10,680 Speaker 2: America is like a working class thing on some level. 321 00:16:11,520 --> 00:16:15,600 Speaker 2: England is fucking weird about class. Orwell described his upbringing 322 00:16:15,680 --> 00:16:20,560 Speaker 2: as lower upper middle class, which meant that they had 323 00:16:20,560 --> 00:16:23,840 Speaker 2: the prestige and thought well of themselves of the upper 324 00:16:23,840 --> 00:16:27,120 Speaker 2: middle class, but they had no money, so they were 325 00:16:27,160 --> 00:16:30,320 Speaker 2: lower middle class. So they were a lower upper middle class. 326 00:16:30,440 --> 00:16:34,320 Speaker 3: Right, very showy, but didn't have a lot of maybe 327 00:16:34,360 --> 00:16:38,600 Speaker 3: like house rich, but like not otherwise. 328 00:16:38,120 --> 00:16:41,960 Speaker 2: With yeah, and like position of power in evil colonial 329 00:16:42,000 --> 00:16:46,840 Speaker 2: government rich right right when he was one, his mom, 330 00:16:46,840 --> 00:16:50,920 Speaker 2: who was a feminist and a suffragette and an activist, 331 00:16:51,400 --> 00:16:52,840 Speaker 2: we I don't know as much about us. I kind 332 00:16:52,880 --> 00:16:55,480 Speaker 2: of wish I had. It's only there's so much written 333 00:16:55,480 --> 00:16:58,840 Speaker 2: about this man. His mom packed him up and moved 334 00:16:58,880 --> 00:17:01,360 Speaker 2: him back to England, whereupon he had a childhood that 335 00:17:01,360 --> 00:17:04,800 Speaker 2: he relentlessly described as miserable, and all of his childhood 336 00:17:04,840 --> 00:17:08,600 Speaker 2: friends are like that boy was happy, life was good. 337 00:17:08,880 --> 00:17:15,520 Speaker 2: He's just being dramatic. It's like consistent. There's like multiple 338 00:17:15,520 --> 00:17:17,359 Speaker 2: times through this period where he's like, he writes these 339 00:17:17,440 --> 00:17:20,000 Speaker 2: essays about what a fucking miserable life he had, and 340 00:17:20,359 --> 00:17:22,960 Speaker 2: he's like kind of a poser about being miserable in 341 00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:25,720 Speaker 2: some ways, although he is a he has a hard life. 342 00:17:25,720 --> 00:17:27,640 Speaker 2: Don't get me wrong. He's gonna die at forty six. 343 00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:30,159 Speaker 2: Oh wow, he survives getting shot through the neck. I 344 00:17:30,160 --> 00:17:33,840 Speaker 2: already spoiled that part. Like he's a he's an interesting life. 345 00:17:34,960 --> 00:17:36,920 Speaker 2: He did some British people shit, like he went off 346 00:17:36,920 --> 00:17:39,119 Speaker 2: to boarding school. He went to a place called Eton 347 00:17:39,320 --> 00:17:40,320 Speaker 2: that is fancy as hell. 348 00:17:40,480 --> 00:17:43,040 Speaker 4: Oh fuck yeah, you ever heard of it? 349 00:17:43,160 --> 00:17:46,720 Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, it's what's called public school. And because British 350 00:17:46,720 --> 00:17:49,199 Speaker 2: people have everything backwards, because it's a private school, I 351 00:17:49,320 --> 00:17:52,280 Speaker 2: finally for this episode looked up what the fuck that means. 352 00:17:52,280 --> 00:17:54,320 Speaker 2: I've known this for a long time that public school 353 00:17:54,320 --> 00:17:56,400 Speaker 2: means private school if you're in England, and it means 354 00:17:56,440 --> 00:18:00,240 Speaker 2: like fancy ass shit. Right, it's called public school. This's 355 00:18:00,240 --> 00:18:02,040 Speaker 2: got its name because even though it's a private school. 356 00:18:02,040 --> 00:18:03,840 Speaker 2: As long as your parents could pay your tuition, you 357 00:18:03,840 --> 00:18:06,080 Speaker 2: could go regardless of like where your parents lived or 358 00:18:06,080 --> 00:18:08,359 Speaker 2: what they did for a living. But it's where the 359 00:18:08,440 --> 00:18:10,960 Speaker 2: rulers of the empire and shit go right. 360 00:18:12,080 --> 00:18:12,760 Speaker 3: Very confusing. 361 00:18:13,280 --> 00:18:17,880 Speaker 2: England is a weird, complicated class night Maryland where there's 362 00:18:17,880 --> 00:18:21,640 Speaker 2: an Eaten accent. I didn't know that, and so you'll 363 00:18:21,640 --> 00:18:24,120 Speaker 2: be judged your entire life, like positively or negatively because 364 00:18:24,119 --> 00:18:25,080 Speaker 2: you have an Eton accent. 365 00:18:25,960 --> 00:18:28,120 Speaker 3: It's like the Ivy League sort of accent. 366 00:18:28,400 --> 00:18:32,920 Speaker 4: Sort of Okay, Hugh Laurie played House MD. You want 367 00:18:32,920 --> 00:18:36,119 Speaker 4: to eat in? And I just think that's fun to 368 00:18:36,160 --> 00:18:38,720 Speaker 4: tell my friend doctor Phota. 369 00:18:38,880 --> 00:18:40,080 Speaker 2: Of the House of Pod. 370 00:18:41,320 --> 00:18:44,480 Speaker 3: True, we're not named after that, no, I must say, 371 00:18:44,480 --> 00:18:47,920 Speaker 3: but I love to tell you that. Yeah, No, I went. 372 00:18:47,840 --> 00:18:50,200 Speaker 2: To eaton right, Yeah, of course we all went to 373 00:18:50,240 --> 00:18:50,720 Speaker 2: eat in here. 374 00:18:50,840 --> 00:18:53,400 Speaker 3: Listen to me. You can hear it in my voice. 375 00:18:54,280 --> 00:18:58,439 Speaker 4: It's like a very popular school for politicians and like 376 00:18:58,680 --> 00:19:05,080 Speaker 4: nepotism and miss actors. Yeah, it's yeah. Josh James stout 377 00:19:05,119 --> 00:19:05,960 Speaker 4: what he thinks of Eden. 378 00:19:07,800 --> 00:19:11,000 Speaker 2: I will he George or what was a scholarship boy 379 00:19:11,040 --> 00:19:13,320 Speaker 2: at Eton because his parents didn't have any money, and 380 00:19:13,359 --> 00:19:15,119 Speaker 2: he had, like, did well enough at prep school to 381 00:19:15,119 --> 00:19:15,760 Speaker 2: get scholar I. 382 00:19:15,800 --> 00:19:21,000 Speaker 4: Imposter syndrome with theory is just getting because they were 383 00:19:21,280 --> 00:19:23,399 Speaker 4: they were so mean to him, were they they were horrible? 384 00:19:23,520 --> 00:19:26,560 Speaker 2: Well, he wrote that they were incredibly mean to him 385 00:19:26,600 --> 00:19:28,840 Speaker 2: constantly for being a scholarship boy. 386 00:19:28,880 --> 00:19:29,080 Speaker 3: Yeah. 387 00:19:29,680 --> 00:19:32,199 Speaker 2: Everyone else from that time in that school is like, 388 00:19:32,240 --> 00:19:34,440 Speaker 2: what are you talking about? He played sports with us, 389 00:19:34,480 --> 00:19:35,360 Speaker 2: We liked him. 390 00:19:36,840 --> 00:19:38,440 Speaker 3: He might just be a sensitive guy. 391 00:19:38,760 --> 00:19:41,159 Speaker 2: He is super sensitive, but makes a good artist. 392 00:19:41,280 --> 00:19:42,040 Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel that. 393 00:19:42,160 --> 00:19:44,879 Speaker 2: Like, honestly, he's into sports. He grows up to be 394 00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:48,600 Speaker 2: not a small person. More academic sources he's six foot two. 395 00:19:48,680 --> 00:19:52,880 Speaker 2: More personal sources he's six foot four, So no one's 396 00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:54,040 Speaker 2: arguing yet he is small. 397 00:19:54,440 --> 00:19:54,800 Speaker 3: Yeah. 398 00:19:54,920 --> 00:19:57,639 Speaker 2: He's also sickly his entire life. He has two intense 399 00:19:57,640 --> 00:19:59,760 Speaker 2: spouts of pneumonia as a kid, and he never fully 400 00:19:59,800 --> 00:20:04,800 Speaker 2: re covered. He finishes school. Everyone else is off to university. 401 00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:09,639 Speaker 2: George wants to be different. He wants adventure. He wanted orientalism. 402 00:20:10,040 --> 00:20:14,359 Speaker 2: He wanted to go become a cop in Burma. Oh well, 403 00:20:16,280 --> 00:20:19,520 Speaker 2: what a choice. I know. The two worst things he 404 00:20:19,560 --> 00:20:21,320 Speaker 2: did he did when he was eighteen years old. One 405 00:20:21,320 --> 00:20:22,639 Speaker 2: of them was going to be a cop in Burma. 406 00:20:22,720 --> 00:20:24,800 Speaker 2: He's a sensitive guy, and now I'm gonna talk about 407 00:20:24,800 --> 00:20:27,040 Speaker 2: the other worst thing he did. Sensive guy trying to 408 00:20:27,040 --> 00:20:29,200 Speaker 2: fight it. He was trying to fight his sensitive nature. 409 00:20:29,240 --> 00:20:31,159 Speaker 2: That's what's happening. That's how I'm putting this together in 410 00:20:31,160 --> 00:20:34,520 Speaker 2: my home. I know, and I think he wants orientalism. 411 00:20:34,560 --> 00:20:37,119 Speaker 2: He wants like adventure and shit. And he also doesn't 412 00:20:37,160 --> 00:20:40,160 Speaker 2: have a critique of the colonial project. Yet he's going 413 00:20:40,200 --> 00:20:43,480 Speaker 2: to get one by becoming a colonial cop like he 414 00:20:43,520 --> 00:20:46,080 Speaker 2: does the best case what all cops should do, which 415 00:20:46,119 --> 00:20:49,280 Speaker 2: is quit, is what he does, and then spend the 416 00:20:49,320 --> 00:20:51,560 Speaker 2: rest of his life writing against the system that he 417 00:20:51,600 --> 00:20:52,119 Speaker 2: was a part of. 418 00:20:52,720 --> 00:20:53,240 Speaker 3: Yeah. 419 00:20:53,280 --> 00:20:55,399 Speaker 2: But the other thing that he's going to spend the 420 00:20:55,400 --> 00:20:58,119 Speaker 2: rest of his life regretting. If you read between the 421 00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:00,679 Speaker 2: lines in one direction and then completely ignore that he 422 00:21:00,720 --> 00:21:02,879 Speaker 2: did if you read between the lines and the other direction. 423 00:21:04,280 --> 00:21:06,240 Speaker 2: Is the reason that I wrote off George Orwell for 424 00:21:06,280 --> 00:21:08,919 Speaker 2: a long time, because I knew this, even though it 425 00:21:08,960 --> 00:21:11,560 Speaker 2: only kind of came out more recently. Most overviews of 426 00:21:11,560 --> 00:21:14,680 Speaker 2: his life glide right past this. He tried to rape 427 00:21:14,720 --> 00:21:17,040 Speaker 2: his best friend after she friend zoned him when he 428 00:21:17,080 --> 00:21:22,239 Speaker 2: was eighteen, years old, and people who don't talk about it. 429 00:21:22,280 --> 00:21:23,960 Speaker 2: To be fair, no one talked about it at all. 430 00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:26,240 Speaker 2: Didn't No one learned this until he'd been dead for 431 00:21:26,280 --> 00:21:30,840 Speaker 2: about fifty years. Historians like to quabble, quibble whatever about 432 00:21:30,840 --> 00:21:33,320 Speaker 2: how to characterize it. Sometimes they call it assault or 433 00:21:33,359 --> 00:21:37,560 Speaker 2: attempted rape. Wikipedia called it, calls it a botched seduction. 