Thread by @InnuendoStudios

You know what? It's been too long since a lot of things. Let's read this together. #IanLivetweetsHisResearch

Part I: England Your England (which I think I first read as a standalone essay in a different collection) begins by talking about patriotism.

Orwell argues that, despite wide variances, every country has its own national character, which inflects its politics.

i.e. all nations deal with authoritarianism, but German authoritarianism will look different from Russian authoritarianism will look different from English authoritarianism.

He begins by trying to pin down the British character.

Two axioms about English character he lays down, saying most of Europe will tell you this and he agrees: the English are not, by nature, artistic, and the English are not, by nature, intellectual.

Not sure how those play today.

Like, England is not known for its paintings and sculptures, but since Orwell's time it's known for musical artistry (he was writing before The Beatles and Pink Floyd).

And, at least in the States, a British accent is associated with intellect and high culture and even a bit of pomposity the way a French accent is associated with sultriness.

(Orwell's characterization of British culture at large maybe aligns with how we would characterize, like, Cockneys and Liverpudlians)

But his overall point is that national character is far stronger than any politics. Hitler stirred up a love not of fascism but the people's sense of Germanness; ditto Mussolini with Italy.

His essay is largely about how socialism might manifest in England specifically.

He also speaks to how fascism would manifest in England. For instance, the British ambivalence about the state and general sense of "mind your business" means there probably wouldn't be rallies, Youth Movements, or a Gestapo. Fascism would have to work differently.

(This is a problem I see in the US, where people will not consider anything fascist unless it looks *identical* to German fascism; yes, we have concentration camps at the border, but since they're not EXACTLY THE SAME as Germany's it's not evidence of fascism.)

(People can't get their heads around the fact that fascism will look different here; can't even get their heads around the fact that fascism looked different in Italy.)

Interest observation that - at the time, anyway - one contradiction of British character is a general distaste for war while sitting on the spoils of the largest military empire in history. Easy to dislike war *after* you already own 1/4 of the world.

But British WWI songs were all humorous and nihilistic ("we're here because we're here because we're here"), Brits remember failed battles like Gallipoli and Dunkirk better than any victories, and they generally hate soldiers.

A distrust of soldiers, Orwell says, is counterbalanced by a trust in The Law. Not that The Law is always just, but that The Law will always be carried out impartially, that it will always be respected, that, if you haven't broken it, you won't be arrested.

One necessary condition of fascism - the acceptance that there is no law, only power - had never taken root in England. He says even the intelligentsia only acknowledges it academically; it is not felt.

"In England such concepts as justice, liberty and objective truth are still believed in. They may be illusions, but they are very powerful illusions. The belief in them influences conduct, national life is different because of them."

(don't blame me for Orwell's lack of Oxford commas)

Orwell basically handwaves the plurality of Britain, saying, yes, there are differences between the rich and poor, between the north and south, between the Londoner and farmer, between England, Scotland, and Wales.

But those do not erase the commonalities.

In the same way we can refer to "The French" despite there being dramatic differences between Paris and Marseilles, parts of British character exist across all of Great Britain. Says, outside of the UK, only Americans can tell the difference between the British and the Irish.

This ties to his point about the strength of patriotism.

England had the greatest wealth inequality of all Europe at the time, yet the poorest Brit felt greater kinship with wealthy Brits than with Spaniards.

National character exists because people FEEL it exists.

Orwell revisits his first observations about English character:

1. The English are not artistic. The major exception here is literature. Shakespeare, Wilde, the English poets, etc. They're famous for it.

Thing is, English Literature is pretty dang hard for anyone who doesn't speak English to appreciate. Becomes another form of insularity. (Maybe this was before American dominance and globalism left most of Europe speaking English as a second language?)

(Okay he didn't really revisit 2.)

Bunch of talk about how, despite a deeply broken and unjust electoral process, you couldn't deny that most of the nonsense done by the British government over the years was also quite popular with the British people.

Can't really call it functioning democracy, but can't deny the officials were following the desires of the public, even if they were not strictly speaking *required* to.

Orwell says Brits don't necessarily do the RIGHT thing in a crisis, but typically all do the SAME thing.

This next chunk is largely about contemporary politics of a country I've never lived in 40 years before I was born but he's assuming the reader is familiar with it and so is not explaining much.

But the general thrust is about the modernization of Britain, and the degree to which the ruling class became functionally useless, idle rich, people who mostly lived of owning business they didn't have to work in and interest from investments.

