Sunday, January 25, 2009

Sound familiar?

"Within the intelligentsia, a derisive and mildly hostile attitude towards Britain is more or less compulsory, but it is an unfaked emotion in many cases. . . . English left-wing intellectuals did not, of course, actually want the Germans or Japanese to win the war, but many of them could not help getting a certain kick out of seeing their own country humiliated, and wanted to feel that the final victory would be due to Russia, or perhaps America, and not to Britain. In foreign politics many intellectuals follow the principle that any faction backed by Britain must be in the wrong. As a result, "enlightened" opinion is quite largely a mirror-image of Conservative policy."
-- George Orwell

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for a timely post.

    Orwell also had some trenchant observations on pacifism and pacifists which are just as damning.

    There is a 4-volume collection of Orwell's essays, reviews, letters, etc which is well worth reading.

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