WEBVTT - Part One: George Orwell and the War for Common Decency

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<v Speaker 1>Cool Zone Media.

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<v Speaker 2>Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff,

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<v Speaker 2>your weekly podcast about cool people who did the cool stuff.

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<v Speaker 2>One of the people who did cool stuff is doctor

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<v Speaker 2>kavejda House of pod. Some of the cool stuff you've

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<v Speaker 2>done in clothes, saving people's lives with medicine and entertaining

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<v Speaker 2>people with podcasts.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah. Yeah. I like to think that I'm saving people

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<v Speaker 3>with my podcasts, saving them from boring medical podcasts. That's

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<v Speaker 3>what I feel like I'm saving them from.

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<v Speaker 2>But I have a question, because like I have to

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<v Speaker 2>kind of gas myself up to think that what I

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<v Speaker 2>do is meaningful and impactful. How does it feel to

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<v Speaker 2>be both like, Oh, I do this thing that's a

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<v Speaker 2>little bit more direct, and then I do this other

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<v Speaker 2>thing that's a little bit more ephemeral.

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<v Speaker 3>Uh. I'll tell you that's a really good question. First

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<v Speaker 3>of all, do not downplay what you do, Margaret. I

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<v Speaker 3>feel like your sphere of influence is bigger than even you,

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<v Speaker 3>you know, And so I think that your show is

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<v Speaker 3>really great. And I'm not just saying that because I'm

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<v Speaker 3>on it now. Although it helps, but there are a

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<v Speaker 3>lot of times in medicine where when you're doing things

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<v Speaker 3>to help somebody, it's not so obvious, like sometimes it's

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<v Speaker 3>really obvious, like if someone is having an emergency and

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<v Speaker 3>I fix it for them, that's great, it's super satisfying.

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<v Speaker 3>A lot of what you do is stuff where if

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<v Speaker 3>you're doing it right, the patient doesn't even notice it

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<v Speaker 3>doesn't and doesn't even like you don't get that immediate satisfaction.

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<v Speaker 3>That's a lot of what you do, and so you

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<v Speaker 3>kind of it's almost like you know, when you're talking

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<v Speaker 3>into this microphone and you know that you're doing you're

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<v Speaker 3>reaching people, but you can't see them. So it's a

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<v Speaker 3>little bit of a different feeling. It's kind of like

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<v Speaker 3>that in medicine a lot too. Or it's like I

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<v Speaker 3>know a lot of what I'm doing is very important

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<v Speaker 3>in helping somebody, but it won't show for many years

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<v Speaker 3>or maybe they'll never notice it all. That's how I

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<v Speaker 3>know I did a good job. So it's actually kind

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<v Speaker 3>of similar, I guess, is what I'm saying.

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<v Speaker 2>No, that actually that actually makes a lot of sense

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<v Speaker 2>to me. Yeah, today we're going to talk about someone

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<v Speaker 2>who both directly and indirectly, like did both things right,

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<v Speaker 2>and in this case, it was fighting fascism and totalitarianism.

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<v Speaker 3>I can't wait.

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<v Speaker 2>I can't wait, Cave, have you ever heard of books?

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<v Speaker 3>But I've seen them. I've seen them. I had a

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<v Speaker 3>couple when I was younger. I experimented a little bit,

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<v Speaker 3>if I'm being honest, in college.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, yeah, and well.

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<v Speaker 3>Now I don't have so many of them because it's

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<v Speaker 3>all in the interwebs. But yeah, I'm familiar with the concept.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, Kave is wearing a book shirt right now, just

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<v Speaker 2>to H.

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<v Speaker 3>Powell's City of Books.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, just amazing bookstore.

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<v Speaker 4>Ah my peoples.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, today, you guys, we're going to talk about a

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<v Speaker 2>guy who made some books, some of which readers have

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<v Speaker 2>probably readers listeners have probably read.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, there's probably people reading this podcast, so I'm sure

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<v Speaker 3>that there's people just doing the conscriptions.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's true. A couple months ago, I talked about

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<v Speaker 2>one of the people who is the most commonly misquoted,

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<v Speaker 2>constantly misunderstood writer with way better politics than anyone realized.

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<v Speaker 2>His name was Oscar Wilde. Oh, and this week we're

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<v Speaker 2>going to talk about another constantly misquoted, constantly misunderstood writer

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<v Speaker 2>who had way better politics than anyone realized. This guy

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<v Speaker 2>was a big fan of Oscar Wilde. Wild was a

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<v Speaker 2>major political influence on him. His name you might have

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<v Speaker 2>heard of before is George Orwell.

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<v Speaker 3>Oh wow, oh yeah, I've heard I've heard of George orwell, yeah,

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<v Speaker 3>that's how you know he's big.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I feel like most people who h read in

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<v Speaker 2>English have heard of George Orwell. That is my hypothesis here.

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<v Speaker 3>That's a fair.

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<v Speaker 2>That's fair, And I'm going to make a bunch of

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<v Speaker 2>claims about him. One of is that some people hate him,

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<v Speaker 2>and they usually hate him for the wrong reasons. There

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<v Speaker 2>are reasons to hate him, but I don't, and we'll

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<v Speaker 2>talk about that.

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<v Speaker 3>I can't wait. I have to admit I don't know

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<v Speaker 3>a ton. I know like nineteen eighty four in Animal Form,

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<v Speaker 3>and when I was very very young the nineteen eighty

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<v Speaker 3>four movie came out. I think it came out like

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<v Speaker 3>I was too young to watch it, but I remember

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<v Speaker 3>seeing it on like HBO once when I was like

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<v Speaker 3>way too young, and it traumatized me in a deep,

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<v Speaker 3>deep way.

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<v Speaker 2>So I just rat on his face or whatever.

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<v Speaker 3>He's a broke I remember him just being totally broken

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<v Speaker 3>at the end of it, and so that affected me deeply, deeply,

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<v Speaker 3>So I Yes, I'm very excited to learn more about him.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he's an emotionally effective writer, which is interesting because

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<v Speaker 2>he's not an emotionally expressive person. And we'll talk about that.

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<v Speaker 2>Some of his biggest sort of some of the misunderstandings

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<v Speaker 2>or correct understandings of him are around the fact that

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<v Speaker 2>he did not express much emotion. George Orrell was a

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<v Speaker 2>man who went from privileged son of the empire to

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<v Speaker 2>colonial cop to anti fascist fighter who took a bullet

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<v Speaker 2>to the neck fighting Franco in Spain, to going on

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<v Speaker 2>to write some of the best English language commentary on

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<v Speaker 2>totalitarianism and being a major anti imperialist writer at the time.

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<v Speaker 2>This was a man whose sole guiding principle was he

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<v Speaker 2>believed in what he called common decency. And while he's

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<v Speaker 2>often painted as an anti socialist because his works are

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<v Speaker 2>critical of the USSR, he was very explicitly a democratic

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<v Speaker 2>socialist to the end of his days. He was absolutely

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<v Speaker 2>on the left, and he put all of his money

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<v Speaker 2>towards making the world a better place, and he lived

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<v Speaker 2>really modestly, and he also put a lot of money

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<v Speaker 2>towards his son. So that's like what he did with

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<v Speaker 2>his money. So far liking it, unliking where this is headed.

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<v Speaker 2>He's a complicated figure. His homophobia and unaddressed misogyny are

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<v Speaker 2>woven throughout his writings. However, I'm going to complicate especially

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<v Speaker 2>his misogyny, in a minute. His actions did not always

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<v Speaker 2>live up to his lofty ideals, especially when he was younger.

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<v Speaker 2>He is my problematic fave. He's just problematic for different

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<v Speaker 2>reasons than some of the listeners who are already mad

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<v Speaker 2>at me for talking about him. Assume, huh, so.

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<v Speaker 3>It's people that are mad about this already.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, authoritarian communists hate him. Everyone else wants to claim him.

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<v Speaker 2>The right wing wants to claim him, the center left,

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<v Speaker 2>the anarchists, everyone is like, he's our guy, right except

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<v Speaker 2>the authoritarian left, who are like, we hate this man

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<v Speaker 2>with the burning heat of a thousand sons.

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<v Speaker 3>Okay, all right, Can I ask a question. Yeah, I

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<v Speaker 3>hear the term tanky used a lot.

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<v Speaker 2>So yes, tankies hate him. Okay, I'm using the term correctly. Yes,

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<v Speaker 2>minitarian socialists specifically who are like totally fine with the

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<v Speaker 2>worst excesses of the USSR.

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<v Speaker 3>Okay. I apologize to your listeners in advance because I

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<v Speaker 3>asked some very stupid questions. No, very actively pro those

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<v Speaker 3>kinds of questions being esca and Orwell would be very

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<v Speaker 3>happy that you were asking these questions too, because one

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<v Speaker 3>of Orwell's whole things was fuck jargon. He was like,

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<v Speaker 3>if you are writing, I'm going to get to it later.

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<v Speaker 3>We're gonna talk about rules of writing. He's like, only

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<v Speaker 3>used jargon if it is the only word to describe

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<v Speaker 3>what you're saying. Got it.

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<v Speaker 2>A million books have been written about George Orwell, and

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<v Speaker 2>I haven't read them all. An awful lot of books

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<v Speaker 2>were written by George Orwell, and I've read a lot

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<v Speaker 2>of them, but I haven't read all of them. Some

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<v Speaker 2>of the books I haven't read are the ones he

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<v Speaker 2>says he wished he hadn't written, So I feel fine.

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<v Speaker 2>He's not a fan of his early work. Yeah, I

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<v Speaker 2>read read one of his books that he says he

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<v Speaker 2>didn't wish he hadn't read, and that actually was a

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<v Speaker 2>kind of an interesting book. It's called Keith the Asperdistra Flying,

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<v Speaker 2>and it's about a middle class guy who wants to

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<v Speaker 2>be poor in this slumming it and ends up therefore

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<v Speaker 2>just sort of taking advantage of his girlfriend because she

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<v Speaker 2>has a middle class job, and he refuses to have

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<v Speaker 2>a middle class job. And it was actually like probably

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<v Speaker 2>useful to me for me to read as like a

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<v Speaker 2>squatter who often stayed with partners, you know.

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<v Speaker 3>Anyway, Yeah, that's an interesting I'm sure there's an interesting

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<v Speaker 3>insight into that, Like I could see also why people

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<v Speaker 3>from the right try to claim him and anything they

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<v Speaker 3>don't like that seems kind of like weirdly authoritarian. They'll

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<v Speaker 3>like reference like nineteen eighty four. I've seen both sides reference.

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<v Speaker 3>This is like nineteen eighty four. This is like thought

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<v Speaker 3>police nineteen eighty four, you know, on both sides, the

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<v Speaker 3>right in particular, I see using it.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And he was Georgi Ro was incredibly critical of

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<v Speaker 2>the left. He was critical of the authoritarian left, and

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<v Speaker 2>he loved the democratic left and he loved the anarchist

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<v Speaker 2>left and more the democratic left is how he fully aligned.

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<v Speaker 2>But we're going to talk about later about how at

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<v Speaker 2>the end of his life he was like everyone who's

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<v Speaker 2>fighting for socialism, who isn't fighting for stalin, I'm I'm your.

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<v Speaker 3>Guy, bored with them, common decency, anti jargon. So far

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<v Speaker 3>I'm on board with this guy.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, No, no, especially end of his life or will.

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<v Speaker 2>I'm like, yeah, this man is more fave less problematic,

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<v Speaker 2>and actually some of the ways he develops through is

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<v Speaker 2>kind of okay, well, we'll get to it, Okay. So

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<v Speaker 2>and I'm going to talk about his life and his

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<v Speaker 2>adventures and especially how was thinking developed and how he

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<v Speaker 2>always worked to improve himself and become less of an asshole.

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<v Speaker 2>And I'm going to focus more on the parts of

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<v Speaker 2>his life that are interesting to me, because there's also

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<v Speaker 2>I feel a bit dirty doing anything that presents it

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<v Speaker 2>as like the biographical sketch of this man, because in

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<v Speaker 2>his will, he was like, please don't write biographies about me.

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<v Speaker 3>He was I'm sure nobody listened.

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<v Speaker 2>Nobody listened. Actually, one of the sort of some of

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<v Speaker 2>the books, some of the books that came out kind

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<v Speaker 2>of right away after he died, were a little bit

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<v Speaker 2>more like we're auctions on his life and writing that

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<v Speaker 2>were a little bit like, hey, I knew the guy,

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<v Speaker 2>and I swear this isn't a biography.

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<v Speaker 3>He'd be cool with this. He'd be cool with this.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, Like and it's like or it's even kind

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<v Speaker 2>of a like, hey, sorry, man, you know, like, don't worry,

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<v Speaker 2>I'm not going to get into everything. I just want

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<v Speaker 2>to talk You're important and we got to talk about you.

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<v Speaker 2>I'm sorry.