434 00:21:40,640 --> 00:21:43,119 Speaker 2: His friend that this happened to, by the end of 435 00:21:43,119 --> 00:21:45,560 Speaker 2: her life is not mad about it and saw him 436 00:21:45,600 --> 00:21:47,800 Speaker 2: as the one who got away and wished she'd married him. 437 00:21:47,880 --> 00:21:51,719 Speaker 2: It is complicated. What he did is not complicated. The 438 00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:55,840 Speaker 2: long term impact, the way that that move, other parts 439 00:21:55,880 --> 00:21:58,560 Speaker 2: of it are complicated. When he was a kid, he 440 00:21:58,600 --> 00:22:01,320 Speaker 2: became super close friends with the family, two sisters and 441 00:22:01,359 --> 00:22:04,160 Speaker 2: a brother. When he's like eleven or whatever. The sister 442 00:22:04,200 --> 00:22:05,919 Speaker 2: is about two years older than him, and his name 443 00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:09,800 Speaker 2: Jacyntha Buddhicum, and the story of how they met sounds 444 00:22:09,840 --> 00:22:12,880 Speaker 2: like a twee British novel. This thirteen year old girl 445 00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:15,320 Speaker 2: goes out into her family's garden and there's this eleven 446 00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:19,159 Speaker 2: year old boy standing on his head. She says, what 447 00:22:19,200 --> 00:22:21,520 Speaker 2: are you doing? And I've read two versions of this. 448 00:22:21,560 --> 00:22:24,280 Speaker 2: He either says, quote you are noticed more if you 449 00:22:24,320 --> 00:22:26,080 Speaker 2: stand on your head than if you're a right way up. 450 00:22:26,880 --> 00:22:30,840 Speaker 2: I've also read you notice more if you stand on 451 00:22:30,880 --> 00:22:35,600 Speaker 2: your head then either way. Fucking twee novel. Shit, it's 452 00:22:35,680 --> 00:22:38,720 Speaker 2: real cheshire Cat like Alice in Wonderland. 453 00:22:38,880 --> 00:22:42,160 Speaker 3: Have you ever stood on your head? Yeah? 454 00:22:42,160 --> 00:22:42,359 Speaker 1: I have? 455 00:22:43,080 --> 00:22:48,720 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great. They become friends young George while he's 456 00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:53,080 Speaker 2: Eric at this point. They become close friends and they 457 00:22:53,080 --> 00:22:54,920 Speaker 2: hang out all the time, talking about poetry and books 458 00:22:54,960 --> 00:22:56,960 Speaker 2: and how they're going to become great writers together and shit. 459 00:22:57,000 --> 00:22:59,520 Speaker 2: And she becomes a poet and he becomes a famous writer. 460 00:23:00,520 --> 00:23:02,800 Speaker 2: He thought they would be more than friends and she didn't. 461 00:23:03,040 --> 00:23:05,359 Speaker 2: And it gets really kind of into in cul territory 462 00:23:06,080 --> 00:23:10,040 Speaker 2: before the assault. It's almost kind of funny. His first 463 00:23:10,080 --> 00:23:13,480 Speaker 2: love poem probably was to her when he was about 464 00:23:13,480 --> 00:23:16,480 Speaker 2: fifteen years old. It's called the Pagan because the Buddhicoms 465 00:23:16,480 --> 00:23:19,080 Speaker 2: were agnostics and their school was like being weird them 466 00:23:19,119 --> 00:23:21,640 Speaker 2: about it, like we might kick out your whole family 467 00:23:21,640 --> 00:23:23,119 Speaker 2: because you don't believe in God or whatever you know. 468 00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:28,320 Speaker 2: And the poem starts, and to be clear, he's fifteen 469 00:23:28,320 --> 00:23:31,120 Speaker 2: when he writes this, So here are you? And here 470 00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:33,320 Speaker 2: am I? Where we may thank our gods to be 471 00:23:33,560 --> 00:23:37,120 Speaker 2: above the earth, beneath the sky, naked souls, alive and free. 472 00:23:38,400 --> 00:23:41,119 Speaker 2: And she writes back this critique, so she's like trying 473 00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:44,720 Speaker 2: to cleverly just friendz him. She's like, hey, maybe change 474 00:23:44,840 --> 00:23:49,320 Speaker 2: naked to unarmored. Oh yeah, that's a much better choice, 475 00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:52,160 Speaker 2: I know. So he wrote back her another. He wrote 476 00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:56,480 Speaker 2: her another poem, Friendship and love are closely intertwined. My 477 00:23:56,520 --> 00:24:00,600 Speaker 2: heart belongs to your befriending mind, but chilling sunlit fields, 478 00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:04,320 Speaker 2: cloud shadows fall, my love can't reach your heedless heart 479 00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:04,760 Speaker 2: at all. 480 00:24:08,040 --> 00:24:13,240 Speaker 3: Great, that's I mean, that is pure cringe low. Yeah, 481 00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:17,960 Speaker 3: young teenager. I feel the discomfort in my stomach. I 482 00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:21,600 Speaker 3: get the clamps. You think about something you did that 483 00:24:21,720 --> 00:24:24,520 Speaker 3: was really embarrassing. That's what's happening to me hearing this. 484 00:24:25,359 --> 00:24:29,560 Speaker 2: She writes back. By light too bright, our dazzled eyes betrayed. 485 00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:33,479 Speaker 2: It's best to rest content and tranquil shade. 486 00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:39,080 Speaker 3: So I'm not as literary as you, because you're an 487 00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:43,480 Speaker 3: excellent writer, and I write basically progress notes on patients. 488 00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:48,720 Speaker 3: But it sounds very much so that He's like, I'm 489 00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:53,400 Speaker 3: so into you, And she is very deafly and artfully 490 00:24:53,600 --> 00:24:56,000 Speaker 3: being like, I'm going to have a little fun with 491 00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:58,119 Speaker 3: this game, but also make it clear that it's not 492 00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:01,040 Speaker 3: going anywhere and that you need to chill. 493 00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:04,080 Speaker 2: Yeah, and what he should have done is chill out 494 00:25:04,119 --> 00:25:06,920 Speaker 2: by listening to advertisements in the middle of an anti 495 00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:07,880 Speaker 2: capitalist podcast. 496 00:25:08,359 --> 00:25:09,000 Speaker 3: Works for me. 497 00:25:17,840 --> 00:25:21,440 Speaker 2: And we're back. Yeah, no, exactly. It's a he's writing 498 00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:24,760 Speaker 2: love poetry and she's writing just friends poetry, right, you know, 499 00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:30,879 Speaker 2: just friend's poetry. Yeah, this genre, I know. They go 500 00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:33,560 Speaker 2: on walks daily. Then one day, when he was eighteen, 501 00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:36,760 Speaker 2: as recounted by a family friend quote, he had attempted 502 00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:39,320 Speaker 2: to take things further and make serious love to Jacyntha. 503 00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:41,119 Speaker 2: He had held her down. By that time, he was 504 00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:42,960 Speaker 2: six foot four and she was under still under five 505 00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:45,600 Speaker 2: feet and though she struggled yelling at him to stop, 506 00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:48,160 Speaker 2: he had torn her skirt and badly bruised a shoulder 507 00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:52,120 Speaker 2: and her left hip. When Jacynthia yelled to stop, Eric 508 00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:55,840 Speaker 2: let her go. Jacyntha ran home crying. They never saw 509 00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:56,679 Speaker 2: each other again. 510 00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:00,880 Speaker 4: Oh, he's a best he's a piece of shit. 511 00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:04,960 Speaker 2: This is yeah, this is the like people are mad 512 00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:07,520 Speaker 2: at orwell for the wrong reasons. This is an understanding. 513 00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:10,200 Speaker 2: This is why I completely wrote off Orwell for years. Honestly, 514 00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:14,800 Speaker 2: it's because I knew this part of the story, and 515 00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:18,040 Speaker 2: to skip around in this timeline, the timeline of his 516 00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:21,600 Speaker 2: life a little bit, just to finish out her story. Okay, 517 00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:24,280 Speaker 2: So Orwell comes home from Burma five years later, and 518 00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:26,639 Speaker 2: he had a ring ready to propose because he's still 519 00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:29,520 Speaker 2: in love with her and whatever, this is an insult. 520 00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:33,080 Speaker 2: He stays at her aunt's house and Orwell called her 521 00:26:33,080 --> 00:26:35,880 Speaker 2: in London, begging her to come visit, and she refused, 522 00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:38,560 Speaker 2: and he never found out why. He assumed, and this 523 00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:41,960 Speaker 2: would be a perfectly legitimate assumption that this was because 524 00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:44,800 Speaker 2: she was mad about what he'd done. It actually wasn't. 525 00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:47,600 Speaker 2: She refused to come visit because she had just had 526 00:26:47,600 --> 00:26:50,120 Speaker 2: a kid with some random dude and who had then 527 00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:51,480 Speaker 2: ditched her, and then she was trying to put the 528 00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:55,960 Speaker 2: kid up for adoption and she was busy. Decades later, 529 00:26:56,200 --> 00:26:59,760 Speaker 2: as he's on his deathbed, they reconnected through letters, and 530 00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:03,320 Speaker 2: he to her he was the one who got away. 531 00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:07,080 Speaker 2: Decades later, in the nineteen seventies, she wrote a memoir 532 00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:09,879 Speaker 2: called Eric and Me about their time together, and she 533 00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:14,160 Speaker 2: did so after quote a lifetime of ghosts and regrets 534 00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:17,040 Speaker 2: at turning away the only man who ever appealed