Orwell never stopped being a socialist.  Even after Spain.

I probably bungled by framing this as a response to some randos writing Youtube comments.  What I really wanted to respond to was the widespread perception that Orwell abandoned socialism after Spain.  This was something that I was even taught in high school, and I think it's commonly taught in American high schools.  That's why I want to clear this up.  The comments were just what set me off.

Links to everything mentioned:

* My discussion of Animal Farm by George Orwell: https://youtu.be/UZ4vb8McF8I

* Animal Farm (1954): Movie Review: https://youtu.be/xaYgn_yv9Rk

* Animal Farm (1999): Movie Review: https://youtu.be/4_SML2H_mPg

* Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell: Book Review: https://youtu.be/1Y79H7QAfwU

* Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell: Book Review: https://youtu.be/tKuqrasyIqs

* My review of George Orwell: Essays: https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2014/09/george-orwell-essays.html

The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius by George Orwell: https://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/lionunicorn.html

Can Socialists Be Happy? by George Orwell: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/can-socialists-be-happy/

Why I Write by George Orwell: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/why-i-write/

Toward European Unity by George Orwell:  https://orwell.ru/library/articles/European_Unity/english/e_teu

Preface to the Ukrainian Edition of Animal Farm by George Orwell: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/books-by-orwell/animal-farm/preface-to-the-ukrainian-edition-of-animal-farm-by-george-orwell/

Related Playlist:

George Orwell Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x53UU17DZnFTVxcHj1i3vy7&si=daGwyqLW-dF5D1Ur

Animal Farm by George Orwell Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x7PQs8HJvXAQLmnKoIrydDG&si=fZAK4vxEC7Y5ZnuA

I posted this exchange previously, but I should post it here as well: 

Addendum:  The Youtube comments I complain about in this video are actually part of the same comment thread I mentioned in this post.  In reply to my comment that great books are not necessarily apolitical, someone wrote:

Yes the new animated children's movie Orwell's "Animal Farm" suggests that Socialism will work just fine if we can only get the right people in office.  To add insult to injury, the Angel Studios production also suggests that Capitalism is bad and perverts Orwell's intent and warning about totalitarianism.

I should have let this go, but the assertion that Orwell's message was perverted by the suggestion that capitalism is bad just was so wrong that I couldn't resist correcting it.  So I wrote:

But you know George Orwell was a socialist, right?

And he replied: 

Right. Who better to warn of the dangers therein?

I wasn't so sure he got it, but I decided to let it go.

Then, later, someone else chimed in:

Only until he went and fought in the Spanish Civil War and realised what a false economy (pun intended) socialism is. 

That's when he wrote Animal Farm. In other words, he lived in the world, then started to critique and severely moderate his ideology in response to reality. You know, like an intelligent adult does.

Okay, well at least now we have pinpointed the exact nature of the error in need of correcting.  So I attempted to do some correcting:

That's a popular misconception.  I encourage you to do a bit more research on Orwell's politics.  Possibly start with a collection of his essays. Maybe reread Animal Farm again.  You can also google what were Orwell's politics, or read the wikipedia entry.   Orwell was disillusioned in Spain not with the economics of Socialism, but with the way many socialists supported totalitarianism.  He wrote about this in Homage to Catalonia, which is a book  well worth reading.  

But the best place to start is "Why I Write", an essay in which Orwelll discusses among other things why he wrote Animal Farm.  You can find this essay online.  Orwell states in the essay "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism"

She never replied to this, but the original guy returned to write:

Yes remember the same people who said Biden was sharp as a tack are the same ones who now try to tell us that Animal Farm has been misread and misinterpreted.  They also say that political violence and assassination are better than voting.  Remember, all literary criticism is equal, but some is more equal than others.

No one in this comment thread had previously mentioned Joe Biden or voting or political violence, etc.  So his brain has obviously been fried by rightwing memes on social media, and whenever he gets into any sort of political debate, he can't help but just shout out the memes he's absorbed.  That he should be doing this in a discussion about Orwell is an irony that is apparently beyond him.  (Orwell despised the type of person who could only dialogue by repeating slogans.  He complained about this frequently throughout his writing, and also lampooned this with the sheep in Animal Farm.)

I decided there was no value in continuing this discussion, but as you can see from the fact that I'm writing about it here, it did get under my skin somewhat.