Alpha
#LOCKE4GOD

Second part of my response:

I'm planning on reading some Oscar Wilde stuff too, and I think I'll start with the French literature after that. My specialisation is Dutch and English literature, but that doesn't mean I should limit my reading to those two languages. A specific book I'm thinking of is Alexandre Dumas' Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (i.e. The Count of Monte-Cristo). I'm not sure if I'll read it in French though, really depends on the vocabulary the guy used.

Long way to go

And then there's so much great poetry and films!

sigh...

I don't go see it live, though I saw it once when I was a kid. Me and my parents happened to be on vacation in France and we went to watch. But watching it at home in front of your tv or outside a bar that has a tv is way more fun. You don't have to wait hours and hours to see close to 200 cyclists pass you by in 5 seconds.

And I've read Dune like 4 years ago. I think I even read the 2nd book in the series, but I just couldn't be bothered anymore by reading a series as lengthy as that one.

I'm trying to read all the English classics I learn about. (I study Literature.) I'm, as you know, reading 1984 when I don't feel guilty and I bought Joyce' Ulysses, which is a little tougher in terms of vocabulary in comparison to 1984.

Nah, I haven't finished it yet.
I should be studying these days, so I tend to feel guilty when I start to read stuff I'm not obliged to read for my upcoming exams.
I've got too much stuff on my mind.

I'm into movies, books, magazines AND the Tour de France (which ends tomorrow, luckily ) so I'm finding it hard to focus on one particular piece of fiction or non-fiction.

It is good to see people using the term socialist again. Someone needs to keep the libertarians in line.

Yeah.

Italy is pretty conservative and right minded.

Too bad for them.

Does the economic growth necessarily make up for it?

And yeah, I live in Western Europe, where individual rights are pretty much the basics of how it all goes down over here. The US claim that they have that stuff too, but in my country, being a "liberal" is almost being "right". Whereas in the US, the liberals are the lefties.

But yeah, I love Europe and its freedom.

Thank you, Enlightenment.

In a way, I guess, yeah.

Though he didn't necessarily feel the need for a drastic "revolution". But yeah, he must have hated how a system of which equality is the essence, and which he probably longed for to be partially realised, was just abused by the ones with power. The system that would have to ban those kind of situations to the past.

And "fascist", isn't that something negative by definition? Taking away essential rights and individual freedom in function of "the big picture"?

That aside, Soviet Russia was just another country at war, ruled by dictators and was, apart from the lack of ethnic cleansing like the Germans did, not much better than nazi Germany. They used the communist system, but they didn't exactly make it work for the people... They just used it for their own political, economic and testosteron driven goals.

Hm. I doubt that Orwell thought there would be some serious changes in Russia, knowing the country's nature and history.

I think he just despises how things went down practically in the Soviet Union when their communism was "working". Him being a socialist himself might be an extra incentive to criticise the Soviet Union, declaring their way as "how to not do it", you know?

I think he felt that what happened over there was an embarrassment to any ideology related to it (in theory), as do I.

I'm a socialist and I think the Cuban communist revolution with Che Guevara and Fidel Castro was the best thing that could've happened to the Cuban people back then, but it disgusts me that Mao and Stalin were "communists" too.

Cuba may have its major flaws, but it proves that communism can be the way to go. Certainly in a country in need, like Cuba was in the 50's.

Being a socialist in that time was indeed not the normal thing it is now, but I don't think it was equal to blindly agreeing with everything Marx had written.

Marx was just some guy with some inspiring theories about how economy and society would(/should?) evolve. The fact that the faulty communism and the socialism were both somewhat influenced by Marx' works doesn't necessarily mean that there should be a connection between them, maybe in abstract theory, but not in reality.

Heck, the Soviet Union was not what Marx meant at all if you think about it. Dictators sending huge amounts of civilians to their own death, ignoring the voice of the proletariat and stubbornly trying to conquer half of Europe doesn't seem all that Marxistic to me. O_o

It's true that the term 'socialism' corresponded to a quite different ideology on some levels in that time.

But a good author should be able to criticise society, with everything that goes with it.

Though I don't think that Orwell would write a book that obvious if he was pro-Soviet.

Like I said in a way: Soviet Communism and Socialism (even then) are two worlds apart.

Check out my new thread in the Intellectual Discussion: http://thefinalfantasy.net/forums/in...-children.html

Why is the criticism too strong?

You can't be a lefty and hate Mao/Stalin? O_o

That's the thing with Animal Farm, you should read it as just a story, but you know there's far more to it. I guess those references are part of the reading experience too though.

Or else it wouldn't be a metaphore.

It does criticise the Soviet approach on communism. The Soviet Union's leaders were one pile of hypocrites. They wanted the proletariat to have power, but they ended up taking all power they initially had away from them.

I don't remember which ones, but there are animals referring to Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, the KGB and more of that political crap. ^^ (I think even Churchill is somewhat referred to in a bad way.)

I think you should read it as a metaphore for the dictatorship during WW II. It criticises the Soviet Union (which was a disgrace for Marx' work and has, together with Mao, given the word 'communist' an almost infested dimension), and the war in general, I believe.