on 535 00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:18,919 Speaker 2: all levels. How I wish I had been ready for 536 00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:21,159 Speaker 2: betrothal when Eric asked me to marry him on his 537 00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:24,320 Speaker 2: return from Burma. It took me literally years to realize 538 00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:26,600 Speaker 2: that we are all imperfect creatures, but that Eric was 539 00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:32,040 Speaker 2: less imperfect than anyone else I'd ever met. And this 540 00:27:32,160 --> 00:27:35,920 Speaker 2: is so interesting to me, because fuck, what a bar 541 00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:40,399 Speaker 2: The bar that the other men aren't passing is to 542 00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:43,160 Speaker 2: be better than the man who assaulted her. 543 00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:47,119 Speaker 3: Yeah, did she address it in that book? 544 00:27:47,760 --> 00:27:51,760 Speaker 2: I don't know. I haven't read that book. I think 545 00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:55,280 Speaker 2: I read about how the story of it came up, 546 00:27:55,520 --> 00:28:00,280 Speaker 2: and like there's a lot of like it's all little 547 00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:04,080 Speaker 2: bit third hand about what happened. Like literally, the quote 548 00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:06,359 Speaker 2: that I read about what happened is the most direct 549 00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:10,560 Speaker 2: retelling in print of what happened. And it was her 550 00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:15,920 Speaker 2: sister's friend recounting it and none of this, like and 551 00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:17,720 Speaker 2: the fact that she then is like, oh, he's the 552 00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:20,000 Speaker 2: one who got away, none of that because she kind 553 00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:22,920 Speaker 2: of had a pretty sad life. I think this doesn't 554 00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:26,919 Speaker 2: excuse what he did, But I I think that you 555 00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:30,080 Speaker 2: end up with this thing that informs his writing where 556 00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:34,919 Speaker 2: he sees men as monstrous because he sees himself as 557 00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:39,000 Speaker 2: monstrous because of what he had done. And it's interesting, 558 00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:40,640 Speaker 2: it's not I don't. 559 00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:43,720 Speaker 3: Know, Yeah, that's that's that is such a tough situation. 560 00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:48,040 Speaker 3: I mean, clearly there's some real trauma there for both 561 00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:48,560 Speaker 3: of them. 562 00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:51,600 Speaker 2: And and way more for her obviously. 563 00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:54,400 Speaker 3: Yeah, obviously way more for her. And it made it 564 00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:59,520 Speaker 3: even worse by the fact that, like comparatively, she still 565 00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:05,040 Speaker 3: holds him on a pedestal, you know. Yeah, that's it 566 00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:08,400 Speaker 3: really just goes to show like how bad the interactions 567 00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:10,560 Speaker 3: with these other men in her life must have been, 568 00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:15,120 Speaker 3: including probably this guy that she had had the kid 569 00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:18,960 Speaker 3: with who knows. Yeah, I mean sounds terrible on all lands. 570 00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:21,800 Speaker 2: No, I know, and it yeah, And so now I'm 571 00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:24,160 Speaker 2: just going to get into all the stuff that the 572 00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:25,400 Speaker 2: bad stuff about orwell that. 573 00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:27,600 Speaker 3: People talk about, just to do it. Let's get into it. 574 00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:29,760 Speaker 2: Before we talk more about his life. There's an awful 575 00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:31,560 Speaker 2: lot of arguments about whether or not Orwell was a 576 00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:35,120 Speaker 2: misogynist or a feminist or sort of neither. His writing 577 00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:37,320 Speaker 2: is like the Bible, there's so much of it written 578 00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:39,320 Speaker 2: at such different times that it's really easy to take 579 00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:41,800 Speaker 2: quotes out of context and paint whatever picture you want. 580 00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:47,520 Speaker 2: His male protagonists are almost universally misogynistic. The protagonist of 581 00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:51,680 Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four is violent fantasies. For example. The only 582 00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:53,880 Speaker 2: female protagonist he ever wrote was in a book called 583 00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:55,840 Speaker 2: A Clergyman's Daughter, which is one of these books that 584 00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:57,760 Speaker 2: I haven't read, but he also wishes he hadn't published. 585 00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:00,880 Speaker 2: In that the protagonist is by an older man, and 586 00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:04,040 Speaker 2: then they become friends, and it is generally considered his 587 00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:06,640 Speaker 2: worst book, including by him. He does not know how 588 00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:10,080 Speaker 2: to write women well. He also hated this book and 589 00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:12,200 Speaker 2: in his will asked for it to not be reprinted. 590 00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:14,520 Speaker 2: He told his friend it was the worst book he 591 00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:16,560 Speaker 2: ever wrote, and he'd only published it because he'd been 592 00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:20,960 Speaker 2: so hard up for money and then for fun. Counterexamples 593 00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:24,400 Speaker 2: to his misogyny later in life. There's this story recounted 594 00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:26,040 Speaker 2: by a different man who doesn't use the name of 595 00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:29,080 Speaker 2: the woman involved. There's this like they're in this literary 596 00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:31,800 Speaker 2: scene together, all these mostly men, and there's this young 597 00:30:31,840 --> 00:30:34,280 Speaker 2: ha woman in the literary scene, and you know it's 598 00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:36,240 Speaker 2: like written as like, oh, every head turned when she 599 00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:40,400 Speaker 2: walked by, et cetera. Later, that woman complains about all 600 00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:42,000 Speaker 2: of the men in the literary circle on how they 601 00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:45,760 Speaker 2: objectifire except or Well, the only person who didn't creep 602 00:30:45,840 --> 00:30:48,200 Speaker 2: on her and didn't treat her as a woman, but 603 00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:52,000 Speaker 2: as a person. I have read so many interpretations of 604 00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:55,320 Speaker 2: Orwell and misogyny, like I wish this hadn't been such. 605 00:30:56,280 --> 00:30:58,280 Speaker 2: I understand why I had to be such an large 606 00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:00,240 Speaker 2: part of my research for this because of this that 607 00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:02,840 Speaker 2: he had done. You know, Yeah, there's a lot of 608 00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:05,480 Speaker 2: convincing arguments from every position I leaned towards sort of 609 00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:08,800 Speaker 2: that he portrayed more misogynist men, not out of unconscious misogyny, 610 00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:11,600 Speaker 2: but out of attempting to draw attention to his own misogyny, 611 00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:15,959 Speaker 2: at least later in life. I think his earlier writing 612 00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:17,520 Speaker 2: is unaddressed misogyny. 613 00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:19,800 Speaker 3: I can I ask a question about that, And this 614 00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:24,160 Speaker 3: is I guess, a bigger question on writing. Like the 615 00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:29,120 Speaker 3: fact that his characters are misogynistic, it doesn't necessarily mean 616 00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:32,640 Speaker 3: that he was embracing that, right. I mean, because I 617 00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:35,520 Speaker 3: always felt like his characters were all flawed, and he 618 00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:38,720 Speaker 3: wanted to show that they were all deeply flawed, and 619 00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:43,480 Speaker 3: like the fact that they were misogynistic feels like him 620 00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:45,920 Speaker 3: critiquing it. It feels like he did that on purpose, 621 00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:48,520 Speaker 3: to be like, this is a bad trait. 