HOIST ON MY OWN ORWELLIAN PETARD :

Noel Erinjeri writes :

In response to your essay about Liberalism and evil (Evil but Smart), I said:

Your comments are a bit overwrought. Your equating "liberalism" and "evil" probably proves Krauthammer's point. Hitler was evil. Stalin was evil. People who molest children are evil. Someone who disagrees with you about, say, Social Security might be mistaken, but he's not evil. This exact sentiment is what destroyed the Far Left in the Sixties and then the Far Right in the Nineties.

And you replied:

Hitler and Stalin were, of course, socialists. And the "Far Right", last I checked, is governing America. Glad you liked Russell Kirk.

Stalin was indeed a socialist. Hitler was not, exactly, but I'll stipulate he was for the purposes of this argument. You're still ducking the main point, which is that the genocide and oppression caused by those two is not in the moral universe as support for support for Social Security or favoring one tax policy over another. At worst, liberals are mistaken. But, to call them "evil" cheapens the word. A liberal might be evil, but he's not evil BECAUSE he's a liberal.

For that matter, if Stalin and Hitler were socialists so was one of your "10 Greatest Men of the 20th Century." Having read most of your Orwell page, I suspect you would claim Orwell was not a socialist but a conservative. But As long as we're discussing Kirk let's see which of his six principles Orwell agreed:

1) "Belief that a divine intent rules society as well as conscience, forging an eternal chain of right and duty which links great and obscure, living and dead. Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems."

-Orwell did not believe in God. He did believe in morality (He called it "common decency") but as for "divine intent," zip.

2) "Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of traditional life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems."

-Maybe. He had a respect for "variety of life," but he was certainly an egalitarian. The two aren't necessarily exclusive, though.

3) "Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes. The only true equality is moral equality; all other attempts at leveling lead to despair, if enforced by positive legislation."

-Orwell would find this odious. If there was anything he railed against, it was the British class system of which Burke was so fond.

4) "Persuasion that property and freedom are inseparably connected, and that economic levelling is not economic progress. Separate property from private possession and liberty is erased."

-Problematic. He often argued for the government take over of private property like a good socialist, but he was smart enough to realize the horrors it would (and had) led to, as evidenced by his line about dissent and starvation. He didn't like the idea of private property, but saw no way around it without ending up in 1984.

5) "Faith in prescription and distrust of 'sophisters and calculators.' Man must put a control upon his will and his appetite, for conservatives knowman to be governed more by emotion than by reason. Tradition and sound prejudice provide checks upon man's anarchic impulse."

-The distrust Orwell certainly had. As to "faith in prescription," he wasn't a fan of traditional institutions but certainly believed in traditional morality and respect for law.

6) "Recognition that change and reform are not identical, and that innovation is a devouring conflagration more often than it is a torch of progress. Society must alter, for slow change is the means of its conservation, like the human body's perpetual renewal; but Providence is the proper instrument for change, and the test of a statesman is his cognizance of the real tendency of Providential social forces."

-Orwell didn't believe in Providence. One might make the argument that Animal Farm and 1984 were anti-revolutionary, but you've got to set that against the passage in "Homage to Catalonia" about his first visit to Barcelona and his joy that "the workers were in control."

Finally, perhaps most importantly, Orwell said he was a socialist, all the way to the end of life. I make his final score on Kirk's litmus test 2 (maybe 3) out of 6. Was Orwell evil, too?

One last thing, about the "Far Right governing America." Bush is hardly one of the far right. I was using the term to refer to the Pat Buchanan/Pat Robertson crowd. Buchanan's out of the party, the Christian Coalition is not the force it was, and the last real attempt to reduce the size of government seems to have been with Robert Taft. I'm not a big fan of the President's, but no matter what Left-wingers say this is is hardly a Far Right presidency.

-Noel Erinjeri

This a dastardly trick, turning one of my heroes against another, but it's also quite effective and deserves both kudos and a response.
Posted by Orrin Judd at July 30, 2002 11:59 AM