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<v Speaker 3>Why Why didn't he want this? Because he didn't want

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<v Speaker 3>people to focus on him and his story they want

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<v Speaker 3>he want people to focus on his works, or because

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<v Speaker 3>there's things in his past he didn't want people like

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<v Speaker 3>so talking about.

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<v Speaker 2>I think it's a combo a little bit of those.

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<v Speaker 2>He was deeply private, right, and so he really compartmentalized

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<v Speaker 2>what he wrote about and like what he lived, which

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<v Speaker 2>is interesting because a lot of his books, especially as

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<v Speaker 2>early books, are autobiographical. He writes these books about like slumming, right.

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<v Speaker 2>That's like kind of how he makes his name is

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<v Speaker 2>that he like literally dresses up as a tramp and

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<v Speaker 2>goes around and like lives as a hobo and for

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<v Speaker 2>a while when he's young and he's like from the

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<v Speaker 2>middle class, right, but he like still compartmentalizes out certain

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<v Speaker 2>parts of his life, especially like his intimate life, Like

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<v Speaker 2>he doesn't talk about his wife where you talk about

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<v Speaker 2>a bunch Like some people have been like, oh, because

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<v Speaker 2>he's a misogynist. I honestly, as best as I can tell,

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<v Speaker 2>I think it's because they had an agreement where it

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<v Speaker 2>was like, no, leave me out of your writing. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>you know, and so he compartmentalized, like hell he also

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<v Speaker 2>we'll talk about some of the there's two bad things

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<v Speaker 2>he did too, like big.

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<v Speaker 4>Could he also be a guy with imposter syndrome?

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<v Speaker 2>Oh? Interesting?

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<v Speaker 4>That was my first thought.

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<v Speaker 2>I think. I think eventually he kind of came into

0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:37.120
<v Speaker 2>being like I am who I am? But he actually

0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:38.960
<v Speaker 2>I have read a bunch about how he he had

0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:42.560
<v Speaker 2>sort of imposter syndrome in that he didn't under he

0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:44.920
<v Speaker 2>like because he was so used to people kind of

0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:48.679
<v Speaker 2>shitting on him that once he like kind of came

0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:52.439
<v Speaker 2>into his power, he wasn't always totally aware of it.

0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:53.360
<v Speaker 2>Oh that's interesting.

0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:56.280
<v Speaker 4>Is there two types of people that are like extreme

0:11:56.440 --> 0:12:01.079
<v Speaker 4>like of Orwellian success, that are like either like yeah,

0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:05.400
<v Speaker 4>that's me, or they have major imposter syndrome?

0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:07.800
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? No, that makes sense.

0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:11.199
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, something I'm very familiar with the medicine. It

0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:13.839
<v Speaker 3>was literally just talking to a group of medical students

0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:18.480
<v Speaker 3>just yesterday about this, and I prepared them and I said, listen,

0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:20.520
<v Speaker 3>you're going to have imposter syndrome, and you're going to

0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:23.560
<v Speaker 3>have it for probably the next thirty to forty years.

0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:25.240
<v Speaker 3>It's never going to go away.

0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:26.719
<v Speaker 2>I get told, well, then you're going to turn into

0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:28.320
<v Speaker 2>an assholeho thinks you know have better than all the

0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:31.040
<v Speaker 2>people who actually have been to med school more recently,

0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:32.160
<v Speaker 2>no more recent stuff.

0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.040
<v Speaker 3>Exactly, or you find a way to have both, which

0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:37.560
<v Speaker 3>is what a lot of doctors do. Okay, to be

0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:39.200
<v Speaker 3>assholes with imposter syndrome.

0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:44.520
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So for anyone who's unfamiliar with this man, which

0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:47.040
<v Speaker 2>is totally fair. The short version is that there was

0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:50.320
<v Speaker 2>an english Man who first wrote under and then lived

0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:52.800
<v Speaker 2>under the name George Orwell, but that wasn't his birthname.

0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:56.360
<v Speaker 2>He fought in the Spanish Civil War, where he was

0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:59.640
<v Speaker 2>soured on authoritarian leftism because of what he saw there.

0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:04.640
<v Speaker 2>He almost was killed by He stayed committed to democratic socialism,

0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:06.920
<v Speaker 2>but he wrote two of the most famous books ever

0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:09.960
<v Speaker 2>written against totalitarianism, the book Animal Farm, about a bunch

0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:12.880
<v Speaker 2>of farmyard animals that have a revolution, only to have

0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:15.120
<v Speaker 2>one group of those animals decide that they are more

0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:18.440
<v Speaker 2>deserving than the other animals, and the book nineteen eighty four,

0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:21.920
<v Speaker 2>about a totalitarian society that tries to control how everyone

0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:24.959
<v Speaker 2>thinks and how much that sucks. And he is famously

0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:28.160
<v Speaker 2>quoted by all kinds of people, including the kinds of

0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:35.719
<v Speaker 2>people that he actually threw grenades at fascists, and so

0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:39.400
<v Speaker 2>we're gonna talk about him. George Orwell was born Eric

0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:43.720
<v Speaker 2>Arthur Blair on June twenty fifth, nineteen oh three. People

0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:45.600
<v Speaker 2>often say George Orwell was a pen name, and you'll

0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:47.120
<v Speaker 2>kind of run across people and like, ah, I know

0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:49.800
<v Speaker 2>his real name. It's Eric Blair. It was a chosen name.

0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:51.360
<v Speaker 2>By the end of his life, the only people called

0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:53.720
<v Speaker 2>him Eric were like bank managers and shit, like you

0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:55.839
<v Speaker 2>saw Eric when he signed the checks, because he never

0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:59.280
<v Speaker 2>changed the paperwork on his name. I'm a fan of

0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:01.720
<v Speaker 2>choosing your owname. So I'm going to go with George throughout,

0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:04.080
<v Speaker 2>not because it's like a dead name to call him Erica,

0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.480
<v Speaker 2>but just you know, it's what I mean.

0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:10.839
<v Speaker 3>My only question is like, it's not I don't like

0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:11.880
<v Speaker 3>why why?

0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:14.440
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's a horizontal move. It's like, yeah, this man

0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:15.360
<v Speaker 2>name is this man named?

0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:17.600
<v Speaker 3>I mean, Eric Arthur Blair also sounds like a pretty

0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:20.280
<v Speaker 3>cool author name, like why why not?

0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:24.440
<v Speaker 2>Okay, George is a more working class name. It's sort

0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:28.480
<v Speaker 2>of like going by Joe in America, liking Joe the

0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:29.680
<v Speaker 2>Plumber or whatever. You know.

0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:30.760
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's still like.

0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:34.360
<v Speaker 2>Every man name, and he wants an every man name

0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:36.680
<v Speaker 2>because he's a middle class dude. Wo has imposter syndrome

0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:39.600
<v Speaker 2>as a working class person, right, because he wants to

0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:41.240
<v Speaker 2>be working classes. It's like his whole thing. It's in

0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:42.200
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty four too.

0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:46.760
<v Speaker 4>I just think his entire like ethosis imposter syndrome. That's

0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:49.280
<v Speaker 4>my Yeah, no's my theory going in.

0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:51.680
<v Speaker 2>I I actually and I want to see whether you

0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:52.960
<v Speaker 2>readdress it at the end, but I think it's just

0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:58.040
<v Speaker 2>going to get reinforced and orwell. Is the name of

0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:00.000
<v Speaker 2>a river that he lived in?

0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:04.239
<v Speaker 4>That's nice?

0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:09.280
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, No, it's I think it's perfectly sweet. He was

0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:16.000
<v Speaker 2>born in Motihari, India, into not money but like English

0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:17.760
<v Speaker 2>fanciness and colonial evil.

0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:18.920
<v Speaker 3>He is his.

0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:22.960
<v Speaker 2>Great grandfather Charles Blair. His great great grandfather, Charles Blair

0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:26.000
<v Speaker 2>was a rich and powerful slaver who made his money

0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:28.960
<v Speaker 2>owning people in Jamaica and married the daughter of an earl.

0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:33.400
<v Speaker 2>George's dad, Richard Blair, worked in the Opium Department and

0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:36.320
<v Speaker 2>the British Colonial Project in India, overseeing the growth of

0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:37.960
<v Speaker 2>opium and its sale to China.

0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:43.560
<v Speaker 3>So not good, Yeah, that this is This is a

0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:46.240
<v Speaker 3>more interesting start than I expected. I was expecting something

0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:50.880
<v Speaker 3>a lot more like, you know, uh, English downtrodden, like

0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:56.520
<v Speaker 3>industrial revolutionary sort of vibe. Yeah, it's worldly. I'll give

0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:57.600
<v Speaker 3>him that. It's worldly.

0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:01.560
<v Speaker 2>And what's interesting too is that his like the way

0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:04.720
<v Speaker 2>he says middle class, I'm like, is different than what

0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:06.760
<v Speaker 2>America thinks of his middle class, because middle class in

0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:10.680
<v Speaker 2>America is like a working class thing on some level.

0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:15.600
<v Speaker 2>England is fucking weird about class. Orwell described his upbringing

0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:20.560
<v Speaker 2>as lower upper middle class, which meant that they had

0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.840
<v Speaker 2>the prestige and thought well of themselves of the upper

0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:27.120
<v Speaker 2>middle class, but they had no money, so they were

0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:30.320
<v Speaker 2>lower middle class. So they were a lower upper middle class.

0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:34.320
<v Speaker 3>Right, very showy, but didn't have a lot of maybe

0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:38.600
<v Speaker 3>like house rich, but like not otherwise.

0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:41.960
<v Speaker 2>With yeah, and like position of power in evil colonial

0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:46.840
<v Speaker 2>government rich right right when he was one, his mom,

0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:50.920
<v Speaker 2>who was a feminist and a suffragette and an activist,

0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:52.840
<v Speaker 2>we I don't know as much about us. I kind

0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:55.480
<v Speaker 2>of wish I had. It's only there's so much written

0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:58.840
<v Speaker 2>about this man. His mom packed him up and moved

0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.360
<v Speaker 2>him back to England, whereupon he had a childhood that

0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:04.800
<v Speaker 2>he relentlessly described as miserable, and all of his childhood

0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:08.600
<v Speaker 2>friends are like that boy was happy, life was good.

0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:15.520
<v Speaker 2>He's just being dramatic. It's like consistent. There's like multiple

0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:17.359
<v Speaker 2>times through this period where he's like, he writes these

0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:20.000
<v Speaker 2>essays about what a fucking miserable life he had, and

0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:22.960
<v Speaker 2>he's like kind of a poser about being miserable in

0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:25.720
<v Speaker 2>some ways, although he is a he has a hard life.

0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:27.640
<v Speaker 2>Don't get me wrong. He's gonna die at forty six.

0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:30.159
<v Speaker 2>Oh wow, he survives getting shot through the neck. I

0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:33.840
<v Speaker 2>already spoiled that part. Like he's a he's an interesting life.

0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:36.920
<v Speaker 2>He did some British people shit, like he went off

0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:39.119
<v Speaker 2>to boarding school. He went to a place called Eton

0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:40.320
<v Speaker 2>that is fancy as hell.

0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:43.040
<v Speaker 4>Oh fuck yeah, you ever heard of it?

0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:46.720
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? Yeah, it's what's called public school. And because British

0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.199
<v Speaker 2>people have everything backwards, because it's a private school, I

0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:52.280
<v Speaker 2>finally for this episode looked up what the fuck that means.

0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:54.320
<v Speaker 2>I've known this for a long time that public school

0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:56.400
<v Speaker 2>means private school if you're in England, and it means

0:17:56.440 --> 0:18:00.240
<v Speaker 2>like fancy ass shit. Right, it's called public school. This's

0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:02.040
<v Speaker 2>got its name because even though it's a private school.

0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:03.840
<v Speaker 2>As long as your parents could pay your tuition, you

0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.080
<v Speaker 2>could go regardless of like where your parents lived or

0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:08.359
<v Speaker 2>what they did for a living. But it's where the

0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:10.960
<v Speaker 2>rulers of the empire and shit go right.

0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:12.760
<v Speaker 3>Very confusing.

0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:17.880
<v Speaker 2>England is a weird, complicated class night Maryland where there's

0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:21.640
<v Speaker 2>an Eaten accent. I didn't know that, and so you'll

0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:24.120
<v Speaker 2>be judged your entire life, like positively or negatively because

0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:25.080
<v Speaker 2>you have an Eton accent.

0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:28.120
<v Speaker 3>It's like the Ivy League sort of accent.

0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:32.920
<v Speaker 4>Sort of Okay, Hugh Laurie played House MD. You want

0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:36.119
<v Speaker 4>to eat in? And I just think that's fun to

0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:38.720
<v Speaker 4>tell my friend doctor Phota.

0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:40.080
<v Speaker 2>Of the House of Pod.

0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.480
<v Speaker 3>True, we're not named after that, no, I must say,

0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:47.920
<v Speaker 3>but I love to tell you that. Yeah, No, I went.

