> Well, at my high school (which had the *best* of two worlds--state control > by the Indiana Bible-Belt pseudo-moralists, and local control by > functionally illiterate parents who were afraid that their children might > *learn* something and aspire to a better life), not only did we have a > teacher get fired for teaching Catcher in the Rye, we were put into > different *college track* english classes, based on whether our parents > would allow us to read such stuff as: > ... > 3. Animal Farm--Godless Communism. Enough said.
> Laurie Sefton
Sort of amazing when you consider that Animal Farm is a thinly disguised attack on the Soviet Union. -- Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.) "Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent..."
In article <3...@rtech.UUCP> j...@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman) writes: >> different *college track* english classes, based on whether our parents >> would allow us to read such stuff as: >> ... >> 3. Animal Farm--Godless Communism. Enough said.
>Sort of amazing when you consider that Animal Farm is a thinly disguised >attack on the Soviet Union.
Ah, but it attacks the Soviet Union from a Trotskyite perspective, not a capitalist perspective. It supports the goals of the revolution; the good pig that is banished is clearly Trotsky (the pig that takes over is Stalin). It attacks the Soviet Union for ending up too much like the West; at the end the other animals can't tell the pigs from the men. I liked it; no intelligent arch-conservative should, since it attacks capitalism.
-- - Joe Buck {ihnp4!pesnta,oliveb,nsc!csi}!epimass!jbuck Entropic Processing, Inc., Cupertino, California
In article <3...@epimass.UUCP> jb...@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck) writes: >Ah, but it attacks the Soviet Union from a Trotskyite perspective, >not a capitalist perspective. It supports the goals of the >revolution; the good pig that is banished is clearly Trotsky (the pig >that takes over is Stalin). It attacks the Soviet Union for ending >up too much like the West; at the end the other animals can't tell >the pigs from the men. I liked it; no intelligent arch-conservative >should, since it attacks capitalism.
[This probably belongs on net.politics.theory, but just in case it doesn't engender a discussion, I'll leave it here.]
I'm not an arch-conservative. I am an arch-capitalist (a libertarian if you will). I enjoyed Animal_Farm immensely, but I didn't see it as an attack on capitalism. To me the men represent aristocrats and slaveowners, not capitalists. The point of the end of the book is that collectivist governments wind up being just as totalitarian and unequal as royalist governments.
Whether Snowball (the ousted pig) is supported by Orwell is a matter of opinion. He definitely had more sympathy for him than for the others, but that can be interpreted more to point up that there are individuals who will recognize the need for change and do the wrong thing for the noblest of motives. I don't know enough about Orwell to know how he meant it, but to say that Animal_Farm is clearly Trotzkyite because of one character is as ludicous as saying that Rand's We_the_Living is Bolshevik because of the sympathy she shows for the character Andrei.
The main problem I had with Animal_Farm was precisely that it implied that the only choice was between communism and royalism (and that this is no choice at all). Capitalism is never even considered. It's a great book and it serves its purpose well, but it can leave the reader with an undeserved fatalism. However, this is something to be discussed, not supressed.
> In article <3...@rtech.UUCP> j...@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman) writes: > >> different *college track* english classes, based on whether our parents > >> would allow us to read such stuff as: > >> ... > >> 3. Animal Farm--Godless Communism. Enough said.
> >Sort of amazing when you consider that Animal Farm is a thinly disguised > >attack on the Soviet Union.
> Ah, but it attacks the Soviet Union from a Trotskyite perspective, > not a capitalist perspective. It supports the goals of the > revolution; the good pig that is banished is clearly Trotsky (the pig > that takes over is Stalin). It attacks the Soviet Union for ending > up too much like the West; at the end the other animals can't tell > the pigs from the men. I liked it; no intelligent arch-conservative > should, since it attacks capitalism.