622 00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:54,840 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think overall that's true, And yes, absolutely, we're 623 00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:57,320 Speaker 2: actually currently in an era where people are having a 624 00:31:57,360 --> 00:32:00,360 Speaker 2: little bit of a hard time separating a care character 625 00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:02,480 Speaker 2: from the author. On the other hand, we're also in 626 00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:04,760 Speaker 2: a time where people are getting better at not letting 627 00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:07,600 Speaker 2: misogynist male writers get away with being like, no, it's 628 00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:11,680 Speaker 2: just my character, because there are absolutely people who are 629 00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:13,440 Speaker 2: just like, oh, it's just my characters who are all 630 00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:16,040 Speaker 2: racist pieces of shit. I'm totally great, you know. 631 00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:17,960 Speaker 3: Yeah, And I. 632 00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:21,000 Speaker 2: Think that there are people who do a better job 633 00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:24,120 Speaker 2: of it than or well of like making it clear, 634 00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:26,480 Speaker 2: because he believed in very clear writing, right, and so 635 00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:28,959 Speaker 2: I think this is an actual weak spot of his 636 00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:32,800 Speaker 2: because I don't think he successfully always addressed this. But 637 00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:35,200 Speaker 2: it is a little bit my impression because keep the 638 00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:38,920 Speaker 2: aspertise for flying, for example, seems like a critique of 639 00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:41,680 Speaker 2: the We call them googles in my scene, and this 640 00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:44,959 Speaker 2: is like not a word that anyone else uses. Okay, googles, 641 00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:48,160 Speaker 2: I'm going to learn there's a word called Google. An 642 00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:53,040 Speaker 2: oogle is a crusspunk who like lives out of a 643 00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:56,520 Speaker 2: backpack and travels around and eats trash and lives in squats. 644 00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:58,600 Speaker 2: I was an oogle for a very long time. It's 645 00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:01,040 Speaker 2: a slightly pejorative word, but but it's a very reclaimed 646 00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:04,520 Speaker 2: one and it only exists in this tiny, weird subculture. Okay, 647 00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:06,840 Speaker 2: So from there we get other words, like a Google 648 00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:09,080 Speaker 2: is a dog. Google, it's the dog that lives with 649 00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:13,320 Speaker 2: the yougle Okay, right, a Google is a boo, that's 650 00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:16,240 Speaker 2: an oogle. So if you live on your if instead 651 00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:20,280 Speaker 2: of living on someone's couch, which would be googling, you 652 00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:23,920 Speaker 2: live in someone's bed and your partner pays rent and 653 00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:27,160 Speaker 2: you don't, that's called googling googling. 654 00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:28,080 Speaker 3: Wow. 655 00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:32,240 Speaker 2: And I think he's critiquing that. It's possible he wasn't. 656 00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:34,840 Speaker 2: It's possible he was just unconsciously so lost in his 657 00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:35,760 Speaker 2: own character's head. 658 00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:36,120 Speaker 3: Right. 659 00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:38,320 Speaker 2: But when I read that when I was like twenty, 660 00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:40,640 Speaker 2: I thought he was critiquing it, and I was not 661 00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:45,160 Speaker 2: in a particularly good I was, so I that's my read. 662 00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:47,560 Speaker 2: My read is that he is on some level trying 663 00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:50,840 Speaker 2: to critique misogyny but not doing a particularly adepth job 664 00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:52,720 Speaker 2: at it and sometimes falling into it. 665 00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:57,400 Speaker 3: Let me ask a super naive question, and I don't 666 00:33:57,480 --> 00:33:59,520 Speaker 3: ask this to justify. 667 00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:02,560 Speaker 2: I don't know gennology of Google, right, No, no, no. 668 00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:04,760 Speaker 3: Sorry, I'm gonna google that later. 669 00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:06,840 Speaker 2: Oh it's not it doesn't exist. No one knows it. 670 00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:09,480 Speaker 2: Oh anyway, Okay, Well, I have a friend who is 671 00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:11,279 Speaker 2: like a master's degree who used to be a no Google, 672 00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:12,120 Speaker 2: who tried to figure it out. 673 00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:16,120 Speaker 3: Probably continue on it. Okay, So I don't ask this 674 00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:20,320 Speaker 3: question to join to justify in any way misogynistic writing. 675 00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:24,279 Speaker 3: But were there writers of his time? I'm assuming there 676 00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:27,920 Speaker 3: are that you felt did a better job of writing 677 00:34:28,160 --> 00:34:32,080 Speaker 3: women's voices male writers, I mean, or were they all 678 00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:34,920 Speaker 3: pretty terrible at this point? I mean, I don't know 679 00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:37,800 Speaker 3: if they're better now, honestly, and I feel like I 680 00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:40,320 Speaker 3: should read more, but like especially. 681 00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:43,359 Speaker 2: At the time, I am not certain, which is funny 682 00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:44,919 Speaker 2: because this is the era I used to like read 683 00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:47,879 Speaker 2: a lot, you know, when I was like a young, 684 00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:51,160 Speaker 2: pretentious teenager, I read an awful lot of like Turn 685 00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:54,400 Speaker 2: of the Century up to about nineteen fifty, like good literature. 686 00:34:54,520 --> 00:34:57,320 Speaker 2: I liked all the literature. I don't have an immediate 687 00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:00,520 Speaker 2: answer for you. I think that overall that that cadre 688 00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:05,520 Speaker 2: of writers tended to be pretty bad at it. But 689 00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:07,839 Speaker 2: I'm sure there's exceptions that I'm not thinking of right now. 690 00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:10,640 Speaker 2: And obviously there were women writing too, but they were 691 00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:12,200 Speaker 2: generally not held up. 692 00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:13,240 Speaker 3: I'll wait for reddit. 693 00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:19,200 Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think he never really understood women, and 694 00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:23,319 Speaker 2: he sometimes tried. That's how I feel. He was also 695 00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:26,680 Speaker 2: casually homophobic his entire life, and this was never really addressed. 696 00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:29,719 Speaker 2: People like to argue about this one. He absolutely used 697 00:35:29,719 --> 00:35:31,600 Speaker 2: anti gay slers a bunch, and he tended to look 698 00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:35,960 Speaker 2: down on homosexuality. He also and I haven't found the 699 00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:40,160 Speaker 2: source on this, I found someone talking about it. He 700 00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:42,279 Speaker 2: wrote how there was a bunch of homosexuality and all 701 00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:44,920 Speaker 2: boy boarding schools and how that was a positive thing overall. 702 00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:49,600 Speaker 2: How So, he wasn't like I hate the gaze. He 703 00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:51,360 Speaker 2: never wrote like I hate the gaze. He just like 704 00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:54,160 Speaker 2: was casually like, oh that nancy over there. 705 00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:55,319 Speaker 1: You know? 706 00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:57,160 Speaker 3: Did he actually use that term? 707 00:35:57,239 --> 00:35:59,840 Speaker 2: Yeah? He used nancies and like fancy boys and stuff. 708 00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:02,719 Speaker 2: I think a bunch or like he's nancy boys and 709 00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:04,839 Speaker 2: pansies I think is what he used. 710 00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:08,120 Speaker 3: Kind of disappointed kind of feel like he as a 711 00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:10,760 Speaker 3: literary guy, he could have come up with something better. 712 00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:13,399 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point. Actually, one of his rules 713 00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:17,200 Speaker 2: of writing is don't use the same cliches very jargony. Yeah, no, totally. 