0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.200
<v Speaker 2>To eaton right, Yeah, of course we all went to

0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:50.720
<v Speaker 2>eat in here.

0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:53.400
<v Speaker 3>Listen to me. You can hear it in my voice.

0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:58.439
<v Speaker 4>It's like a very popular school for politicians and like

0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:05.080
<v Speaker 4>nepotism and miss actors. Yeah, it's yeah. Josh James stout

0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:05.960
<v Speaker 4>what he thinks of Eden.

0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:11.000
<v Speaker 2>I will he George or what was a scholarship boy

0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:13.320
<v Speaker 2>at Eton because his parents didn't have any money, and

0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:15.119
<v Speaker 2>he had, like, did well enough at prep school to

0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:15.760
<v Speaker 2>get scholar I.

0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:21.000
<v Speaker 4>Imposter syndrome with theory is just getting because they were

0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:23.399
<v Speaker 4>they were so mean to him, were they they were horrible?

0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:26.560
<v Speaker 2>Well, he wrote that they were incredibly mean to him

0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:28.840
<v Speaker 2>constantly for being a scholarship boy.

0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:29.080
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:32.199
<v Speaker 2>Everyone else from that time in that school is like,

0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:34.440
<v Speaker 2>what are you talking about? He played sports with us,

0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:35.360
<v Speaker 2>We liked him.

0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:38.440
<v Speaker 3>He might just be a sensitive guy.

0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:41.159
<v Speaker 2>He is super sensitive, but makes a good artist.

0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:42.040
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I feel that.

0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:44.879
<v Speaker 2>Like, honestly, he's into sports. He grows up to be

0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:48.600
<v Speaker 2>not a small person. More academic sources he's six foot two.

0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:52.880
<v Speaker 2>More personal sources he's six foot four, So no one's

0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:54.040
<v Speaker 2>arguing yet he is small.

0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:54.800
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:57.639
<v Speaker 2>He's also sickly his entire life. He has two intense

0:19:57.640 --> 0:19:59.760
<v Speaker 2>spouts of pneumonia as a kid, and he never fully

0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:04.800
<v Speaker 2>re covered. He finishes school. Everyone else is off to university.

0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:09.639
<v Speaker 2>George wants to be different. He wants adventure. He wanted orientalism.

0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:14.359
<v Speaker 2>He wanted to go become a cop in Burma. Oh well,

0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:19.520
<v Speaker 2>what a choice. I know. The two worst things he

0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:21.320
<v Speaker 2>did he did when he was eighteen years old. One

0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:22.639
<v Speaker 2>of them was going to be a cop in Burma.

0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:24.800
<v Speaker 2>He's a sensitive guy, and now I'm gonna talk about

0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:27.040
<v Speaker 2>the other worst thing he did. Sensive guy trying to

0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:29.200
<v Speaker 2>fight it. He was trying to fight his sensitive nature.

0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:31.159
<v Speaker 2>That's what's happening. That's how I'm putting this together in

0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:34.520
<v Speaker 2>my home. I know, and I think he wants orientalism.

0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:37.119
<v Speaker 2>He wants like adventure and shit. And he also doesn't

0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:40.160
<v Speaker 2>have a critique of the colonial project. Yet he's going

0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:43.480
<v Speaker 2>to get one by becoming a colonial cop like he

0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:46.080
<v Speaker 2>does the best case what all cops should do, which

0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:49.280
<v Speaker 2>is quit, is what he does, and then spend the

0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:51.560
<v Speaker 2>rest of his life writing against the system that he

0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:52.119
<v Speaker 2>was a part of.

0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:53.240
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:55.399
<v Speaker 2>But the other thing that he's going to spend the

0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:58.119
<v Speaker 2>rest of his life regretting. If you read between the

0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:00.679
<v Speaker 2>lines in one direction and then completely ignore that he

0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:02.879
<v Speaker 2>did if you read between the lines and the other direction.

0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:06.240
<v Speaker 2>Is the reason that I wrote off George Orwell for

0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:08.919
<v Speaker 2>a long time, because I knew this, even though it

0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:11.560
<v Speaker 2>only kind of came out more recently. Most overviews of

0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.680
<v Speaker 2>his life glide right past this. He tried to rape

0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.040
<v Speaker 2>his best friend after she friend zoned him when he

0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:22.239
<v Speaker 2>was eighteen, years old, and people who don't talk about it.

0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:23.960
<v Speaker 2>To be fair, no one talked about it at all.

0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:26.240
<v Speaker 2>Didn't No one learned this until he'd been dead for

0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:30.840
<v Speaker 2>about fifty years. Historians like to quabble, quibble whatever about

0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:33.320
<v Speaker 2>how to characterize it. Sometimes they call it assault or

0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:37.560
<v Speaker 2>attempted rape. Wikipedia called it, calls it a botched seduction.

0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:43.119
<v Speaker 2>His friend that this happened to, by the end of

0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:45.560
<v Speaker 2>her life is not mad about it and saw him

0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:47.800
<v Speaker 2>as the one who got away and wished she'd married him.

0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:51.719
<v Speaker 2>It is complicated. What he did is not complicated. The

0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:55.840
<v Speaker 2>long term impact, the way that that move, other parts

0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:58.560
<v Speaker 2>of it are complicated. When he was a kid, he

0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.320
<v Speaker 2>became super close friends with the family, two sisters and

0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:04.160
<v Speaker 2>a brother. When he's like eleven or whatever. The sister

0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:05.919
<v Speaker 2>is about two years older than him, and his name

0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:09.800
<v Speaker 2>Jacyntha Buddhicum, and the story of how they met sounds

0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:12.880
<v Speaker 2>like a twee British novel. This thirteen year old girl

0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:15.320
<v Speaker 2>goes out into her family's garden and there's this eleven

0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:19.159
<v Speaker 2>year old boy standing on his head. She says, what

0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:21.520
<v Speaker 2>are you doing? And I've read two versions of this.

0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:24.280
<v Speaker 2>He either says, quote you are noticed more if you

0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:26.080
<v Speaker 2>stand on your head than if you're a right way up.

0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:30.840
<v Speaker 2>I've also read you notice more if you stand on

0:22:30.880 --> 0:22:35.600
<v Speaker 2>your head then either way. Fucking twee novel. Shit, it's

0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:38.720
<v Speaker 2>real cheshire Cat like Alice in Wonderland.

0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:42.160
<v Speaker 3>Have you ever stood on your head? Yeah?

0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:42.359
<v Speaker 1>I have?

0:22:43.080 --> 0:22:48.720
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's great. They become friends young George while he's

0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:53.080
<v Speaker 2>Eric at this point. They become close friends and they

0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:54.920
<v Speaker 2>hang out all the time, talking about poetry and books

0:22:54.960 --> 0:22:56.960
<v Speaker 2>and how they're going to become great writers together and shit.

0:22:57.000 --> 0:22:59.520
<v Speaker 2>And she becomes a poet and he becomes a famous writer.

0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:02.800
<v Speaker 2>He thought they would be more than friends and she didn't.

0:23:03.040 --> 0:23:05.359
<v Speaker 2>And it gets really kind of into in cul territory

0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:10.040
<v Speaker 2>before the assault. It's almost kind of funny. His first

0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:13.480
<v Speaker 2>love poem probably was to her when he was about

0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:16.480
<v Speaker 2>fifteen years old. It's called the Pagan because the Buddhicoms

0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:19.080
<v Speaker 2>were agnostics and their school was like being weird them

0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:21.640
<v Speaker 2>about it, like we might kick out your whole family

0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:23.119
<v Speaker 2>because you don't believe in God or whatever you know.

0:23:24.560 --> 0:23:28.320
<v Speaker 2>And the poem starts, and to be clear, he's fifteen

0:23:28.320 --> 0:23:31.120
<v Speaker 2>when he writes this, So here are you? And here

0:23:31.200 --> 0:23:33.320
<v Speaker 2>am I? Where we may thank our gods to be

0:23:33.560 --> 0:23:37.120
<v Speaker 2>above the earth, beneath the sky, naked souls, alive and free.

0:23:38.400 --> 0:23:41.119
<v Speaker 2>And she writes back this critique, so she's like trying

0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:44.720
<v Speaker 2>to cleverly just friendz him. She's like, hey, maybe change

0:23:44.840 --> 0:23:49.320
<v Speaker 2>naked to unarmored. Oh yeah, that's a much better choice,

0:23:49.440 --> 0:23:52.160
<v Speaker 2>I know. So he wrote back her another. He wrote

0:23:52.160 --> 0:23:56.480
<v Speaker 2>her another poem, Friendship and love are closely intertwined. My

0:23:56.520 --> 0:24:00.600
<v Speaker 2>heart belongs to your befriending mind, but chilling sunlit fields,

0:24:00.600 --> 0:24:04.320
<v Speaker 2>cloud shadows fall, my love can't reach your heedless heart

0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:04.760
<v Speaker 2>at all.

0:24:08.040 --> 0:24:13.240
<v Speaker 3>Great, that's I mean, that is pure cringe low. Yeah,

0:24:14.160 --> 0:24:17.960
<v Speaker 3>young teenager. I feel the discomfort in my stomach. I

0:24:18.000 --> 0:24:21.600
<v Speaker 3>get the clamps. You think about something you did that

0:24:21.720 --> 0:24:24.520
<v Speaker 3>was really embarrassing. That's what's happening to me hearing this.

0:24:25.359 --> 0:24:29.560
<v Speaker 2>She writes back. By light too bright, our dazzled eyes betrayed.

0:24:29.680 --> 0:24:33.479
<v Speaker 2>It's best to rest content and tranquil shade.

0:24:34.240 --> 0:24:39.080
<v Speaker 3>So I'm not as literary as you, because you're an

0:24:39.119 --> 0:24:43.480
<v Speaker 3>excellent writer, and I write basically progress notes on patients.

0:24:44.240 --> 0:24:48.720
<v Speaker 3>But it sounds very much so that He's like, I'm

0:24:48.880 --> 0:24:53.400
<v Speaker 3>so into you, And she is very deafly and artfully

0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:56.000
<v Speaker 3>being like, I'm going to have a little fun with

0:24:56.000 --> 0:24:58.119
<v Speaker 3>this game, but also make it clear that it's not

0:24:58.160 --> 0:25:01.040
<v Speaker 3>going anywhere and that you need to chill.

0:25:01.200 --> 0:25:04.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and what he should have done is chill out

0:25:04.119 --> 0:25:06.920
<v Speaker 2>by listening to advertisements in the middle of an anti

0:25:07.000 --> 0:25:07.880
<v Speaker 2>capitalist podcast.

0:25:08.359 --> 0:25:09.000
<v Speaker 3>Works for me.

0:25:17.840 --> 0:25:21.440
<v Speaker 2>And we're back. Yeah, no, exactly. It's a he's writing

0:25:21.480 --> 0:25:24.760
<v Speaker 2>love poetry and she's writing just friends poetry, right, you know,

0:25:25.720 --> 0:25:30.879
<v Speaker 2>just friend's poetry. Yeah, this genre, I know. They go

0:25:30.920 --> 0:25:33.560
<v Speaker 2>on walks daily. Then one day, when he was eighteen,

0:25:33.680 --> 0:25:36.760
<v Speaker 2>as recounted by a family friend quote, he had attempted

0:25:36.760 --> 0:25:39.320
<v Speaker 2>to take things further and make serious love to Jacyntha.

0:25:39.480 --> 0:25:41.119
<v Speaker 2>He had held her down. By that time, he was

0:25:41.160 --> 0:25:42.960
<v Speaker 2>six foot four and she was under still under five

0:25:43.000 --> 0:25:45.600
<v Speaker 2>feet and though she struggled yelling at him to stop,

0:25:45.600 --> 0:25:48.160
<v Speaker 2>he had torn her skirt and badly bruised a shoulder

0:25:48.160 --> 0:25:52.120
<v Speaker 2>and her left hip. When Jacynthia yelled to stop, Eric

0:25:52.200 --> 0:25:55.840
<v Speaker 2>let her go. Jacyntha ran home crying. They never saw

0:25:55.880 --> 0:25:56.679
<v Speaker 2>each other again.

0:25:58.280 --> 0:26:00.880
<v Speaker 4>Oh, he's a best he's a piece of shit.

0:26:01.800 --> 0:26:04.960
<v Speaker 2>This is yeah, this is the like people are mad

0:26:04.960 --> 0:26:07.520
<v Speaker 2>at orwell for the wrong reasons. This is an understanding.

0:26:07.560 --> 0:26:10.200
<v Speaker 2>This is why I completely wrote off Orwell for years. Honestly,

0:26:11.119 --> 0:26:14.800
<v Speaker 2>it's because I knew this part of the story, and

0:26:15.720 --> 0:26:18.040
<v Speaker 2>to skip around in this timeline, the timeline of his

0:26:18.080 --> 0:26:21.600
<v Speaker 2>life a little bit, just to finish out her story. Okay,

0:26:21.680 --> 0:26:24.280
<v Speaker 2>So Orwell comes home from Burma five years later, and

0:26:24.320 --> 0:26:26.639
<v Speaker 2>he had a ring ready to propose because he's still

0:26:26.960 --> 0:26:29.520
<v Speaker 2>in love with her and whatever, this is an insult.