> - Joe Buck {ihnp4!pesnta,oliveb,nsc!csi}!epimass!jbuck
Gee, I *loved* _Animal_Farm_, and I'm a fervent supporter of capitalism. The book attacks the Soviet Union for ending up too much like Czarist Russia -- I would hardly call Pig-controlled Animal Farm a capitalist society. The book supports the ideal of socialism, but makes it clear that it's real easy for that ideal to be used as a method of getting people to work hard for the common good when they would NEVER do so for the farmer alone.
> Gee, I *loved* _Animal_Farm_, and I'm a fervent supporter of capitalism. > The book attacks the Soviet Union for ending up too much like Czarist > Russia -- I would hardly call Pig-controlled Animal Farm a capitalist > society. The book supports the ideal of socialism, but makes it clear > that it's real easy for that ideal to be used as a method of getting > people to work hard for the common good when they would NEVER do so > for the farmer alone.
Common good? More like good of the rulers, only the Pigs (like Stalin and his gang) know how to make the subjects *think* they are improving the common good when they are only fattening up the rulers. When they finally realize what's going on, there is no more Marx/Lenin figure (Old Major) to inspire them into another idealistic revolt.
> I enjoyed Animal_Farm immensely, but I didn't see it as an attack on > capitalism.
Either you or I missed something in the posting you referenced. I thought the earlier article said Animal Farm was an attack on communism not capitalism. Did I misread the article?
Dennis R. Vogel AT&T Information Systems Middletown, NJ
Tim Maroney writes: > It is a total mystery to me how anyone could miss the message of Huckleberry > Finn with respect to racism ... At one point there is an accident. The > dialogue goes pretty much like this:
> Southern Lady: "Oh, my goodness! Was anyone hurt?" > Man: "No ma'am. A nigger got killed." > Lady: "Well, that's good, because sometimes people do get hurt."
> A fairly unambiguous interchange, no?
I'm sorry, I don't understand. Are you saying this passage demonstrates the racism of Twain (because these are really his sentiments) or the anti-racism of Twain (because he is satirizing the racist attitude)? It's clear from the rest of the book and from his other writings that Twain was against slavery, and in general believed that Negros are entitled to fair, human treatment, but it's not at all clear that Twain believed that blacks and whites were equal in all respects. In any case, my point is that satire is often confusing, because it allows ideas to stand on their own idiocy. A Klansman, shown merely the passage you quoted above, might come away with a warm feeling about Twain. To appreciate the passage as satire, you have to have the moral sense to know that the Southern Lady has the wrong attitude.
A lot of passages in Twain present the same difficulty to young readers. (I knew of some parents who were so scandalized by Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal" that they tried to have the assigning teacher fired for advocating Satanism). But this difficulty cannot be remedied by banning the book from school libraries, because then, when the student encounters the book later on, he will *know* that there is something scandalous about it because it was banned! The solution is to educate students so that they can recognize devices such as satire and parody, and to make sure difficult (because ambiguous) passages are discussed under proper guidance. After all, we don't study literature to learn how to read -- we study it to learn how to understand what we read. -- Richard Hoffman | "Oh life is a wonderful cycle of song, Schlumberger Well Services | A medley of extemporanea. hoffman%hds...@slb-doll.csnet | And Love is a thing that can never go wrong PO Box 2175, Houston, TX 77252 | ... And I am Marie of Roumania." --D. PARKER
Well, so far I have gotten one message by mail and read one message on net.books from people who have brought home to me how people could think Twain was a racist. It appears that I should clarify. The cited passage in Huck Finn was obviously a satire on the brutal and dehumanizing racist attitudes of his day. But some people just don't seem to be able to "get" satire, particularly deadpan satire. (Not a problem with me; my parents have commented that I started to be sarcastic almost as soon as I began to speak.) Now I can see how the very clear anti-racism message of Huck Finn could be so largely missed; thanks to those who have unwittingly explained it to me. -- Tim Maroney, Electronic Village Idiot {ihnp4,sun,well,ptsfa,lll-crg,frog}!hoptoad!tim (uucp) hoptoad!tim@lll-crg (arpa)