714 00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:19,960 Speaker 2: He was also a huge admirer of Oscar Wilde, who 715 00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:23,280 Speaker 2: was famously gay in prison for being gay, and Oscar 716 00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:25,440 Speaker 2: Wilde was one of his first major political influences, and 717 00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:28,320 Speaker 2: he was very supportive when his friend, the anarchist historian 718 00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:32,760 Speaker 2: George Woodcock wrote a history of wild One. Author Anna 719 00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:37,360 Speaker 2: Funder connects misogyny and homophobia when she says that she 720 00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:40,239 Speaker 2: writes about how one of Orwell's wives is like main wife. 721 00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:42,520 Speaker 2: He has one wife that he married like two months 722 00:36:42,520 --> 00:36:45,840 Speaker 2: before he died, but Eileen was his main wife for 723 00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:49,200 Speaker 2: many years. She's generally erase from his history, and I 724 00:36:49,560 --> 00:36:51,560 Speaker 2: hold by the that was a conscious choice, but I 725 00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:55,080 Speaker 2: could be wrong. She claims. This author claims that Orwell 726 00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:57,160 Speaker 2: had no sexual interest in women and would have been 727 00:36:57,160 --> 00:37:02,280 Speaker 2: happier in a time when homosexuality was more I don't 728 00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:05,520 Speaker 2: buy this. I haven't seen all of our evidence, but 729 00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:08,000 Speaker 2: I don't buy it. I have not seen any I 730 00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:11,000 Speaker 2: would be the first to believe and want to believe 731 00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:15,040 Speaker 2: that he was gay, right, like all super into claiming 732 00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:17,239 Speaker 2: as many of our heroes as queer as possible. Right, 733 00:37:18,280 --> 00:37:20,360 Speaker 2: he spent a while fighting in Spain and the Revolution, 734 00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:23,680 Speaker 2: where there was like a ton of out gay officers 735 00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:28,560 Speaker 2: and soldiers, and he would have had every opportunity to 736 00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:32,160 Speaker 2: be in gay relationships, and this and that. I don't know, 737 00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:38,040 Speaker 2: so people like to argue all of these things. Then finally, 738 00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:42,080 Speaker 2: of the of his big blind spots, there's this early 739 00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:45,279 Speaker 2: anti semitism, And this one's the easiest. I can like 740 00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:47,640 Speaker 2: this one, I have like I can tell you the 741 00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:50,960 Speaker 2: story of it. His earliest writings were explicitly and grossly 742 00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:53,360 Speaker 2: anti semitic. He talked about Jews having brought on their 743 00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:56,279 Speaker 2: own treatment on themselves. His characters were anti Semitic, But 744 00:37:56,400 --> 00:37:59,319 Speaker 2: so was he right, and everyone kind of knew it. 745 00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:03,040 Speaker 2: Throughout the nineteen thirties, this is really present in his writing. 746 00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:05,279 Speaker 2: He has a ton of friends who are Jewish. This 747 00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:08,719 Speaker 2: doesn't fix it until one day it does. One of 748 00:38:08,760 --> 00:38:11,840 Speaker 2: his Jewish friends in about nineteen forty challenges him on 749 00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:16,560 Speaker 2: all of it, and Orwell changes his mind. He is 750 00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:20,720 Speaker 2: presented with evidence, he changes his mind, he's always attached 751 00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:24,960 Speaker 2: to common decency instead of ideology, right, and he believes 752 00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:30,000 Speaker 2: that it's good to change your mind. He wrote, anti 753 00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:33,640 Speaker 2: Semitism is simply not the doctrine of a grown up person. 754 00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:36,080 Speaker 2: People who go in for that sort of thing must 755 00:38:36,080 --> 00:38:39,320 Speaker 2: take the consequences, and he means social consequences. He's a 756 00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:41,280 Speaker 2: very big free speech guy, but he's a very big 757 00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:46,359 Speaker 2: shame people for being fucked up. Yeah, and he went 758 00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:49,200 Speaker 2: on to write an essay called Anti Semitism Britain, exploring 759 00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:51,640 Speaker 2: this problem at great length to a very wide audience. 760 00:38:52,360 --> 00:38:55,520 Speaker 2: But it's funny because I now run across essays that 761 00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:57,839 Speaker 2: I claim he was anti Semitica's whole life, even during 762 00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:00,560 Speaker 2: this period, and I was like, oh fuck, reading all 763 00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:03,560 Speaker 2: these and reading it was like one that definitely says this, 764 00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:05,600 Speaker 2: and one that kind of says it, and they're The 765 00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:08,080 Speaker 2: main claim is because at the end of his life 766 00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:12,719 Speaker 2: he was like, I hate anti Semitism. I'm still anti Zionist. 767 00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:18,040 Speaker 2: Zionism is nationalism and bad and colonialism is bad. And 768 00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:21,040 Speaker 2: because he said that in the nineteen forties, this is 769 00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:24,240 Speaker 2: why some Zionist people still find it it's anti Semitic. 770 00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:28,520 Speaker 3: He's man in some ways he's he's cutting edge, like 771 00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:31,600 Speaker 3: he is. Yeah, this is he's winning me back a 772 00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:33,479 Speaker 3: little bit. Now that's back. 773 00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:35,399 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where I was. I was like, I don't 774 00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:37,120 Speaker 2: know if I'm ever going to do an Orwell episode 775 00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:39,440 Speaker 2: because I loved his books as a kid, right and 776 00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:41,520 Speaker 2: I knew about the fighting in Spain thing, But I 777 00:39:41,640 --> 00:39:45,279 Speaker 2: keep seeing right wing people posting about him. Yeah, and 778 00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:49,040 Speaker 2: I'm like, if nothing else, he was a democratic socialist. 779 00:39:49,120 --> 00:39:51,279 Speaker 2: He was just kind of shitty to women, you know, 780 00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:53,040 Speaker 2: And so then I like, I was like, all, I'm 781 00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:55,200 Speaker 2: gonna do an episode about him, and then he he 782 00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:57,040 Speaker 2: kind of won me back while I was doing the episode. 783 00:39:57,200 --> 00:39:59,680 Speaker 3: Yeah, he's winning me. Now you're taking me on a 784 00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:00,879 Speaker 3: journe on this one. 785 00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:03,960 Speaker 2: And he had his life was a journey. You know. 786 00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:07,920 Speaker 2: It's like if there's a like, there's a reason we 787 00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:12,520 Speaker 2: try as a society not to always hold people to 788 00:40:12,680 --> 00:40:14,200 Speaker 2: the single worst thing that they did when they were 789 00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:17,360 Speaker 2: eighteen years old, you know, and what they do about 790 00:40:17,360 --> 00:40:21,840 Speaker 2: it later is what is the most impactful. Obviously his 791 00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:23,960 Speaker 2: actions still had impact, and I'm not trying to deny that. 792 00:40:24,320 --> 00:40:27,360 Speaker 2: But so the other worst thing he did is he 793 00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:29,640 Speaker 2: went to Burma. Let's go back to that. Well, actually, 794 00:40:30,280 --> 00:40:33,880 Speaker 2: first he went on to a journey into the land 795 00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:37,680 Speaker 2: of advertisement. Well, actually, eventually it's gonna come up war 796 00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:49,319 Speaker 2: propagandas that's kind of the same, here's some ads. We're 797 00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:52,080 Speaker 2: back so young George still Eric. At this point, he 798 00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:54,360 Speaker 2: goes to Burma and he becomes a colonial cop. Burma 799 00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:56,719 Speaker 2: at this part was part of British India. And one 800 00:40:56,800 --> 00:40:58,800 Speaker 2: good thing that happened came out of this. When he 801 00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:01,680 Speaker 2: went to India, he had had a mustache that was 802 00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:03,640 Speaker 2: a style at the time. You might know it is 803 00:41:03,680 --> 00:41:07,120 Speaker 2: the toothbrush mustache. You more likely know it as the hitler. 