The enduring Orwell, rationality, and the simplicity of the war in Ukraine
Plus: being on TV with Darren Grimes
Since I’ll be away on holiday for a few weeks (I’ll be back properly on October 2), I am giving in to self-indulgence and scheduling some posts to share a few old (non-Substack) pieces and appearances of mine, just to keep things running during my absence.
One of these posts you are seeing right now, in the future, while I, also in the future, am reclining on a sun lounger or otherwise (un)usefully employed somewhere (and of course I am saying all this to you from the past).
And so we begin with…
The enduring Orwell (The Spectator Australia, July 1, 2023 issue—in print and online)
One of the things I most enjoy about George Orwell is his love of tobacco. It was essential to him all his life, even near the end when his lungs were failing (Nineteen Eighty-Four was typed up on Jura in a bedroom hazy with cigarette smoke). My preferred instance of this love, however, is his lament in Homage to Catalonia that, on the frontlines of the Spanish Civil War, ‘[t]he shortage of tobacco was the worst of all’ – not, you note, the shortages of food and clothes (or the threat of Fascist snipers).
In a world where smoking, while still more common among the poor, is demonised and nigh outlawed by snivelling health officials, it is quite a delight to recall a time when cigarettes were as ordinary and as everyday as smartphones are now.
There is, then, a tension between Orwell’s moorings in time and his continuing relevance – and this is the key, I think, to why he remains such a popular writer. Many of the battles he fought seem almost like ancient history, and yet Orwell remains. The Etonian ‘rebel in love with 1910’ (Cyril Connolly’s crisp – and apt – description of his friend) who frequently and sometimes rather moistly valourised a pre-first world war Edwardian utopia, the radical internationalist socialist who venerated English tradition and patriotism – he still speaks to us even now. Why is this? Because, I think, of the way he conducted himself and for what he struggled to uphold – namely, the freedom of the individual and the need for moral decency in a world riven by terror and evil and bigotry.
Continue reading here.
And photos of the magazine version, because I can never quite get over seeing my name in actual print.
Steven Pinker—Rationality (Two for Tea podcast, May 2022)
Another of the Two for Tea conversations I occasionally co-hosted with my friend and Areo Magazine editor Iona Italia. This time: Steven Pinker on his then-new book, Rationality.
See also here.
The Russo-Ukrainian War: A Very Simple Conflict (Merion West, August 29, 2023)
An excerpt.
In the end, the rights and wrongs of the Russo-Ukrainian War are very simple: a democratic nation with a long multicultural history, struggling towards a progressive and internationalist future, was invaded by its fascistic, imperialist neighbor, which then proceeded to massacre its way through Ukraine and steal its children. The Ukrainian side is the only side to be on and the Ukrainian people should be supported for as long as they need and desire to be. Some things really are that simple.
Continue reading here.
And finally: a GB News duology
Yes, yes, I know. But it’s not all bad (and, when I was on it, it hadn’t quite degenerated into the pit that it is now…)
First up, I made an appearance as an audience member of Andrew Doyle’s Free Speech Nation show around September 2021 (his first one with a live audience, I think). I’m told my joke didn’t go down too well with some, and my friends like to quote it back at me to make me look like a bin Ladenist. It was just a joke! Albeit one containing a serious-ish point.
Now that I think about it, though, perhaps the month of the 20th anniversary of 9/11 wasn’t the best moment to make such a joke… It’ll probably come back to bugger me one day, but oh well, it’s kind of funny. Forgive how red and sweaty I am. See here.
And my appearance as a guest on Darren Grimes’s GB News show on May 28, 2022, where a student and I debated the state of free speech on campus. My first proper TV appearance, I suppose, and it was quite interesting seeing the behind-the-scenes of how these things work. There was a lot more I wanted to say but the format didn’t allow for in-depth discussion (I like to think Grimes was a bit nonplussed by my perspective, though). I don’t think I did too badly, overall, but I have yet to be invited on TV again, which may or may not be suggestive.
YouTube could have been a bit more forgiving with that thumbnail…
The above video is my own recording; this link goes to the relevant timestamp on the original video.
And that’s all, folks! See you on October 2.