George Orwell: You Anti-Green Writer, You

Weekend Libertarian ^ | May 18, 2011 | B.P. Terpstra

[AustralianConservative]

From Orwell’s A Clergyman’s Daughter (h/t Hitchens):

Nowadays, a clergyman who wants to keep his congregation has only two courses open to him. Either it must be Anglo-Catholicism pure and simple – or rather, pure and not simple; or he must be daringly modern and broad-minded and preach comforting sermons providing there is no Hell and all good religions are the same.

Incidentally, Jesus would agree. While poking fun at effeminate religious types in robes, he would also have little time for dumb men absolutely opposed to absolutes (a contradiction in terms).

But I digress. In his book review for The Way of A Countryman (1944), Orwell also rejected the romanticism of nature: “The fact is that those who really have to deal with nature have no cause to be in love with it.” For Orwell (like yours truly) lived in the country and understood nature for what it was and is: an erratic...goddess.

As well, he opposed appeasement (although one has to if one is to be taken seriously as an adult). From Notes on Nationalism (1945):

The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States…

[AustralianConservative]

http://weekendlibertarian.blogspot.com/2011/05/george-orwell-you-anti-green-writer-you.html

[Inyo-Mono]

Orwell also rejected the romanticism of nature: “The fact is that those who really have to deal with nature have no cause to be in love with it.”

That's a fact, something the city dwelling Sierra Clubbers don't understand.

[AustralianConservative]

True. I honestly think some people can’t differentiate between an edited nature documentary and real life nature.

[nonsporting]

Either it must be Anglo-Catholicism pure and simple – or rather, pure and not simple; or he must be daringly modern and broad-minded and preach comforting sermons providing there is no Hell and all good religions are the same. Incidentally, Jesus would agree.

When an author loses his mount out of the gate, there is no reason to read further.

He presents us with false choices: Anglo-Catholicism or liberal (apostate) "christianity." Calvinists argue this way as well: They say it's either Calvinism or Armenianism, as if there is no other possibility.