804 00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:08,919 Speaker 3: Yeah. 805 00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:14,640 Speaker 2: Fortunately, chaplain, Yeah, he had a chaplain. Fortunately, the style 806 00:41:14,680 --> 00:41:16,719 Speaker 2: at the time for colonial officials over there was a 807 00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:18,800 Speaker 2: pencil mustache. So he switched to a pencil mustache and 808 00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:22,120 Speaker 2: then kept that the rest of his life and always 809 00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:25,759 Speaker 2: the like kind of the slum in it, like I 810 00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:27,040 Speaker 2: want to be with the locals. 811 00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:27,319 Speaker 4: Guy. 812 00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:31,160 Speaker 2: He gets sick hand tattoos in the local style on 813 00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:36,279 Speaker 2: his fingers. Nice and he realizes really quickly that a 814 00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:38,239 Speaker 2: lot of the Burmese people don't like him at all, 815 00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:42,400 Speaker 2: And soon he realizes that the Empire is fucking evil. 816 00:41:44,160 --> 00:41:46,000 Speaker 2: He got sick there while he was there, because he 817 00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:47,080 Speaker 2: did that a lot, and that was one of his 818 00:41:47,120 --> 00:41:50,080 Speaker 2: past times, was getting sick and. 819 00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:54,040 Speaker 3: Yeah, getting sick. 820 00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:58,040 Speaker 2: Yeah. And in nineteen twenty seven he goes back to England. 821 00:41:58,080 --> 00:41:59,680 Speaker 2: He goes back a little bit early on, like sick leave, 822 00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:02,120 Speaker 2: and he's like, man, fuck being a colonial cop. I 823 00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:04,440 Speaker 2: am fucking done. I am never doing that again. And 824 00:42:04,480 --> 00:42:07,840 Speaker 2: he never did it again. When he left for Burma, 825 00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:10,840 Speaker 2: he had no politics. He came back first and foremost 826 00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:14,239 Speaker 2: anti colonial. At this point he also became a socialist, 827 00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:16,600 Speaker 2: starting off as an anarchist. Soon he's gonna end up 828 00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:19,840 Speaker 2: a democratic socialist with close friends who are anarchists. He 829 00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:22,799 Speaker 2: wrote about it that he had developed quote an anarchistic 830 00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:25,680 Speaker 2: theory that all government is evil, that the punishment always 831 00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:28,080 Speaker 2: does more harm than the crime, and that people can 832 00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:30,800 Speaker 2: be trusted to behave decently if only we let them alone. 833 00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:34,760 Speaker 2: And this probably comes kind of almost word for word 834 00:42:34,840 --> 00:42:38,640 Speaker 2: from Oscar wild because Wilde's essay the Soul of Man 835 00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:44,120 Speaker 2: under Socialism is basically what Orwell just said. So he's 836 00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:46,880 Speaker 2: back from Burma and now he starts doing his like 837 00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:48,480 Speaker 2: slum in it. He's like all right, well I can't. 838 00:42:48,680 --> 00:42:51,399 Speaker 2: I shouldn't go explore exotic locales overseas. That was kind 839 00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:53,200 Speaker 2: of fucked up. I'm going to do it at home. 840 00:42:54,239 --> 00:42:57,040 Speaker 2: So he dresses up as a tramp. He starts wandering 841 00:42:57,080 --> 00:43:00,000 Speaker 2: around and he puts together one of his first books 842 00:43:00,160 --> 00:43:02,000 Speaker 2: that people read. It's called Down and Out in Paris 843 00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:04,480 Speaker 2: in London, and he gets sick of bunch doing that, 844 00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:06,879 Speaker 2: and he starts writing a bunch and then he kind 845 00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:08,680 Speaker 2: of like, if you pretend to be poor long enough, 846 00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:09,800 Speaker 2: you kind of end up poor. 847 00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:13,440 Speaker 3: Dressed for the job you want. 848 00:43:13,680 --> 00:43:17,080 Speaker 2: Yeah, and uh, and somebody's like sick, he's staying in 849 00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:19,839 Speaker 2: shitty hospitals and stuff, and it's like fox his health up. 850 00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:20,040 Speaker 1: You know. 851 00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:25,080 Speaker 2: He's like committed to the bit committed. Yeah, until eventually 852 00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:27,520 Speaker 2: he's he realizes he's middle class and he moves back 853 00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:28,319 Speaker 2: to his parents' house. 854 00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:29,480 Speaker 3: Yeah. I was gonna ask. 855 00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:32,000 Speaker 2: I was gonna ask when that part of the story 856 00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:35,080 Speaker 2: arc happened. Yeah. Eventually he's like, all right, that's enough 857 00:43:35,080 --> 00:43:35,319 Speaker 2: of that. 858 00:43:35,719 --> 00:43:37,960 Speaker 3: Is there an oogling term for someone that does that, 859 00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:39,560 Speaker 3: that moves back in with their parents? 860 00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:42,000 Speaker 2: Well, okay, so it's kind of funny. Is that the 861 00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:45,520 Speaker 2: word oogle used to mean a poser street kid, so 862 00:43:45,680 --> 00:43:49,319 Speaker 2: like originally in like the early aughts, and Google was 863 00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:53,439 Speaker 2: or well, right, like someone who's a fake Oogle who's 864 00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:56,080 Speaker 2: going to move back with his parents. But those of 865 00:43:56,120 --> 00:44:00,760 Speaker 2: us middle class dropouts fake Googles like me, we tended 866 00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:04,760 Speaker 2: to call the oogle meant more of the like fighty shitty, 867 00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:09,880 Speaker 2: like stabby guy right who's like drunk all the time 868 00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:13,560 Speaker 2: or whatever. So to some people the oogle thing is 869 00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:15,720 Speaker 2: to be the middle class kid, and to other people 870 00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:18,200 Speaker 2: the Google is like the more real anyway. 871 00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:21,120 Speaker 3: I'm so I feel I'm going to I can't wait 872 00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:24,239 Speaker 3: to use this knowledge. I don't know how or when, 873 00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:26,280 Speaker 3: but I am going to drop this at some point 874 00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:27,120 Speaker 3: in the near future. 875 00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:32,200 Speaker 2: I have never found a word that is more completely 876 00:44:32,880 --> 00:44:37,440 Speaker 2: suffused within a scene and completely opaque to people outside 877 00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:40,840 Speaker 2: the scene. Yeah, Like, I have never used this word 878 00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:45,440 Speaker 2: in like company that isn't punks, like especially street punks, 879 00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:48,080 Speaker 2: and had anyone know what I'm talking about. But this 880 00:44:48,120 --> 00:44:49,000 Speaker 2: is a word that is. 881 00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:52,480 Speaker 3: Like now and me. Now you can use it with me. 882 00:44:52,760 --> 00:44:55,320 Speaker 2: I'm cool exactly. Yeah, you can call me an Google 883 00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:58,399 Speaker 2: or when I'm acting like an oogle. Okay, let's get 884 00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:01,960 Speaker 2: the Jordan. But it's it's fine. So and then he 885 00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:03,440 Speaker 2: moves back with his parents and he does stuff that 886 00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:05,520 Speaker 2: totally matters, and I'm not as interested in this week's story. 887 00:45:05,560 --> 00:45:08,080 Speaker 2: He writes a bunch of books, including the ones he 888 00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:11,040 Speaker 2: later rejected entirely in which he hadn't written. He took 889 00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:14,759 Speaker 2: on the name George Orwell at this time, and it's 890 00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:17,719 Speaker 2: also kind of partly a way to leave his childhood 891 00:45:17,719 --> 00:45:21,359 Speaker 2: behind and make a clean break for who he wants 892 00:45:21,400 --> 00:45:24,680 Speaker 2: to become. In nineteen thirty five, he meets his wife 893 00:45:24,680 --> 00:45:28,680 Speaker 2: to be Eileen O'Shaughnessy, and before they get married, he 894 00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:30,960 Speaker 2: goes off slumming again up north and he writes The 895 00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:33,839 Speaker 2: Road to Wigan Peer, and he actually does really good 896 00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:36,200 Speaker 2: stuff with his slumming it. The Road to Wigan Peer 897 00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:38,720 Speaker 2: is this like, look at the conditions that the working 898 00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:41,560 Speaker 2: class and the north live in because people don't know it. 899 00:45:42,200 --> 00:45:44,800 Speaker 2: And it's basically a call for a socialism that isn't 900 00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:47,759 Speaker 2: caught up in like intellectual bullshit in jargon. He's like, 901 00:45:48,239 --> 00:45:49,880 Speaker 2: if we can't talk about socialism in a way that 902 00:45:49,960 --> 00:45:53,759 Speaker 2: matters to the miners, why are we doing it? This 903 00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:56,760 Speaker 2: gets him put under state surveillance, where he remains until 904 00:45:56,800 --> 00:45:57,320 Speaker 2: he dies. 905 00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:01,040 Speaker 3: Oh wow, it's real nineteen eighty I know. 906 00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:03,920 Speaker 2: But he's also part of the propaganda machine in the government. 