0:26:30.920 --> 0:26:33.080
<v Speaker 2>He stays at her aunt's house and Orwell called her

0:26:33.080 --> 0:26:35.880
<v Speaker 2>in London, begging her to come visit, and she refused,

0:26:36.480 --> 0:26:38.560
<v Speaker 2>and he never found out why. He assumed, and this

0:26:38.600 --> 0:26:41.960
<v Speaker 2>would be a perfectly legitimate assumption that this was because

0:26:41.960 --> 0:26:44.800
<v Speaker 2>she was mad about what he'd done. It actually wasn't.

0:26:45.359 --> 0:26:47.600
<v Speaker 2>She refused to come visit because she had just had

0:26:47.600 --> 0:26:50.120
<v Speaker 2>a kid with some random dude and who had then

0:26:50.160 --> 0:26:51.480
<v Speaker 2>ditched her, and then she was trying to put the

0:26:51.520 --> 0:26:55.960
<v Speaker 2>kid up for adoption and she was busy. Decades later,

0:26:56.200 --> 0:26:59.760
<v Speaker 2>as he's on his deathbed, they reconnected through letters, and

0:26:59.800 --> 0:27:03.320
<v Speaker 2>he to her he was the one who got away.

0:27:04.200 --> 0:27:07.080
<v Speaker 2>Decades later, in the nineteen seventies, she wrote a memoir

0:27:07.119 --> 0:27:09.879
<v Speaker 2>called Eric and Me about their time together, and she

0:27:09.960 --> 0:27:14.160
<v Speaker 2>did so after quote a lifetime of ghosts and regrets

0:27:14.200 --> 0:27:17.040
<v Speaker 2>at turning away the only man who ever appealed on

0:27:17.080 --> 0:27:18.919
<v Speaker 2>all levels. How I wish I had been ready for

0:27:19.000 --> 0:27:21.159
<v Speaker 2>betrothal when Eric asked me to marry him on his

0:27:21.160 --> 0:27:24.320
<v Speaker 2>return from Burma. It took me literally years to realize

0:27:24.320 --> 0:27:26.600
<v Speaker 2>that we are all imperfect creatures, but that Eric was

0:27:26.680 --> 0:27:32.040
<v Speaker 2>less imperfect than anyone else I'd ever met. And this

0:27:32.160 --> 0:27:35.920
<v Speaker 2>is so interesting to me, because fuck, what a bar

0:27:37.160 --> 0:27:40.399
<v Speaker 2>The bar that the other men aren't passing is to

0:27:40.400 --> 0:27:43.160
<v Speaker 2>be better than the man who assaulted her.

0:27:43.840 --> 0:27:47.119
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, did she address it in that book?

0:27:47.760 --> 0:27:51.760
<v Speaker 2>I don't know. I haven't read that book. I think

0:27:52.320 --> 0:27:55.280
<v Speaker 2>I read about how the story of it came up,

0:27:55.520 --> 0:28:00.280
<v Speaker 2>and like there's a lot of like it's all little

0:28:00.320 --> 0:28:04.080
<v Speaker 2>bit third hand about what happened. Like literally, the quote

0:28:04.080 --> 0:28:06.359
<v Speaker 2>that I read about what happened is the most direct

0:28:06.480 --> 0:28:10.560
<v Speaker 2>retelling in print of what happened. And it was her

0:28:10.600 --> 0:28:15.920
<v Speaker 2>sister's friend recounting it and none of this, like and

0:28:15.960 --> 0:28:17.720
<v Speaker 2>the fact that she then is like, oh, he's the

0:28:17.760 --> 0:28:20.000
<v Speaker 2>one who got away, none of that because she kind

0:28:20.000 --> 0:28:22.920
<v Speaker 2>of had a pretty sad life. I think this doesn't

0:28:22.920 --> 0:28:26.919
<v Speaker 2>excuse what he did, But I I think that you

0:28:27.040 --> 0:28:30.080
<v Speaker 2>end up with this thing that informs his writing where

0:28:30.119 --> 0:28:34.919
<v Speaker 2>he sees men as monstrous because he sees himself as

0:28:35.000 --> 0:28:39.000
<v Speaker 2>monstrous because of what he had done. And it's interesting,

0:28:39.160 --> 0:28:40.640
<v Speaker 2>it's not I don't.

0:28:40.440 --> 0:28:43.720
<v Speaker 3>Know, Yeah, that's that's that is such a tough situation.

0:28:44.040 --> 0:28:48.040
<v Speaker 3>I mean, clearly there's some real trauma there for both

0:28:48.040 --> 0:28:48.560
<v Speaker 3>of them.

0:28:48.760 --> 0:28:51.600
<v Speaker 2>And and way more for her obviously.

0:28:51.360 --> 0:28:54.400
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, obviously way more for her. And it made it

0:28:54.480 --> 0:28:59.520
<v Speaker 3>even worse by the fact that, like comparatively, she still

0:29:00.760 --> 0:29:05.040
<v Speaker 3>holds him on a pedestal, you know. Yeah, that's it

0:29:05.160 --> 0:29:08.400
<v Speaker 3>really just goes to show like how bad the interactions

0:29:08.440 --> 0:29:10.560
<v Speaker 3>with these other men in her life must have been,

0:29:10.760 --> 0:29:15.120
<v Speaker 3>including probably this guy that she had had the kid

0:29:15.160 --> 0:29:18.960
<v Speaker 3>with who knows. Yeah, I mean sounds terrible on all lands.

0:29:18.760 --> 0:29:21.800
<v Speaker 2>No, I know, and it yeah, And so now I'm

0:29:21.840 --> 0:29:24.160
<v Speaker 2>just going to get into all the stuff that the

0:29:24.200 --> 0:29:25.400
<v Speaker 2>bad stuff about orwell that.

0:29:25.400 --> 0:29:27.600
<v Speaker 3>People talk about, just to do it. Let's get into it.

0:29:27.680 --> 0:29:29.760
<v Speaker 2>Before we talk more about his life. There's an awful

0:29:29.800 --> 0:29:31.560
<v Speaker 2>lot of arguments about whether or not Orwell was a

0:29:31.560 --> 0:29:35.120
<v Speaker 2>misogynist or a feminist or sort of neither. His writing

0:29:35.200 --> 0:29:37.320
<v Speaker 2>is like the Bible, there's so much of it written

0:29:37.320 --> 0:29:39.320
<v Speaker 2>at such different times that it's really easy to take

0:29:39.400 --> 0:29:41.800
<v Speaker 2>quotes out of context and paint whatever picture you want.

0:29:43.120 --> 0:29:47.520
<v Speaker 2>His male protagonists are almost universally misogynistic. The protagonist of

0:29:47.560 --> 0:29:51.680
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty four is violent fantasies. For example. The only

0:29:51.720 --> 0:29:53.880
<v Speaker 2>female protagonist he ever wrote was in a book called

0:29:53.880 --> 0:29:55.840
<v Speaker 2>A Clergyman's Daughter, which is one of these books that

0:29:55.840 --> 0:29:57.760
<v Speaker 2>I haven't read, but he also wishes he hadn't published.

0:29:58.360 --> 0:30:00.880
<v Speaker 2>In that the protagonist is by an older man, and

0:30:00.920 --> 0:30:04.040
<v Speaker 2>then they become friends, and it is generally considered his

0:30:04.120 --> 0:30:06.640
<v Speaker 2>worst book, including by him. He does not know how

0:30:06.680 --> 0:30:10.080
<v Speaker 2>to write women well. He also hated this book and

0:30:10.080 --> 0:30:12.200
<v Speaker 2>in his will asked for it to not be reprinted.

0:30:13.000 --> 0:30:14.520
<v Speaker 2>He told his friend it was the worst book he

0:30:14.560 --> 0:30:16.560
<v Speaker 2>ever wrote, and he'd only published it because he'd been

0:30:16.600 --> 0:30:20.960
<v Speaker 2>so hard up for money and then for fun. Counterexamples

0:30:21.000 --> 0:30:24.400
<v Speaker 2>to his misogyny later in life. There's this story recounted

0:30:24.400 --> 0:30:26.040
<v Speaker 2>by a different man who doesn't use the name of

0:30:26.080 --> 0:30:29.080
<v Speaker 2>the woman involved. There's this like they're in this literary

0:30:29.120 --> 0:30:31.800
<v Speaker 2>scene together, all these mostly men, and there's this young

0:30:31.840 --> 0:30:34.280
<v Speaker 2>ha woman in the literary scene, and you know it's

0:30:34.320 --> 0:30:36.240
<v Speaker 2>like written as like, oh, every head turned when she

0:30:36.280 --> 0:30:40.400
<v Speaker 2>walked by, et cetera. Later, that woman complains about all

0:30:40.400 --> 0:30:42.000
<v Speaker 2>of the men in the literary circle on how they

0:30:42.000 --> 0:30:45.760
<v Speaker 2>objectifire except or Well, the only person who didn't creep

0:30:45.840 --> 0:30:48.200
<v Speaker 2>on her and didn't treat her as a woman, but

0:30:48.280 --> 0:30:52.000
<v Speaker 2>as a person. I have read so many interpretations of

0:30:52.120 --> 0:30:55.320
<v Speaker 2>Orwell and misogyny, like I wish this hadn't been such.

0:30:56.280 --> 0:30:58.280
<v Speaker 2>I understand why I had to be such an large

0:30:58.320 --> 0:31:00.240
<v Speaker 2>part of my research for this because of this that

0:31:00.280 --> 0:31:02.840
<v Speaker 2>he had done. You know, Yeah, there's a lot of

0:31:02.840 --> 0:31:05.480
<v Speaker 2>convincing arguments from every position I leaned towards sort of

0:31:05.480 --> 0:31:08.800
<v Speaker 2>that he portrayed more misogynist men, not out of unconscious misogyny,

0:31:08.800 --> 0:31:11.600
<v Speaker 2>but out of attempting to draw attention to his own misogyny,

0:31:13.400 --> 0:31:15.959
<v Speaker 2>at least later in life. I think his earlier writing

0:31:16.280 --> 0:31:17.520
<v Speaker 2>is unaddressed misogyny.

0:31:18.320 --> 0:31:19.800
<v Speaker 3>I can I ask a question about that, And this

0:31:19.920 --> 0:31:24.160
<v Speaker 3>is I guess, a bigger question on writing. Like the

0:31:24.200 --> 0:31:29.120
<v Speaker 3>fact that his characters are misogynistic, it doesn't necessarily mean

0:31:29.160 --> 0:31:32.640
<v Speaker 3>that he was embracing that, right. I mean, because I

0:31:32.640 --> 0:31:35.520
<v Speaker 3>always felt like his characters were all flawed, and he

0:31:35.880 --> 0:31:38.720
<v Speaker 3>wanted to show that they were all deeply flawed, and

0:31:39.160 --> 0:31:43.480
<v Speaker 3>like the fact that they were misogynistic feels like him

0:31:43.880 --> 0:31:45.920
<v Speaker 3>critiquing it. It feels like he did that on purpose,

0:31:45.920 --> 0:31:48.520
<v Speaker 3>to be like, this is a bad trait.

0:31:49.200 --> 0:31:54.840
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think overall that's true, And yes, absolutely, we're

0:31:54.840 --> 0:31:57.320
<v Speaker 2>actually currently in an era where people are having a

0:31:57.360 --> 0:32:00.360
<v Speaker 2>little bit of a hard time separating a care character

0:32:00.360 --> 0:32:02.480
<v Speaker 2>from the author. On the other hand, we're also in

0:32:02.520 --> 0:32:04.760
<v Speaker 2>a time where people are getting better at not letting

0:32:05.000 --> 0:32:07.600
<v Speaker 2>misogynist male writers get away with being like, no, it's

0:32:07.640 --> 0:32:11.680
<v Speaker 2>just my character, because there are absolutely people who are

0:32:11.720 --> 0:32:13.440
<v Speaker 2>just like, oh, it's just my characters who are all

0:32:13.520 --> 0:32:16.040
<v Speaker 2>racist pieces of shit. I'm totally great, you know.

0:32:16.560 --> 0:32:17.960
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, And I.