(He talks about them the way Hannah Arendt talks about Europeans' dislike of the Jewish population leading up to Hitler; nothing more odious than wealth that does not seem to justify itself)

Orwell says this ruling class just leaned into a degree of old-fashionedness, a stuffed-shirt, pompous fixation with tradition and history because that's the last time they served a function. An inability to acknowledge how society was modernizing.

(No, I don't know where he's going with this.)

Okay, basically his point is that the country was run by wealthy incompetents incapable of seeing the threat fascism posed. In fact, seeing fascism as an enemy of communism, and recognizing communism was worse for them personally, they tried to come to agreement with Hitler.

But British character also made this impossible: the only way to come to an agreement with a dictator intent on expanding across the globe would be to break up the Empire and hand parts of it over to him, which their Englishness simple could not allow.

Next he talks about the two main chunks of the middle class.

The first is the well-off folks who generally approve of the empire but no longer find romance in it. Jobs in Burma and Malaya were increasingly boring and official. Imperialism was losing its luster.

Second chunk is the left-wing intelligentsia, with Orwell pointing out pretty much all the intelligentsia was, at this point, left-wing, but held no political power and was resigned to writing literary reviews and leaflets.

"There is little in them except the irresponsible carping of people who have never been and never expect to be in a position of power. Another marked characteristic is the emotional shallowness of people who live in a world of ideas and have little contact with physical reality."

I feel like Orwell just called out half of lefttube.

Points out that left-wing writers in England were ambivalent about their Britishness at best, and often downright hostile about it. I see similar in American leftists dislike of American patriotism.

This contrasts with the way fascists exalt the national identity.

You can see how, if you accept Orwell's argument that national identity is more powerful than any politics, then fascism weaponizing it while leftism avoids it is a losing proposition for the Left.

So you've got these two middle-class factions: imperialists proud of not being "brainy" and intellectual leftists who reflexively disdain their own culture.

"A modern nation cannot afford either of them. Patriotism and intelligence will have to come together again."

Alrighty, here comes that sweet, sweet class analysis!

So: the first half of the 20th century saw a dramatic expansion of the middle class in England, rather than the destruction thereof that some Marxists predicted.

With a decreasing demand for typical "peasant" labor came an increased demand for high-wage jobs like doctors, managers, lawyers, professors, etc. Industrialized Europe requires a large professional class, it turns out.

Orwell is smart to point out that, in many ways, quality of life for the working class also improved but this did not correlate to improved wages. There are things the moneyed classes have interest in that unavoidably benefit all of society.

Turns out the middle class needs paved roads with streetlights on them, and then working class people still drive them.

This does not mean the quality of working class life was improving *relative to the middle and upper classes*.

(I will resist the urge to go on my rant about how people defend capitalism because it's "lifted so many out of poverty," where every advancement of science and technology that happened *under* capitalism apparently happened *because* of capitalism.)

(AND YET EVERY ATROCITY THAT HAPPENS UNDER CAPITALISM IS NEVER THE FAULT OF CAPITALISM NOPE NOPE I'M NOT GOING ON THAT RANT RIGHT NOW)

Anyway, what happens in tandem with this expansion of the middle class is the adoption of middle class attitudes by the working class. Cultural homogeneity sets in: middle and working class people are largely consuming the same products and media because both are mass produced.

The point is, while their is still a great injustice in the division between the working and middle class, there is less of a cultural divide between them. And, again, Orwell's thesis is that a feeling of cultural unity is far greater than a political reality.

We begin to see people of indeterminate class, something that was unthinkable only a few decades before. The rich and poor were living life of similar quality, only different scale: the doctor lived in a house of the same style as the janitor, just BIGGER.

(Seems deeply similar to what happened in the US around the 80s, and we're seeing that the end-result of the expansion of the middle class is watching the whole giant affair gradually diminish in wealth.)

(But because conveniences keep coming, all the markers of poverty are spared us. People in tens of thousands of dollars of debt still have HD TVs and watch the same shows as their well-off neighbors.)

(Late capitalism specializes in making people poor without them ever *looking* poor.)

Orwell closes Part I essentially predicting that England will come out of WWII with the traditional class distinctions finally gone, which is arguably true depending on how you define them. His idea that England would come out either fascist or socialist... less so.

But:

"The intellectuals who hope to see it Russianized or Germanized will be disappointed. The gentleness, the hypocrisy, the thoughtlessness, the reverence for law and the hatred of uniforms will remain, along with the suet puddings and misty skies."

It's a compelling way to look at revolution.

Alright, that's the end of Part I, and there's still like 50 pages to the end of the whole essay, so let's stick a pin in this one. #IanLivetweetsHisResearch