907 00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:08,840 Speaker 2: It's he's woven in. It's interesting he gets married nineteen 908 00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:13,120 Speaker 2: thirty six. In nineteen thirty six, Franco staged a coup 909 00:46:13,239 --> 00:46:15,200 Speaker 2: in I wrote into this script France, which would be 910 00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:17,720 Speaker 2: a whole different story. He staged a coup in Spain, 911 00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:21,480 Speaker 2: and the Blairs are like, what, we gotta go fucking 912 00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:24,959 Speaker 2: do something about that, don't we. And the short version 913 00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:26,600 Speaker 2: of the Spanish Civil War you can get the long 914 00:46:26,680 --> 00:46:30,480 Speaker 2: version from like half the episodes I've ever done, is 915 00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:33,560 Speaker 2: that Spain finally managed to get itself into being a republic, 916 00:46:33,880 --> 00:46:37,279 Speaker 2: but then Franco, a fascist, invaded his own country and tried, 917 00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:39,440 Speaker 2: after he tried to stage a coup, and then it 918 00:46:39,480 --> 00:46:42,560 Speaker 2: failed because republican troops and anarchist militias threw down to 919 00:46:42,600 --> 00:46:45,880 Speaker 2: stop it. Militias ran to the front to hold back fascism, 920 00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:49,560 Speaker 2: while meanwhile, social revolution spread across the country and in 921 00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:52,640 Speaker 2: Barcelona and Catalonia. More broadly, millions of people started living 922 00:46:52,640 --> 00:46:57,360 Speaker 2: in an anti state, socialist life. People thought the Western 923 00:46:57,400 --> 00:46:59,759 Speaker 2: powers like France, UK and the US would help them 924 00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:03,359 Speaker 2: out because after all, they are committed to the democracy 925 00:47:03,520 --> 00:47:06,040 Speaker 2: and the republic and blah blah blah. Right, Yeah, the 926 00:47:06,040 --> 00:47:09,920 Speaker 2: Western governments turned their back on Spain completely. They not 927 00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:13,040 Speaker 2: only did they not show up, they blockaded aid into 928 00:47:13,080 --> 00:47:18,520 Speaker 2: the country. Only Stalin showed up to help, but there 929 00:47:18,520 --> 00:47:22,960 Speaker 2: were serious strings attached. Communists as in loyal to the USSR. 930 00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:27,440 Speaker 2: Folks were a distinct minority like politically, they were a 931 00:47:27,480 --> 00:47:29,760 Speaker 2: tiny fraction of the left in Spain at the time, 932 00:47:30,440 --> 00:47:32,839 Speaker 2: but if you wanted Daddy Stalin's help, you gotta let 933 00:47:32,880 --> 00:47:36,000 Speaker 2: them be in charge. And that soon turned out very badly, 934 00:47:36,160 --> 00:47:38,880 Speaker 2: with the communists going to literal war against the Republic 935 00:47:38,880 --> 00:47:41,360 Speaker 2: and the anarchists, and it's messy and bad. But this 936 00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:46,560 Speaker 2: hasn't happened yet. When the Blairs go down, well, the 937 00:47:46,680 --> 00:47:50,400 Speaker 2: Orwell if she never changes her name to Orwell, Eileen 938 00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:55,480 Speaker 2: goes with him. Yeah. A few months later, the Republic 939 00:47:55,560 --> 00:47:58,120 Speaker 2: is in danger and the governments of the western countries 940 00:47:58,120 --> 00:48:01,560 Speaker 2: aren't helping. But people from those countries and from other 941 00:48:01,560 --> 00:48:06,000 Speaker 2: countries around the world. Mexico shows up really hard. I 942 00:48:06,120 --> 00:48:09,319 Speaker 2: can't remember all of the countries. An awful lot of 943 00:48:09,440 --> 00:48:12,040 Speaker 2: leftists from around the world are like, we're going to 944 00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:17,680 Speaker 2: go fight fascism. George and Eileen are among them. On 945 00:48:17,760 --> 00:48:21,960 Speaker 2: December twenty third, nineteen thirty six, George Orwell sets off 946 00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:24,640 Speaker 2: to Spain. At first, he's like, I'm going to go 947 00:48:24,680 --> 00:48:26,879 Speaker 2: be a journalist, but as soon as he gets there, 948 00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:30,520 Speaker 2: he sees the revolution and he's like, all right, sign 949 00:48:30,560 --> 00:48:33,279 Speaker 2: me up, let's go. He actually has a good quote 950 00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:34,799 Speaker 2: that I didn't include in here for some reason, where 951 00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:36,520 Speaker 2: he's like, look, I don't understand it all. There's like 952 00:48:36,600 --> 00:48:39,160 Speaker 2: anarchist banners everywhere and hammers and sickles and shit, but 953 00:48:39,239 --> 00:48:41,840 Speaker 2: everyone's like in charge of themselves and that's pretty cool 954 00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:43,759 Speaker 2: and I don't need to and some of this scares me, 955 00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:47,200 Speaker 2: but this seems like something worth defending. And that's my 956 00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:49,720 Speaker 2: paraphrase of him. Yeah, but I will give his direct 957 00:48:49,800 --> 00:48:53,840 Speaker 2: quote quote. When I joined the militia, I had promised 958 00:48:53,840 --> 00:48:56,920 Speaker 2: myself to kill one fascist. After all, if each of 959 00:48:57,000 --> 00:48:59,000 Speaker 2: us killed one, they would soon be extinct. 960 00:49:01,200 --> 00:49:02,560 Speaker 3: It's beautiful and simple. 961 00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:11,560 Speaker 2: I know, I know that's lovely. Anyway, we're not sure 962 00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:14,760 Speaker 2: if he killed anyone or not. Firefights and bomb fights 963 00:49:14,800 --> 00:49:18,319 Speaker 2: are like that. He absolutely shot at fascists, and he 964 00:49:18,400 --> 00:49:20,840 Speaker 2: also fought. He gotten like a bayonet fight with a 965 00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:24,800 Speaker 2: fascist who ran away. No, that's pretty that counts for something. 966 00:49:24,840 --> 00:49:27,400 Speaker 2: Come on, yeah, no, I give him credit more than 967 00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:30,279 Speaker 2: I have ever done. Yeah, and how all that went, 968 00:49:31,040 --> 00:49:33,040 Speaker 2: we'll talk about on Wednesday. 969 00:49:34,120 --> 00:49:36,719 Speaker 3: Oh, that'll wait until I don't know. 970 00:49:37,080 --> 00:49:41,239 Speaker 2: You totally have to wait till Wednesday. Five minutes breaks 971 00:49:41,239 --> 00:49:43,560 Speaker 2: a week on all go to the bathroom before we record. 972 00:49:44,360 --> 00:49:47,080 Speaker 3: Okay, I'm a pick and be right back. 973 00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:50,880 Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, no, So, so how's orwell, how how are 974 00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:51,839 Speaker 2: you feeling about this man? 975 00:49:53,640 --> 00:49:56,480 Speaker 3: You kind of laid out the grand work perfectly, like 976 00:49:56,520 --> 00:50:00,319 Speaker 3: I understood there's gonna be some deeply problematic parts. It 977 00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:02,319 Speaker 3: was a little bit of a dip from me emotionally. 978 00:50:02,640 --> 00:50:04,759 Speaker 3: I'm on my way back up. I think he's I 979 00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:07,200 Speaker 3: think it's very interesting. I'm a little disappointed I didn't 980 00:50:07,239 --> 00:50:11,960 Speaker 3: work in a Dexy's Midnight Runners reference with Eileen oh Bo. 981 00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:15,279 Speaker 3: But maybe I'll get to it in the second episode. 982 00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:18,120 Speaker 3: And I'm really I'm loving it. This is great, Like, 983 00:50:18,640 --> 00:50:22,799 Speaker 3: this is an amazing interesting character, and he's so I mean, 984 00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:24,839 Speaker 3: I don't know if he's misunderstood just because I don't 985 00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:27,920 Speaker 3: know enough about him, but I you're what you said 986 00:50:28,080 --> 00:50:31,760 Speaker 3: is exactly right. He is just so woven into pop 987 00:50:31,800 --> 00:50:36,440 Speaker 3: culture and references from everything from like stuff we watched 988 00:50:36,480 --> 00:50:38,799 Speaker 3: when I was growing up to like the Boys now 989 00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:43,160 Speaker 3: on TV. Everything is woven in this just Orwellian these 990 00:50:43,239 --> 00:50:45,640 Speaker 3: Orwellian ideas. So to learn more about him, I think 991 00:50:45,719 --> 00:50:49,080 Speaker 3: is really important. So, yeah, no, it's great. 992 00:50:49,800 --> 00:50:51,799 Speaker 2: I more and more as I was like reading all 993 00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:55,279 Speaker 2: this stuff, I was like, Oh, this man fundamentally changed 994 00:50:55,320 --> 00:50:59,279 Speaker 2: the world, and we don't know what the world would 995 00:50:59,280 --> 00:51:03,520 Speaker 2: be like without him. And there are some ways in which, 996 00:51:04,280 --> 00:51:08,319 Speaker 2: because of how grossly misused he has been, there's some 997 00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:11,800 Speaker 2: ways in which it got worse right in other ways, 998 00:51:11,840 --> 00:51:15,480 Speaker 2: And I think overall, I think in broad strokes, I 999 00:51:15,520 --> 00:51:18,799 Speaker 2: think he did maybe more to combat the spread of 1000 00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:22,680 Speaker 2: totalitarian ideology through his writing than anyone in the English language. 