0:32:17.880 --> 0:32:21.000
<v Speaker 2>Think that there are people who do a better job

0:32:21.040 --> 0:32:24.120
<v Speaker 2>of it than or well of like making it clear,

0:32:24.160 --> 0:32:26.480
<v Speaker 2>because he believed in very clear writing, right, and so

0:32:26.520 --> 0:32:28.959
<v Speaker 2>I think this is an actual weak spot of his

0:32:29.480 --> 0:32:32.800
<v Speaker 2>because I don't think he successfully always addressed this. But

0:32:33.040 --> 0:32:35.200
<v Speaker 2>it is a little bit my impression because keep the

0:32:35.240 --> 0:32:38.920
<v Speaker 2>aspertise for flying, for example, seems like a critique of

0:32:39.000 --> 0:32:41.680
<v Speaker 2>the We call them googles in my scene, and this

0:32:41.800 --> 0:32:44.959
<v Speaker 2>is like not a word that anyone else uses. Okay, googles,

0:32:45.000 --> 0:32:48.160
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to learn there's a word called Google. An

0:32:48.160 --> 0:32:53.040
<v Speaker 2>oogle is a crusspunk who like lives out of a

0:32:53.080 --> 0:32:56.520
<v Speaker 2>backpack and travels around and eats trash and lives in squats.

0:32:56.640 --> 0:32:58.600
<v Speaker 2>I was an oogle for a very long time. It's

0:32:58.600 --> 0:33:01.040
<v Speaker 2>a slightly pejorative word, but but it's a very reclaimed

0:33:01.040 --> 0:33:04.520
<v Speaker 2>one and it only exists in this tiny, weird subculture. Okay,

0:33:04.600 --> 0:33:06.840
<v Speaker 2>So from there we get other words, like a Google

0:33:07.000 --> 0:33:09.080
<v Speaker 2>is a dog. Google, it's the dog that lives with

0:33:09.120 --> 0:33:13.320
<v Speaker 2>the yougle Okay, right, a Google is a boo, that's

0:33:13.360 --> 0:33:16.240
<v Speaker 2>an oogle. So if you live on your if instead

0:33:16.240 --> 0:33:20.280
<v Speaker 2>of living on someone's couch, which would be googling, you

0:33:20.440 --> 0:33:23.920
<v Speaker 2>live in someone's bed and your partner pays rent and

0:33:23.960 --> 0:33:27.160
<v Speaker 2>you don't, that's called googling googling.

0:33:27.800 --> 0:33:28.080
<v Speaker 3>Wow.

0:33:28.080 --> 0:33:32.240
<v Speaker 2>And I think he's critiquing that. It's possible he wasn't.

0:33:32.280 --> 0:33:34.840
<v Speaker 2>It's possible he was just unconsciously so lost in his

0:33:34.880 --> 0:33:35.760
<v Speaker 2>own character's head.

0:33:35.840 --> 0:33:36.120
<v Speaker 3>Right.

0:33:36.520 --> 0:33:38.320
<v Speaker 2>But when I read that when I was like twenty,

0:33:38.760 --> 0:33:40.640
<v Speaker 2>I thought he was critiquing it, and I was not

0:33:40.720 --> 0:33:45.160
<v Speaker 2>in a particularly good I was, so I that's my read.

0:33:45.360 --> 0:33:47.560
<v Speaker 2>My read is that he is on some level trying

0:33:47.560 --> 0:33:50.840
<v Speaker 2>to critique misogyny but not doing a particularly adepth job

0:33:50.880 --> 0:33:52.720
<v Speaker 2>at it and sometimes falling into it.

0:33:54.200 --> 0:33:57.400
<v Speaker 3>Let me ask a super naive question, and I don't

0:33:57.480 --> 0:33:59.520
<v Speaker 3>ask this to justify.

0:33:59.480 --> 0:34:02.560
<v Speaker 2>I don't know gennology of Google, right, No, no, no.

0:34:02.440 --> 0:34:04.760
<v Speaker 3>Sorry, I'm gonna google that later.

0:34:05.000 --> 0:34:06.840
<v Speaker 2>Oh it's not it doesn't exist. No one knows it.

0:34:07.080 --> 0:34:09.480
<v Speaker 2>Oh anyway, Okay, Well, I have a friend who is

0:34:09.480 --> 0:34:11.279
<v Speaker 2>like a master's degree who used to be a no Google,

0:34:11.280 --> 0:34:12.120
<v Speaker 2>who tried to figure it out.

0:34:12.200 --> 0:34:16.120
<v Speaker 3>Probably continue on it. Okay, So I don't ask this

0:34:16.239 --> 0:34:20.320
<v Speaker 3>question to join to justify in any way misogynistic writing.

0:34:20.400 --> 0:34:24.279
<v Speaker 3>But were there writers of his time? I'm assuming there

0:34:24.280 --> 0:34:27.920
<v Speaker 3>are that you felt did a better job of writing

0:34:28.160 --> 0:34:32.080
<v Speaker 3>women's voices male writers, I mean, or were they all

0:34:32.120 --> 0:34:34.920
<v Speaker 3>pretty terrible at this point? I mean, I don't know

0:34:34.960 --> 0:34:37.800
<v Speaker 3>if they're better now, honestly, and I feel like I

0:34:37.800 --> 0:34:40.320
<v Speaker 3>should read more, but like especially.

0:34:39.920 --> 0:34:43.359
<v Speaker 2>At the time, I am not certain, which is funny

0:34:43.360 --> 0:34:44.919
<v Speaker 2>because this is the era I used to like read

0:34:44.960 --> 0:34:47.879
<v Speaker 2>a lot, you know, when I was like a young,

0:34:47.920 --> 0:34:51.160
<v Speaker 2>pretentious teenager, I read an awful lot of like Turn

0:34:51.200 --> 0:34:54.400
<v Speaker 2>of the Century up to about nineteen fifty, like good literature.

0:34:54.520 --> 0:34:57.320
<v Speaker 2>I liked all the literature. I don't have an immediate

0:34:57.360 --> 0:35:00.520
<v Speaker 2>answer for you. I think that overall that that cadre

0:35:00.640 --> 0:35:05.520
<v Speaker 2>of writers tended to be pretty bad at it. But

0:35:05.560 --> 0:35:07.839
<v Speaker 2>I'm sure there's exceptions that I'm not thinking of right now.

0:35:08.080 --> 0:35:10.640
<v Speaker 2>And obviously there were women writing too, but they were

0:35:10.920 --> 0:35:12.200
<v Speaker 2>generally not held up.

0:35:12.360 --> 0:35:13.240
<v Speaker 3>I'll wait for reddit.

0:35:13.600 --> 0:35:19.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so I think he never really understood women, and

0:35:19.840 --> 0:35:23.319
<v Speaker 2>he sometimes tried. That's how I feel. He was also

0:35:23.440 --> 0:35:26.680
<v Speaker 2>casually homophobic his entire life, and this was never really addressed.

0:35:27.200 --> 0:35:29.719
<v Speaker 2>People like to argue about this one. He absolutely used

0:35:29.719 --> 0:35:31.600
<v Speaker 2>anti gay slers a bunch, and he tended to look

0:35:31.640 --> 0:35:35.960
<v Speaker 2>down on homosexuality. He also and I haven't found the

0:35:36.000 --> 0:35:40.160
<v Speaker 2>source on this, I found someone talking about it. He

0:35:40.200 --> 0:35:42.279
<v Speaker 2>wrote how there was a bunch of homosexuality and all

0:35:42.280 --> 0:35:44.920
<v Speaker 2>boy boarding schools and how that was a positive thing overall.

0:35:45.920 --> 0:35:49.600
<v Speaker 2>How So, he wasn't like I hate the gaze. He

0:35:49.640 --> 0:35:51.360
<v Speaker 2>never wrote like I hate the gaze. He just like

0:35:51.440 --> 0:35:54.160
<v Speaker 2>was casually like, oh that nancy over there.

0:35:55.080 --> 0:35:55.319
<v Speaker 1>You know?

0:35:55.880 --> 0:35:57.160
<v Speaker 3>Did he actually use that term?

0:35:57.239 --> 0:35:59.840
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? He used nancies and like fancy boys and stuff.

0:36:00.080 --> 0:36:02.719
<v Speaker 2>I think a bunch or like he's nancy boys and

0:36:02.760 --> 0:36:04.839
<v Speaker 2>pansies I think is what he used.

0:36:05.239 --> 0:36:08.120
<v Speaker 3>Kind of disappointed kind of feel like he as a

0:36:08.160 --> 0:36:10.760
<v Speaker 3>literary guy, he could have come up with something better.

0:36:11.160 --> 0:36:13.399
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's a good point. Actually, one of his rules

0:36:13.400 --> 0:36:17.200
<v Speaker 2>of writing is don't use the same cliches very jargony. Yeah, no, totally.

0:36:17.800 --> 0:36:19.960
<v Speaker 2>He was also a huge admirer of Oscar Wilde, who

0:36:20.000 --> 0:36:23.280
<v Speaker 2>was famously gay in prison for being gay, and Oscar

0:36:23.280 --> 0:36:25.440
<v Speaker 2>Wilde was one of his first major political influences, and

0:36:25.440 --> 0:36:28.320
<v Speaker 2>he was very supportive when his friend, the anarchist historian

0:36:28.360 --> 0:36:32.760
<v Speaker 2>George Woodcock wrote a history of wild One. Author Anna

0:36:32.880 --> 0:36:37.360
<v Speaker 2>Funder connects misogyny and homophobia when she says that she

0:36:37.400 --> 0:36:40.239
<v Speaker 2>writes about how one of Orwell's wives is like main wife.

0:36:40.280 --> 0:36:42.520
<v Speaker 2>He has one wife that he married like two months

0:36:42.520 --> 0:36:45.840
<v Speaker 2>before he died, but Eileen was his main wife for

0:36:45.880 --> 0:36:49.200
<v Speaker 2>many years. She's generally erase from his history, and I

0:36:49.560 --> 0:36:51.560
<v Speaker 2>hold by the that was a conscious choice, but I

0:36:51.560 --> 0:36:55.080
<v Speaker 2>could be wrong. She claims. This author claims that Orwell

0:36:55.160 --> 0:36:57.160
<v Speaker 2>had no sexual interest in women and would have been

0:36:57.160 --> 0:37:02.280
<v Speaker 2>happier in a time when homosexuality was more I don't

0:37:02.520 --> 0:37:05.520
<v Speaker 2>buy this. I haven't seen all of our evidence, but

0:37:05.600 --> 0:37:08.000
<v Speaker 2>I don't buy it. I have not seen any I

0:37:08.040 --> 0:37:11.000
<v Speaker 2>would be the first to believe and want to believe

0:37:11.080 --> 0:37:15.040
<v Speaker 2>that he was gay, right, like all super into claiming

0:37:15.080 --> 0:37:17.239
<v Speaker 2>as many of our heroes as queer as possible. Right,

0:37:18.280 --> 0:37:20.360
<v Speaker 2>he spent a while fighting in Spain and the Revolution,

0:37:20.440 --> 0:37:23.680
<v Speaker 2>where there was like a ton of out gay officers

0:37:23.719 --> 0:37:28.560
<v Speaker 2>and soldiers, and he would have had every opportunity to

0:37:28.600 --> 0:37:32.160
<v Speaker 2>be in gay relationships, and this and that. I don't know,

0:37:32.800 --> 0:37:38.040
<v Speaker 2>so people like to argue all of these things. Then finally,

0:37:38.360 --> 0:37:42.080
<v Speaker 2>of the of his big blind spots, there's this early

0:37:42.120 --> 0:37:45.279
<v Speaker 2>anti semitism, And this one's the easiest. I can like

0:37:45.360 --> 0:37:47.640
<v Speaker 2>this one, I have like I can tell you the

0:37:47.680 --> 0:37:50.960
<v Speaker 2>story of it. His earliest writings were explicitly and grossly

0:37:50.960 --> 0:37:53.360
<v Speaker 2>anti semitic. He talked about Jews having brought on their

0:37:53.360 --> 0:37:56.279
<v Speaker 2>own treatment on themselves. His characters were anti Semitic, But

0:37:56.400 --> 0:37:59.319
<v Speaker 2>so was he right, and everyone kind of knew it.

0:38:00.440 --> 0:38:03.040
<v Speaker 2>Throughout the nineteen thirties, this is really present in his writing.

0:38:03.840 --> 0:38:05.279
<v Speaker 2>He has a ton of friends who are Jewish. This

0:38:05.320 --> 0:38:08.719
<v Speaker 2>doesn't fix it until one day it does. One of

0:38:08.760 --> 0:38:11.840
<v Speaker 2>his Jewish friends in about nineteen forty challenges him on

0:38:11.880 --> 0:38:16.560
<v Speaker 2>all of it, and Orwell changes his mind. He is

0:38:16.600 --> 0:38:20.720
<v Speaker 2>presented with evidence, he changes his mind, he's always attached

0:38:21.120 --> 0:38:24.960
<v Speaker 2>to common decency instead of ideology, right, and he believes

0:38:25.000 --> 0:38:30.000
<v Speaker 2>that it's good to change your mind. He wrote, anti

0:38:30.000 --> 0:38:33.640
<v Speaker 2>Semitism is simply not the doctrine of a grown up person.

