1984 Foreword "fascistic disposition"

[Dave Monroe]

Thought your claim was that P wasn't doing this ...

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> 
> I think that comparing Clement Attlee to Hitler,
> or Bush to Saddam, - democratic governments to
> dictatorships - is patently ridiculous, and it's
> offensive to the memories and families of the
> millions of their own countrymen which the latter
> two totalitarian despots murdered.
 
 
> But what happens when this "dissident Left" actually
> wins or seizes political power? Doesn't it then just
> become another "official Left"? 


And this (below) seems a commonplace of Orwelliana ...
 
> Pynchon's identification of "Ingsoc" with the
> British Labour Party

Minus the "silly," of course ...

> Certainly Orwell disagreed with the politics of
> Attlee & co., but he was more horrified and appalled
> by the actions of the Communists during the
> Spanish Civil War. Ingsoc is modelled on Stalinism,
> and it's a warning of what could happen in Britain
> if a Socialist Revolution ever did eventuate.
> There's no hint anywhere the novel that it is meant
> to describe life under a democratically-elected
> British Labour (or Conservative, or Liberal, or
> coalition) government. It depicts Britain after a
> *Revolution*, after the ousting of capitalism and
> democracy.

"More or less consciusly, he found an analogy between
British Labour and the Communist Party under
Stalin--both, he felt, were movements professing
to fight for the working classes against capitalism,
but in reality concerned only with establishing and
perpetuating their own power.  The masses were only
there to be used--for their idealism, their class
resentments, their willingness to work cheap--and to
be sold out again and again." ("Foreword," p. ix)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0304&msg=78898&sort=date

You're taking issue with Pynchon on Orwell here,
right?  That's one thing.  But you're also allowing
that Pynchon at least is possibly implying an
anti-capitalist bent on Orwell's part, possibly even
tacitly endorsing it?  Yes?  No?  Not sure ...

Or possibly not.  But Pynchon, at least, at least
here, and throughout the rest of the "Foreword" (and
my offer still stands ...) does not necessarily come
out against said stance, either ...  

He's more concerned here, in this passage, with a
disparity between stated goals--"professing to fight
for ..."--and actual intentions--"in reality concerned
with ..."--not to mention real effects--"establishing
and perpetuating ..."

Indeed, the two parites involved in said analogy even
act in a decidedly capitalist manner, using the masses
for, among other things, "their willingness to work
cheap--and to be sold out, again and again" ...

But agreed here ...
 
> The mainstream political parties in most Western
> democracies can hardly even be described as "left"
> or "right" - they're all within about half a
> micrometer of one another in some nondescript
> "centre".

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