1001 00:51:23,239 --> 00:51:23,479 Speaker 3: Yeah. 1002 00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:28,080 Speaker 2: Huge, Yeah, And and we'll talk more about that on Wednesday, 1003 00:51:28,120 --> 00:51:31,640 Speaker 2: But first we'll talk about your podcast and anything else 1004 00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:32,440 Speaker 2: you want to talk about. 1005 00:51:33,120 --> 00:51:35,520 Speaker 3: I have a podcast is called The House of Pod. 1006 00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:40,279 Speaker 3: It is a humor adjacent medical podcast. We will look 1007 00:51:40,280 --> 00:51:43,520 Speaker 3: at the intersections of public health and pop culture and 1008 00:51:43,719 --> 00:51:49,200 Speaker 3: social inequities and cover some pretty fun topics with great guests, 1009 00:51:49,680 --> 00:51:53,200 Speaker 3: a lot of people that you'll already know from listening 1010 00:51:53,280 --> 00:51:57,200 Speaker 3: to this podcast. And it's a ton of fun. And 1011 00:51:57,239 --> 00:51:59,160 Speaker 3: I know you might not think that it would be 1012 00:51:59,160 --> 00:52:01,239 Speaker 3: because you're like, I don't want to It sounds a 1013 00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:04,680 Speaker 3: little bit medically and nerdy and sciencey, and it's not 1014 00:52:04,800 --> 00:52:07,440 Speaker 3: that much. It's because we are kind of anti jargon. 1015 00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:10,520 Speaker 3: So you will like it. I think if you don't, 1016 00:52:10,880 --> 00:52:14,880 Speaker 3: you know, we'll send you a nicol. 1017 00:52:16,520 --> 00:52:19,960 Speaker 2: It took me like three times to finally figure out 1018 00:52:20,000 --> 00:52:22,680 Speaker 2: because House of Pod makes so much sense obviously as 1019 00:52:22,680 --> 00:52:26,160 Speaker 2: a play on House of God. Ah, it took me 1020 00:52:26,280 --> 00:52:28,640 Speaker 2: so long to figure that out. 1021 00:52:29,600 --> 00:52:32,280 Speaker 3: Well, I mean, you're not the target audience for that book. 1022 00:52:32,320 --> 00:52:34,160 Speaker 3: I mean, I mean I'm glad. Did you read it? 1023 00:52:34,480 --> 00:52:34,800 Speaker 2: No? 1024 00:52:34,800 --> 00:52:34,920 Speaker 3: No? 1025 00:52:34,960 --> 00:52:36,719 Speaker 2: Wait wait wait does a book or House of God? 1026 00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:40,160 Speaker 3: No? I don't know how god. So the House of 1027 00:52:40,200 --> 00:52:42,840 Speaker 3: God is a book that was ranked one of the 1028 00:52:42,920 --> 00:52:46,480 Speaker 3: best satires of all time. It's a medical book that 1029 00:52:46,600 --> 00:52:48,880 Speaker 3: was one of the first books about like medicine that 1030 00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:52,520 Speaker 3: showed medicine in a realistic light. It came out like 1031 00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:55,560 Speaker 3: forty five years ago or something. I have the author 1032 00:52:55,600 --> 00:52:58,800 Speaker 3: on the show Actually it's a problematic book and some 1033 00:52:59,760 --> 00:53:02,920 Speaker 3: very serious ways in this depiction of minorities in particular 1034 00:53:02,960 --> 00:53:06,000 Speaker 3: and misogyny. But it was the first book to really 1035 00:53:06,080 --> 00:53:11,120 Speaker 3: kind of show the world of medicine in a realistic way, 1036 00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:14,239 Speaker 3: and it is like a satire and it's actually, you know, 1037 00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:18,600 Speaker 3: pretty brilliantly written overall by this guy who was a doctor, 1038 00:53:18,960 --> 00:53:21,520 Speaker 3: and it's that's kind of what we're trying to do 1039 00:53:21,560 --> 00:53:23,320 Speaker 3: with the show is kind of peel back the curtain 1040 00:53:23,640 --> 00:53:25,359 Speaker 3: on the world of medicine and show you like, this 1041 00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:27,640 Speaker 3: is kind of what it's really like. This is what 1042 00:53:27,840 --> 00:53:30,919 Speaker 3: doctors are actually like when they're talking to them each other, 1043 00:53:31,400 --> 00:53:32,880 Speaker 3: and you know, they're not trying to put up a 1044 00:53:32,880 --> 00:53:36,239 Speaker 3: fake front. And I hope through the whole process that 1045 00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:40,160 Speaker 3: we kind of, you know, break down people's anxiety about 1046 00:53:40,239 --> 00:53:43,160 Speaker 3: medicine or make medicine more approachable to people. 1047 00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:46,080 Speaker 2: That's kind of the overall goal of it. So but yeah, 1048 00:53:46,080 --> 00:53:48,560 Speaker 2: it's based on a book called The House of God. Okay, 1049 00:53:48,600 --> 00:53:51,479 Speaker 2: that makes so much sense. Yeah, I knew that House 1050 00:53:51,480 --> 00:53:53,480 Speaker 2: of God was sometimes a word that people use for 1051 00:53:53,520 --> 00:53:56,319 Speaker 2: like hospitals and stuff, but I don't thah totally. And 1052 00:53:56,400 --> 00:53:58,080 Speaker 2: so that was like Oh, I get it, and I 1053 00:53:58,120 --> 00:54:01,239 Speaker 2: felt so clever, But now I get it actually, and uh, 1054 00:54:02,200 --> 00:54:04,360 Speaker 2: totally glad I learned it on air or whatever. I 1055 00:54:04,360 --> 00:54:06,440 Speaker 2: guess my whole thing with my podcast is I make 1056 00:54:06,560 --> 00:54:08,080 Speaker 2: guests come on and talk about things they don't know. 1057 00:54:08,080 --> 00:54:11,160 Speaker 3: Oh, but I'm so good. Listen again, I have to 1058 00:54:11,200 --> 00:54:14,160 Speaker 3: apologize to your listeners. I'm so sorry you have. You're 1059 00:54:14,200 --> 00:54:16,480 Speaker 3: all listening right now and being like what These are 1060 00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:18,880 Speaker 3: the most basic questions. Why isn't he asking? 1061 00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:19,280 Speaker 2: No? 1062 00:54:19,920 --> 00:54:21,960 Speaker 3: And I'm sorry, I hear you, I hear you. I 1063 00:54:22,040 --> 00:54:23,720 Speaker 3: know I understand listeners. I'm sorry. 1064 00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:26,399 Speaker 2: Sorry, some of those listeners have those questions. I love. 1065 00:54:26,640 --> 00:54:28,960 Speaker 2: One of the favorite tricks I've ever learned to get 1066 00:54:28,960 --> 00:54:31,839 Speaker 2: over imposter syndrome actually in some ways is when I'm 1067 00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:34,560 Speaker 2: in a crowd and someone's like, especially if I'm kind 1068 00:54:34,600 --> 00:54:36,960 Speaker 2: of in like if I am like at like a 1069 00:54:37,120 --> 00:54:39,799 Speaker 2: like a political thing, right. I have enough cred at 1070 00:54:39,840 --> 00:54:43,160 Speaker 2: this point that if I'm in a political space or whatever, 1071 00:54:43,560 --> 00:54:45,640 Speaker 2: like enough people kind of know who I am or whatever, 1072 00:54:45,680 --> 00:54:48,400 Speaker 2: because I've been doing this for twenty years. So if 1073 00:54:48,480 --> 00:54:51,839 Speaker 2: someone uses jargon, I sometimes I'm like, hey, what does 1074 00:54:51,880 --> 00:54:56,080 Speaker 2: that mean? Because no one thinks I don't know what 1075 00:54:56,120 --> 00:54:59,759 Speaker 2: it means, right, and so I'm like, I'm safe to 1076 00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:03,120 Speaker 2: ask ask the question, you know, but someone needs to 1077 00:55:03,280 --> 00:55:05,600 Speaker 2: someone needs to say like because like unless it's a 1078 00:55:05,600 --> 00:55:08,840 Speaker 2: closed space, like people need to be able to understand 1079 00:55:08,880 --> 00:55:12,799 Speaker 2: what's happening, you know, agreed, I agreed. But if you 1080 00:55:12,840 --> 00:55:16,479 Speaker 2: want to hear what's happening in Spain of eighty years ago, 1081 00:55:16,880 --> 00:55:21,319 Speaker 2: then you got a way till Wednesday. Uh oh, I 1082 00:55:21,360 --> 00:55:23,279 Speaker 2: have a book. It's this God, it's like one of 1083 00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:25,120 Speaker 2: your last few days. You can kickstart it. What are 1084 00:55:25,120 --> 00:55:27,040 Speaker 2: you doing? Why haven't you kickstarted yet? Don't you want 1085 00:55:27,040 --> 00:55:30,360 Speaker 2: to sign? Copy The Sapling Cage, my young adult book. 1086 00:55:30,480 --> 00:55:33,439 Speaker 2: I actually realized more than I when I'm going through 1087 00:55:33,480 --> 00:55:36,760 Speaker 2: this or what was actually a more important literary influence 1088 00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:39,200 Speaker 2: on me than I'd recognize because I was thinking about 1089 00:55:39,200 --> 00:55:40,960 Speaker 2: how a lot of like my actual the literary here 1090 00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:42,839 Speaker 2: is that I like read more recently and I care 1091 00:55:42,880 --> 00:55:48,560 Speaker 2: more about tend to write. I try to write plainly. 1092 00:55:48,920 --> 00:55:53,439 Speaker 2: I try to write at a fairly like low reading level, 1093 00:55:53,480 --> 00:55:55,640 Speaker 2: because I think the lowest reading level that you can 1094 00:55:55,760 --> 00:55:57,960 Speaker 2: say the things that you need to say in as 1095 00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:01,200 Speaker 2: complicated and nuanced ways as you can or need to 1096 00:56:02,320 --> 00:56:04,160 Speaker 2: is the goal. I don't want things to be complicated 1097 00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:08,200 Speaker 2: for the sake of complicated. And actually, upon looking back, 1098 00:56:08,239 --> 00:56:10,680 Speaker 2: I was like, oh, reading Orwell's stuff on writing was 1099 00:56:11,520 --> 00:56:13,640 Speaker 2: what I was doing when I first started writing, and 1100 00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:17,480 Speaker 2: I'm very excited to read the book, so clearly I'm 1101 00:56:17,520 --> 00:56:20,239 Speaker 2: writing the next nineteen eighty four is my book is 1102 00:56:20,280 --> 00:56:23,919 Speaker 2: nothing like It's a fantasy book about a witch who 1103 00:56:24,120 --> 00:56:24,759 Speaker 2: saves the world. 1104 00:56:25,640 --> 00:56:26,919 Speaker 3: That's yeah, I can't wait. 1105 00:56:27,360 --> 00:56:34,279 Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, Well, let's see you all Wednesday. 1106 00:56:35,440 --> 00:56:37,920 Speaker 1: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of 1107 00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:41,040 Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, 1108 00:56:41,200 --> 00:56:44,479 Speaker 1: visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out 1109 00:56:44,560 --> 00:56:47,440 Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 1110 00:56:47,600 --> 00:56:52,080 Speaker 4: You get your podcasts.