0:38:34.000 --> 0:38:36.080
<v Speaker 2>People who go in for that sort of thing must

0:38:36.080 --> 0:38:39.320
<v Speaker 2>take the consequences, and he means social consequences. He's a

0:38:39.400 --> 0:38:41.280
<v Speaker 2>very big free speech guy, but he's a very big

0:38:41.680 --> 0:38:46.359
<v Speaker 2>shame people for being fucked up. Yeah, and he went

0:38:46.400 --> 0:38:49.200
<v Speaker 2>on to write an essay called Anti Semitism Britain, exploring

0:38:49.200 --> 0:38:51.640
<v Speaker 2>this problem at great length to a very wide audience.

0:38:52.360 --> 0:38:55.520
<v Speaker 2>But it's funny because I now run across essays that

0:38:55.560 --> 0:38:57.839
<v Speaker 2>I claim he was anti Semitica's whole life, even during

0:38:57.880 --> 0:39:00.560
<v Speaker 2>this period, and I was like, oh fuck, reading all

0:39:00.600 --> 0:39:03.560
<v Speaker 2>these and reading it was like one that definitely says this,

0:39:03.600 --> 0:39:05.600
<v Speaker 2>and one that kind of says it, and they're The

0:39:05.680 --> 0:39:08.080
<v Speaker 2>main claim is because at the end of his life

0:39:08.080 --> 0:39:12.719
<v Speaker 2>he was like, I hate anti Semitism. I'm still anti Zionist.

0:39:12.960 --> 0:39:18.040
<v Speaker 2>Zionism is nationalism and bad and colonialism is bad. And

0:39:18.120 --> 0:39:21.040
<v Speaker 2>because he said that in the nineteen forties, this is

0:39:21.080 --> 0:39:24.240
<v Speaker 2>why some Zionist people still find it it's anti Semitic.

0:39:24.400 --> 0:39:28.520
<v Speaker 3>He's man in some ways he's he's cutting edge, like

0:39:28.880 --> 0:39:31.600
<v Speaker 3>he is. Yeah, this is he's winning me back a

0:39:31.640 --> 0:39:33.479
<v Speaker 3>little bit. Now that's back.

0:39:33.560 --> 0:39:35.399
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's where I was. I was like, I don't

0:39:35.400 --> 0:39:37.120
<v Speaker 2>know if I'm ever going to do an Orwell episode

0:39:37.120 --> 0:39:39.440
<v Speaker 2>because I loved his books as a kid, right and

0:39:39.440 --> 0:39:41.520
<v Speaker 2>I knew about the fighting in Spain thing, But I

0:39:41.640 --> 0:39:45.279
<v Speaker 2>keep seeing right wing people posting about him. Yeah, and

0:39:45.320 --> 0:39:49.040
<v Speaker 2>I'm like, if nothing else, he was a democratic socialist.

0:39:49.120 --> 0:39:51.279
<v Speaker 2>He was just kind of shitty to women, you know,

0:39:51.400 --> 0:39:53.040
<v Speaker 2>And so then I like, I was like, all, I'm

0:39:53.040 --> 0:39:55.200
<v Speaker 2>gonna do an episode about him, and then he he

0:39:55.280 --> 0:39:57.040
<v Speaker 2>kind of won me back while I was doing the episode.

0:39:57.200 --> 0:39:59.680
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, he's winning me. Now you're taking me on a

0:39:59.760 --> 0:40:00.879
<v Speaker 3>journe on this one.

0:40:01.160 --> 0:40:03.960
<v Speaker 2>And he had his life was a journey. You know.

0:40:04.080 --> 0:40:07.920
<v Speaker 2>It's like if there's a like, there's a reason we

0:40:08.000 --> 0:40:12.520
<v Speaker 2>try as a society not to always hold people to

0:40:12.680 --> 0:40:14.200
<v Speaker 2>the single worst thing that they did when they were

0:40:14.200 --> 0:40:17.360
<v Speaker 2>eighteen years old, you know, and what they do about

0:40:17.360 --> 0:40:21.840
<v Speaker 2>it later is what is the most impactful. Obviously his

0:40:21.920 --> 0:40:23.960
<v Speaker 2>actions still had impact, and I'm not trying to deny that.

0:40:24.320 --> 0:40:27.360
<v Speaker 2>But so the other worst thing he did is he

0:40:27.400 --> 0:40:29.640
<v Speaker 2>went to Burma. Let's go back to that. Well, actually,

0:40:30.280 --> 0:40:33.880
<v Speaker 2>first he went on to a journey into the land

0:40:33.920 --> 0:40:37.680
<v Speaker 2>of advertisement. Well, actually, eventually it's gonna come up war

0:40:37.680 --> 0:40:49.319
<v Speaker 2>propagandas that's kind of the same, here's some ads. We're

0:40:49.360 --> 0:40:52.080
<v Speaker 2>back so young George still Eric. At this point, he

0:40:52.080 --> 0:40:54.360
<v Speaker 2>goes to Burma and he becomes a colonial cop. Burma

0:40:54.360 --> 0:40:56.719
<v Speaker 2>at this part was part of British India. And one

0:40:56.800 --> 0:40:58.800
<v Speaker 2>good thing that happened came out of this. When he

0:40:58.880 --> 0:41:01.680
<v Speaker 2>went to India, he had had a mustache that was

0:41:01.680 --> 0:41:03.640
<v Speaker 2>a style at the time. You might know it is

0:41:03.680 --> 0:41:07.120
<v Speaker 2>the toothbrush mustache. You more likely know it as the hitler.

0:41:07.680 --> 0:41:08.919
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:41:09.280 --> 0:41:14.640
<v Speaker 2>Fortunately, chaplain, Yeah, he had a chaplain. Fortunately, the style

0:41:14.680 --> 0:41:16.719
<v Speaker 2>at the time for colonial officials over there was a

0:41:16.719 --> 0:41:18.800
<v Speaker 2>pencil mustache. So he switched to a pencil mustache and

0:41:18.800 --> 0:41:22.120
<v Speaker 2>then kept that the rest of his life and always

0:41:22.200 --> 0:41:25.759
<v Speaker 2>the like kind of the slum in it, like I

0:41:25.800 --> 0:41:27.040
<v Speaker 2>want to be with the locals.

0:41:27.120 --> 0:41:27.319
<v Speaker 4>Guy.

0:41:27.360 --> 0:41:31.160
<v Speaker 2>He gets sick hand tattoos in the local style on

0:41:31.280 --> 0:41:36.279
<v Speaker 2>his fingers. Nice and he realizes really quickly that a

0:41:36.280 --> 0:41:38.239
<v Speaker 2>lot of the Burmese people don't like him at all,

0:41:38.800 --> 0:41:42.400
<v Speaker 2>And soon he realizes that the Empire is fucking evil.

0:41:44.160 --> 0:41:46.000
<v Speaker 2>He got sick there while he was there, because he

0:41:46.040 --> 0:41:47.080
<v Speaker 2>did that a lot, and that was one of his

0:41:47.120 --> 0:41:50.080
<v Speaker 2>past times, was getting sick and.

0:41:52.320 --> 0:41:54.040
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, getting sick.

0:41:54.480 --> 0:41:58.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. And in nineteen twenty seven he goes back to England.

0:41:58.080 --> 0:41:59.680
<v Speaker 2>He goes back a little bit early on, like sick leave,

0:42:00.080 --> 0:42:02.120
<v Speaker 2>and he's like, man, fuck being a colonial cop. I

0:42:02.160 --> 0:42:04.440
<v Speaker 2>am fucking done. I am never doing that again. And

0:42:04.480 --> 0:42:07.840
<v Speaker 2>he never did it again. When he left for Burma,

0:42:07.960 --> 0:42:10.840
<v Speaker 2>he had no politics. He came back first and foremost

0:42:10.960 --> 0:42:14.239
<v Speaker 2>anti colonial. At this point he also became a socialist,

0:42:14.320 --> 0:42:16.600
<v Speaker 2>starting off as an anarchist. Soon he's gonna end up

0:42:16.600 --> 0:42:19.840
<v Speaker 2>a democratic socialist with close friends who are anarchists. He

0:42:19.880 --> 0:42:22.799
<v Speaker 2>wrote about it that he had developed quote an anarchistic

0:42:22.880 --> 0:42:25.680
<v Speaker 2>theory that all government is evil, that the punishment always

0:42:25.680 --> 0:42:28.080
<v Speaker 2>does more harm than the crime, and that people can

0:42:28.080 --> 0:42:30.800
<v Speaker 2>be trusted to behave decently if only we let them alone.

0:42:31.800 --> 0:42:34.760
<v Speaker 2>And this probably comes kind of almost word for word

0:42:34.840 --> 0:42:38.640
<v Speaker 2>from Oscar wild because Wilde's essay the Soul of Man

0:42:38.719 --> 0:42:44.120
<v Speaker 2>under Socialism is basically what Orwell just said. So he's

0:42:44.160 --> 0:42:46.880
<v Speaker 2>back from Burma and now he starts doing his like

0:42:46.960 --> 0:42:48.480
<v Speaker 2>slum in it. He's like all right, well I can't.

0:42:48.680 --> 0:42:51.399
<v Speaker 2>I shouldn't go explore exotic locales overseas. That was kind

0:42:51.400 --> 0:42:53.200
<v Speaker 2>of fucked up. I'm going to do it at home.

0:42:54.239 --> 0:42:57.040
<v Speaker 2>So he dresses up as a tramp. He starts wandering

0:42:57.080 --> 0:43:00.000
<v Speaker 2>around and he puts together one of his first books

0:43:00.160 --> 0:43:02.000
<v Speaker 2>that people read. It's called Down and Out in Paris

0:43:02.040 --> 0:43:04.480
<v Speaker 2>in London, and he gets sick of bunch doing that,

0:43:04.880 --> 0:43:06.879
<v Speaker 2>and he starts writing a bunch and then he kind

0:43:06.880 --> 0:43:08.680
<v Speaker 2>of like, if you pretend to be poor long enough,

0:43:08.719 --> 0:43:09.800
<v Speaker 2>you kind of end up poor.

0:43:12.040 --> 0:43:13.440
<v Speaker 3>Dressed for the job you want.

0:43:13.680 --> 0:43:17.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and uh, and somebody's like sick, he's staying in

0:43:17.080 --> 0:43:19.839
<v Speaker 2>shitty hospitals and stuff, and it's like fox his health up.

0:43:19.880 --> 0:43:20.040
<v Speaker 1>You know.

0:43:20.080 --> 0:43:25.080
<v Speaker 2>He's like committed to the bit committed. Yeah, until eventually

0:43:25.200 --> 0:43:27.520
<v Speaker 2>he's he realizes he's middle class and he moves back

0:43:27.520 --> 0:43:28.319
<v Speaker 2>to his parents' house.

0:43:28.640 --> 0:43:29.480
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. I was gonna ask.

0:43:29.600 --> 0:43:32.000
<v Speaker 2>I was gonna ask when that part of the story

0:43:32.160 --> 0:43:35.080
<v Speaker 2>arc happened. Yeah. Eventually he's like, all right, that's enough

0:43:35.080 --> 0:43:35.319
<v Speaker 2>of that.

0:43:35.719 --> 0:43:37.960
<v Speaker 3>Is there an oogling term for someone that does that,

0:43:38.080 --> 0:43:39.560
<v Speaker 3>that moves back in with their parents?

0:43:40.040 --> 0:43:42.000
<v Speaker 2>Well, okay, so it's kind of funny. Is that the

0:43:42.040 --> 0:43:45.520
<v Speaker 2>word oogle used to mean a poser street kid, so

0:43:45.680 --> 0:43:49.319
<v Speaker 2>like originally in like the early aughts, and Google was

0:43:49.840 --> 0:43:53.439
<v Speaker 2>or well, right, like someone who's a fake Oogle who's

0:43:53.440 --> 0:43:56.080
<v Speaker 2>going to move back with his parents. But those of

0:43:56.120 --> 0:44:00.760
<v Speaker 2>us middle class dropouts fake Googles like me, we tended

0:44:00.800 --> 0:44:04.760
<v Speaker 2>to call the oogle meant more of the like fighty shitty,

0:44:05.239 --> 0:44:09.880
<v Speaker 2>like stabby guy right who's like drunk all the time

0:44:10.080 --> 0:44:13.560
<v Speaker 2>or whatever. So to some people the oogle thing is

0:44:13.600 --> 0:44:15.720
<v Speaker 2>to be the middle class kid, and to other people

0:44:15.840 --> 0:44:18.200
<v Speaker 2>the Google is like the more real anyway.

0:44:18.560 --> 0:44:21.120
<v Speaker 3>I'm so I feel I'm going to I can't wait

0:44:21.520 --> 0:44:24.239
<v Speaker 3>to use this knowledge. I don't know how or when,

0:44:24.320 --> 0:44:26.280
<v Speaker 3>but I am going to drop this at some point

0:44:26.280 --> 0:44:27.120
<v Speaker 3>in the near future.

0:44:28.000 --> 0:44:32.200
<v Speaker 2>I have never found a word that is more completely

0:44:32.880 --> 0:44:37.440
<v Speaker 2>suffused within a scene and completely opaque to people outside

0:44:37.440 --> 0:44:40.840
<v Speaker 2>the scene. Yeah, Like, I have never used this word

0:44:40.920 --> 0:44:45.440
<v Speaker 2>in like company that isn't punks, like especially street punks,

0:44:45.600 --> 0:44:48.080
<v Speaker 2>and had anyone know what I'm talking about. But this

0:44:48.120 --> 0:44:49.000
<v Speaker 2>is a word that is.

0:44:48.920 --> 0:44:52.480
<v Speaker 3>Like now and me. Now you can use it with me.

0:44:52.760 --> 0:44:55.320
<v Speaker 2>I'm cool exactly. Yeah, you can call me an Google

0:44:56.000 --> 0:44:58.399
<v Speaker 2>or when I'm acting like an oogle. Okay, let's get

0:44:58.520 --> 0:45:01.960
<v Speaker 2>the Jordan. But it's it's fine. So and then he

0:45:02.000 --> 0:45:03.440
<v Speaker 2>moves back with his parents and he does stuff that

0:45:03.440 --> 0:45:05.520
<v Speaker 2>totally matters, and I'm not as interested in this week's story.

0:45:05.560 --> 0:45:08.080
<v Speaker 2>He writes a bunch of books, including the ones he

0:45:08.160 --> 0:45:11.040
<v Speaker 2>later rejected entirely in which he hadn't written. He took

0:45:11.120 --> 0:45:14.759
<v Speaker 2>on the name George Orwell at this time, and it's

0:45:14.800 --> 0:45:17.719
<v Speaker 2>also kind of partly a way to leave his childhood

0:45:17.719 --> 0:45:21.359
<v Speaker 2>behind and make a clean break for who he wants

0:45:21.400 --> 0:45:24.680
<v Speaker 2>to become. In nineteen thirty five, he meets his wife

0:45:24.680 --> 0:45:28.680
<v Speaker 2>to be Eileen O'Shaughnessy, and before they get married, he

0:45:28.680 --> 0:45:30.960
<v Speaker 2>goes off slumming again up north and he writes The

0:45:31.040 --> 0:45:33.839
<v Speaker 2>Road to Wigan Peer, and he actually does really good

0:45:33.880 --> 0:45:36.200
<v Speaker 2>stuff with his slumming it. The Road to Wigan Peer

0:45:36.400 --> 0:45:38.720
<v Speaker 2>is this like, look at the conditions that the working

0:45:38.719 --> 0:45:41.560
<v Speaker 2>class and the north live in because people don't know it.

0:45:42.200 --> 0:45:44.800
<v Speaker 2>And it's basically a call for a socialism that isn't

0:45:44.800 --> 0:45:47.759
<v Speaker 2>caught up in like intellectual bullshit in jargon. He's like,

0:45:48.239 --> 0:45:49.880
<v Speaker 2>if we can't talk about socialism in a way that

0:45:49.960 --> 0:45:53.759
<v Speaker 2>matters to the miners, why are we doing it? This

0:45:53.800 --> 0:45:56.760
<v Speaker 2>gets him put under state surveillance, where he remains until

0:45:56.800 --> 0:45:57.320
<v Speaker 2>he dies.

0:45:57.840 --> 0:46:01.040
<v Speaker 3>Oh wow, it's real nineteen eighty I know.

0:46:01.560 --> 0:46:03.920
<v Speaker 2>But he's also part of the propaganda machine in the government.

0:46:04.200 --> 0:46:08.840
<v Speaker 2>It's he's woven in. It's interesting he gets married nineteen

0:46:08.880 --> 0:46:13.120
<v Speaker 2>thirty six. In nineteen thirty six, Franco staged a coup

0:46:13.239 --> 0:46:15.200
<v Speaker 2>in I wrote into this script France, which would be

0:46:15.200 --> 0:46:17.720
<v Speaker 2>a whole different story. He staged a coup in Spain,

0:46:18.760 --> 0:46:21.480
<v Speaker 2>and the Blairs are like, what, we gotta go fucking

0:46:21.520 --> 0:46:24.959
<v Speaker 2>do something about that, don't we. And the short version

0:46:25.000 --> 0:46:26.600
<v Speaker 2>of the Spanish Civil War you can get the long

0:46:26.680 --> 0:46:30.480
<v Speaker 2>version from like half the episodes I've ever done, is

0:46:30.480 --> 0:46:33.560
<v Speaker 2>that Spain finally managed to get itself into being a republic,

0:46:33.880 --> 0:46:37.279
<v Speaker 2>but then Franco, a fascist, invaded his own country and tried,

0:46:37.360 --> 0:46:39.440
<v Speaker 2>after he tried to stage a coup, and then it

0:46:39.480 --> 0:46:42.560
<v Speaker 2>failed because republican troops and anarchist militias threw down to

0:46:42.600 --> 0:46:45.880
<v Speaker 2>stop it. Militias ran to the front to hold back fascism,

0:46:45.920 --> 0:46:49.560
<v Speaker 2>while meanwhile, social revolution spread across the country and in

0:46:49.640 --> 0:46:52.640
<v Speaker 2>Barcelona and Catalonia. More broadly, millions of people started living

0:46:52.640 --> 0:46:57.360
<v Speaker 2>in an anti state, socialist life. People thought the Western

0:46:57.400 --> 0:46:59.759
<v Speaker 2>powers like France, UK and the US would help them

0:46:59.760 --> 0:47:03.359
<v Speaker 2>out because after all, they are committed to the democracy

0:47:03.520 --> 0:47:06.040
<v Speaker 2>and the republic and blah blah blah. Right, Yeah, the

0:47:06.040 --> 0:47:09.920
<v Speaker 2>Western governments turned their back on Spain completely. They not

0:47:09.960 --> 0:47:13.040
<v Speaker 2>only did they not show up, they blockaded aid into

0:47:13.080 --> 0:47:18.520
<v Speaker 2>the country. Only Stalin showed up to help, but there

0:47:18.520 --> 0:47:22.960
<v Speaker 2>were serious strings attached. Communists as in loyal to the USSR.

0:47:23.000 --> 0:47:27.440
<v Speaker 2>Folks were a distinct minority like politically, they were a

0:47:27.480 --> 0:47:29.760
<v Speaker 2>tiny fraction of the left in Spain at the time,

0:47:30.440 --> 0:47:32.839
<v Speaker 2>but if you wanted Daddy Stalin's help, you gotta let

0:47:32.880 --> 0:47:36.000
<v Speaker 2>them be in charge. And that soon turned out very badly,

0:47:36.160 --> 0:47:38.880
<v Speaker 2>with the communists going to literal war against the Republic

0:47:38.880 --> 0:47:41.360
<v Speaker 2>and the anarchists, and it's messy and bad. But this

0:47:41.400 --> 0:47:46.560
<v Speaker 2>hasn't happened yet. When the Blairs go down, well, the

0:47:46.680 --> 0:47:50.400
<v Speaker 2>Orwell if she never changes her name to Orwell, Eileen

0:47:50.480 --> 0:47:55.480
<v Speaker 2>goes with him. Yeah. A few months later, the Republic

0:47:55.560 --> 0:47:58.120
<v Speaker 2>is in danger and the governments of the western countries

0:47:58.120 --> 0:48:01.560
<v Speaker 2>aren't helping. But people from those countries and from other

0:48:01.560 --> 0:48:06.000
<v Speaker 2>countries around the world. Mexico shows up really hard. I

0:48:06.120 --> 0:48:09.319
<v Speaker 2>can't remember all of the countries. An awful lot of

0:48:09.440 --> 0:48:12.040
<v Speaker 2>leftists from around the world are like, we're going to

0:48:12.120 --> 0:48:17.680
<v Speaker 2>go fight fascism. George and Eileen are among them. On

0:48:17.760 --> 0:48:21.960
<v Speaker 2>December twenty third, nineteen thirty six, George Orwell sets off

0:48:21.960 --> 0:48:24.640
<v Speaker 2>to Spain. At first, he's like, I'm going to go

0:48:24.680 --> 0:48:26.879
<v Speaker 2>be a journalist, but as soon as he gets there,

0:48:26.920 --> 0:48:30.520
<v Speaker 2>he sees the revolution and he's like, all right, sign

0:48:30.560 --> 0:48:33.279
<v Speaker 2>me up, let's go. He actually has a good quote

0:48:33.320 --> 0:48:34.799
<v Speaker 2>that I didn't include in here for some reason, where

0:48:34.800 --> 0:48:36.520
<v Speaker 2>he's like, look, I don't understand it all. There's like

0:48:36.600 --> 0:48:39.160
<v Speaker 2>anarchist banners everywhere and hammers and sickles and shit, but

0:48:39.239 --> 0:48:41.840
<v Speaker 2>everyone's like in charge of themselves and that's pretty cool

0:48:41.880 --> 0:48:43.759
<v Speaker 2>and I don't need to and some of this scares me,

0:48:44.040 --> 0:48:47.200
<v Speaker 2>but this seems like something worth defending. And that's my

0:48:47.280 --> 0:48:49.720
<v Speaker 2>paraphrase of him. Yeah, but I will give his direct

0:48:49.800 --> 0:48:53.840
<v Speaker 2>quote quote. When I joined the militia, I had promised

0:48:53.840 --> 0:48:56.920
<v Speaker 2>myself to kill one fascist. After all, if each of

0:48:57.000 --> 0:48:59.000
<v Speaker 2>us killed one, they would soon be extinct.

0:49:01.200 --> 0:49:02.560
<v Speaker 3>It's beautiful and simple.

0:49:03.000 --> 0:49:11.560
<v Speaker 2>I know, I know that's lovely. Anyway, we're not sure

0:49:11.680 --> 0:49:14.760
<v Speaker 2>if he killed anyone or not. Firefights and bomb fights

0:49:14.800 --> 0:49:18.319
<v Speaker 2>are like that. He absolutely shot at fascists, and he

0:49:18.400 --> 0:49:20.840
<v Speaker 2>also fought. He gotten like a bayonet fight with a

0:49:20.880 --> 0:49:24.800
<v Speaker 2>fascist who ran away. No, that's pretty that counts for something.

0:49:24.840 --> 0:49:27.400
<v Speaker 2>Come on, yeah, no, I give him credit more than

0:49:27.400 --> 0:49:30.279
<v Speaker 2>I have ever done. Yeah, and how all that went,

0:49:31.040 --> 0:49:33.040
<v Speaker 2>we'll talk about on Wednesday.

0:49:34.120 --> 0:49:36.719
<v Speaker 3>Oh, that'll wait until I don't know.

0:49:37.080 --> 0:49:41.239
<v Speaker 2>You totally have to wait till Wednesday. Five minutes breaks

0:49:41.239 --> 0:49:43.560
<v Speaker 2>a week on all go to the bathroom before we record.

0:49:44.360 --> 0:49:47.080
<v Speaker 3>Okay, I'm a pick and be right back.

0:49:47.360 --> 0:49:50.880
<v Speaker 2>Okay, yeah, no, So, so how's orwell, how how are

0:49:50.920 --> 0:49:51.839
<v Speaker 2>you feeling about this man?

0:49:53.640 --> 0:49:56.480
<v Speaker 3>You kind of laid out the grand work perfectly, like

0:49:56.520 --> 0:50:00.319
<v Speaker 3>I understood there's gonna be some deeply problematic parts. It

0:50:00.360 --> 0:50:02.319
<v Speaker 3>was a little bit of a dip from me emotionally.

0:50:02.640 --> 0:50:04.759
<v Speaker 3>I'm on my way back up. I think he's I

0:50:04.800 --> 0:50:07.200
<v Speaker 3>think it's very interesting. I'm a little disappointed I didn't

0:50:07.239 --> 0:50:11.960
<v Speaker 3>work in a Dexy's Midnight Runners reference with Eileen oh Bo.

0:50:12.320 --> 0:50:15.279
<v Speaker 3>But maybe I'll get to it in the second episode.

0:50:15.640 --> 0:50:18.120
<v Speaker 3>And I'm really I'm loving it. This is great, Like,

0:50:18.640 --> 0:50:22.799
<v Speaker 3>this is an amazing interesting character, and he's so I mean,

0:50:22.840 --> 0:50:24.839
<v Speaker 3>I don't know if he's misunderstood just because I don't

0:50:24.840 --> 0:50:27.920
<v Speaker 3>know enough about him, but I you're what you said

0:50:28.080 --> 0:50:31.760
<v Speaker 3>is exactly right. He is just so woven into pop

0:50:31.800 --> 0:50:36.440
<v Speaker 3>culture and references from everything from like stuff we watched

0:50:36.480 --> 0:50:38.799
<v Speaker 3>when I was growing up to like the Boys now

0:50:38.840 --> 0:50:43.160
<v Speaker 3>on TV. Everything is woven in this just Orwellian these

0:50:43.239 --> 0:50:45.640
<v Speaker 3>Orwellian ideas. So to learn more about him, I think

0:50:45.719 --> 0:50:49.080
<v Speaker 3>is really important. So, yeah, no, it's great.

0:50:49.800 --> 0:50:51.799
<v Speaker 2>I more and more as I was like reading all

0:50:51.840 --> 0:50:55.279
<v Speaker 2>this stuff, I was like, Oh, this man fundamentally changed

0:50:55.320 --> 0:50:59.279
<v Speaker 2>the world, and we don't know what the world would

0:50:59.280 --> 0:51:03.520
<v Speaker 2>be like without him. And there are some ways in which,

0:51:04.280 --> 0:51:08.319
<v Speaker 2>because of how grossly misused he has been, there's some

0:51:08.360 --> 0:51:11.800
<v Speaker 2>ways in which it got worse right in other ways,

0:51:11.840 --> 0:51:15.480
<v Speaker 2>And I think overall, I think in broad strokes, I

0:51:15.520 --> 0:51:18.799
<v Speaker 2>think he did maybe more to combat the spread of

0:51:18.800 --> 0:51:22.680
<v Speaker 2>totalitarian ideology through his writing than anyone in the English language.

0:51:23.239 --> 0:51:23.479
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:51:23.960 --> 0:51:28.080
<v Speaker 2>Huge, Yeah, And and we'll talk more about that on Wednesday,

0:51:28.120 --> 0:51:31.640
<v Speaker 2>But first we'll talk about your podcast and anything else

0:51:31.680 --> 0:51:32.440
<v Speaker 2>you want to talk about.

0:51:33.120 --> 0:51:35.520
<v Speaker 3>I have a podcast is called The House of Pod.

0:51:35.920 --> 0:51:40.279
<v Speaker 3>It is a humor adjacent medical podcast. We will look

0:51:40.280 --> 0:51:43.520
<v Speaker 3>at the intersections of public health and pop culture and

0:51:43.719 --> 0:51:49.200
<v Speaker 3>social inequities and cover some pretty fun topics with great guests,

0:51:49.680 --> 0:51:53.200
<v Speaker 3>a lot of people that you'll already know from listening

0:51:53.280 --> 0:51:57.200
<v Speaker 3>to this podcast. And it's a ton of fun. And

0:51:57.239 --> 0:51:59.160
<v Speaker 3>I know you might not think that it would be

0:51:59.160 --> 0:52:01.239
<v Speaker 3>because you're like, I don't want to It sounds a

0:52:01.280 --> 0:52:04.680
<v Speaker 3>little bit medically and nerdy and sciencey, and it's not

0:52:04.800 --> 0:52:07.440
<v Speaker 3>that much. It's because we are kind of anti jargon.

0:52:07.520 --> 0:52:10.520
<v Speaker 3>So you will like it. I think if you don't,

0:52:10.880 --> 0:52:14.880
<v Speaker 3>you know, we'll send you a nicol.

0:52:16.520 --> 0:52:19.960
<v Speaker 2>It took me like three times to finally figure out

0:52:20.000 --> 0:52:22.680
<v Speaker 2>because House of Pod makes so much sense obviously as

0:52:22.680 --> 0:52:26.160
<v Speaker 2>a play on House of God. Ah, it took me

0:52:26.280 --> 0:52:28.640
<v Speaker 2>so long to figure that out.

0:52:29.600 --> 0:52:32.280
<v Speaker 3>Well, I mean, you're not the target audience for that book.

0:52:32.320 --> 0:52:34.160
<v Speaker 3>I mean, I mean I'm glad. Did you read it?

0:52:34.480 --> 0:52:34.800
<v Speaker 2>No?

0:52:34.800 --> 0:52:34.920
<v Speaker 3>No?

0:52:34.960 --> 0:52:36.719
<v Speaker 2>Wait wait wait does a book or House of God?

0:52:36.800 --> 0:52:40.160
<v Speaker 3>No? I don't know how god. So the House of

0:52:40.200 --> 0:52:42.840
<v Speaker 3>God is a book that was ranked one of the

0:52:42.920 --> 0:52:46.480
<v Speaker 3>best satires of all time. It's a medical book that

0:52:46.600 --> 0:52:48.880
<v Speaker 3>was one of the first books about like medicine that

0:52:48.920 --> 0:52:52.520
<v Speaker 3>showed medicine in a realistic light. It came out like

0:52:52.800 --> 0:52:55.560
<v Speaker 3>forty five years ago or something. I have the author

0:52:55.600 --> 0:52:58.800
<v Speaker 3>on the show Actually it's a problematic book and some

0:52:59.760 --> 0:53:02.920
<v Speaker 3>very serious ways in this depiction of minorities in particular

0:53:02.960 --> 0:53:06.000
<v Speaker 3>and misogyny. But it was the first book to really

0:53:06.080 --> 0:53:11.120
<v Speaker 3>kind of show the world of medicine in a realistic way,

0:53:11.200 --> 0:53:14.239
<v Speaker 3>and it is like a satire and it's actually, you know,

0:53:14.320 --> 0:53:18.600
<v Speaker 3>pretty brilliantly written overall by this guy who was a doctor,

0:53:18.960 --> 0:53:21.520
<v Speaker 3>and it's that's kind of what we're trying to do

0:53:21.560 --> 0:53:23.320
<v Speaker 3>with the show is kind of peel back the curtain

0:53:23.640 --> 0:53:25.359
<v Speaker 3>on the world of medicine and show you like, this

0:53:25.400 --> 0:53:27.640
<v Speaker 3>is kind of what it's really like. This is what

0:53:27.840 --> 0:53:30.919
<v Speaker 3>doctors are actually like when they're talking to them each other,

0:53:31.400 --> 0:53:32.880
<v Speaker 3>and you know, they're not trying to put up a

0:53:32.880 --> 0:53:36.239
<v Speaker 3>fake front. And I hope through the whole process that

0:53:36.320 --> 0:53:40.160
<v Speaker 3>we kind of, you know, break down people's anxiety about

0:53:40.239 --> 0:53:43.160
<v Speaker 3>medicine or make medicine more approachable to people.

0:53:43.160 --> 0:53:46.080
<v Speaker 2>That's kind of the overall goal of it. So but yeah,

0:53:46.080 --> 0:53:48.560
<v Speaker 2>it's based on a book called The House of God. Okay,

0:53:48.600 --> 0:53:51.479
<v Speaker 2>that makes so much sense. Yeah, I knew that House

0:53:51.480 --> 0:53:53.480
<v Speaker 2>of God was sometimes a word that people use for

0:53:53.520 --> 0:53:56.319
<v Speaker 2>like hospitals and stuff, but I don't thah totally. And

0:53:56.400 --> 0:53:58.080
<v Speaker 2>so that was like Oh, I get it, and I

0:53:58.120 --> 0:54:01.239
<v Speaker 2>felt so clever, But now I get it actually, and uh,

0:54:02.200 --> 0:54:04.360
<v Speaker 2>totally glad I learned it on air or whatever. I

0:54:04.360 --> 0:54:06.440
<v Speaker 2>guess my whole thing with my podcast is I make

0:54:06.560 --> 0:54:08.080
<v Speaker 2>guests come on and talk about things they don't know.

0:54:08.080 --> 0:54:11.160
<v Speaker 3>Oh, but I'm so good. Listen again, I have to

0:54:11.200 --> 0:54:14.160
<v Speaker 3>apologize to your listeners. I'm so sorry you have. You're

0:54:14.200 --> 0:54:16.480
<v Speaker 3>all listening right now and being like what These are

0:54:16.480 --> 0:54:18.880
<v Speaker 3>the most basic questions. Why isn't he asking?

0:54:18.920 --> 0:54:19.280
<v Speaker 2>No?

0:54:19.920 --> 0:54:21.960
<v Speaker 3>And I'm sorry, I hear you, I hear you. I

0:54:22.040 --> 0:54:23.720
<v Speaker 3>know I understand listeners. I'm sorry.

0:54:23.960 --> 0:54:26.399
<v Speaker 2>Sorry, some of those listeners have those questions. I love.

0:54:26.640 --> 0:54:28.960
<v Speaker 2>One of the favorite tricks I've ever learned to get

0:54:28.960 --> 0:54:31.839
<v Speaker 2>over imposter syndrome actually in some ways is when I'm

0:54:31.840 --> 0:54:34.560
<v Speaker 2>in a crowd and someone's like, especially if I'm kind

0:54:34.600 --> 0:54:36.960
<v Speaker 2>of in like if I am like at like a

0:54:37.120 --> 0:54:39.799
<v Speaker 2>like a political thing, right. I have enough cred at

0:54:39.840 --> 0:54:43.160
<v Speaker 2>this point that if I'm in a political space or whatever,

0:54:43.560 --> 0:54:45.640
<v Speaker 2>like enough people kind of know who I am or whatever,

0:54:45.680 --> 0:54:48.400
<v Speaker 2>because I've been doing this for twenty years. So if

0:54:48.480 --> 0:54:51.839
<v Speaker 2>someone uses jargon, I sometimes I'm like, hey, what does

0:54:51.880 --> 0:54:56.080
<v Speaker 2>that mean? Because no one thinks I don't know what

0:54:56.120 --> 0:54:59.759
<v Speaker 2>it means, right, and so I'm like, I'm safe to

0:54:59.760 --> 0:55:03.120
<v Speaker 2>ask ask the question, you know, but someone needs to

0:55:03.280 --> 0:55:05.600
<v Speaker 2>someone needs to say like because like unless it's a

0:55:05.600 --> 0:55:08.840
<v Speaker 2>closed space, like people need to be able to understand

0:55:08.880 --> 0:55:12.799
<v Speaker 2>what's happening, you know, agreed, I agreed. But if you

0:55:12.840 --> 0:55:16.479
<v Speaker 2>want to hear what's happening in Spain of eighty years ago,

0:55:16.880 --> 0:55:21.319
<v Speaker 2>then you got a way till Wednesday. Uh oh, I

0:55:21.360 --> 0:55:23.279
<v Speaker 2>have a book. It's this God, it's like one of

0:55:23.320 --> 0:55:25.120
<v Speaker 2>your last few days. You can kickstart it. What are

0:55:25.120 --> 0:55:27.040
<v Speaker 2>you doing? Why haven't you kickstarted yet? Don't you want

0:55:27.040 --> 0:55:30.360
<v Speaker 2>to sign? Copy The Sapling Cage, my young adult book.

0:55:30.480 --> 0:55:33.439
<v Speaker 2>I actually realized more than I when I'm going through

0:55:33.480 --> 0:55:36.760
<v Speaker 2>this or what was actually a more important literary influence

0:55:36.800 --> 0:55:39.200
<v Speaker 2>on me than I'd recognize because I was thinking about

0:55:39.200 --> 0:55:40.960
<v Speaker 2>how a lot of like my actual the literary here

0:55:41.000 --> 0:55:42.839
<v Speaker 2>is that I like read more recently and I care

0:55:42.880 --> 0:55:48.560
<v Speaker 2>more about tend to write. I try to write plainly.

0:55:48.920 --> 0:55:53.439
<v Speaker 2>I try to write at a fairly like low reading level,

0:55:53.480 --> 0:55:55.640
<v Speaker 2>because I think the lowest reading level that you can

0:55:55.760 --> 0:55:57.960
<v Speaker 2>say the things that you need to say in as

0:55:58.000 --> 0:56:01.200
<v Speaker 2>complicated and nuanced ways as you can or need to

0:56:02.320 --> 0:56:04.160
<v Speaker 2>is the goal. I don't want things to be complicated

0:56:04.160 --> 0:56:08.200
<v Speaker 2>for the sake of complicated. And actually, upon looking back,

0:56:08.239 --> 0:56:10.680
<v Speaker 2>I was like, oh, reading Orwell's stuff on writing was

0:56:11.520 --> 0:56:13.640
<v Speaker 2>what I was doing when I first started writing, and

0:56:14.360 --> 0:56:17.480
<v Speaker 2>I'm very excited to read the book, so clearly I'm

0:56:17.520 --> 0:56:20.239
<v Speaker 2>writing the next nineteen eighty four is my book is

0:56:20.280 --> 0:56:23.919
<v Speaker 2>nothing like It's a fantasy book about a witch who

0:56:24.120 --> 0:56:24.759
<v Speaker 2>saves the world.

0:56:25.640 --> 0:56:26.919
<v Speaker 3>That's yeah, I can't wait.

0:56:27.360 --> 0:56:34.279
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, all right, Well, let's see you all Wednesday.

0:56:35.440 --> 0:56:37.920
<v Speaker 1>Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of

0:56:37.960 --> 0:56:41.040
<v Speaker 1>cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,

0:56:41.200 --> 0:56:44.479
<v Speaker 1>visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out

0:56:44.560 --> 0:56:47.440
<v Speaker 1>on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

0:56:47.600 --> 0:56:52.080
<v Speaker 4>You get your podcasts.