Some Observations on the Last Post

Mr McClarey makes a few observations regarding Mr Price's essay on Orwell. I agree 100% with Mr McClarey's analysis.

From The American Catholic

By Donald R. McClarey

A few observations:

1) Orwell was a man of the Left who gradually became horrified by much that was occurring on the Left. When he went to fight for the Republic that process was in its early stages.

2) Orwell had the traditional, since the Reformation, English antipathy to Catholicism. Add to that Leftism and it was hard for him to work up any sympathy for Catholicism or Catholics. To put it bluntly, Orwell had a deep prejudice against believing Catholics.

3) Orwell was a highly intelligent observer of Britain, but he knew bang all about Spain. He wasn’t alone in that ignorance, as almost all contemporary writings from the Left and the Right in Britain about the Spanish Civil War conjure up the phrase Invincible Ignorance.

4) His Homage to Catalonia tells us a great deal about his own intellectual development, but his observations as to what was actually going on in Spain remind me of the musings of British men and women of the right who took part in some of the Nationalist tours of battlefields organized prior to the end of the war, ie not of much value. The one exception is Orwell’s account of the Communist successful effort to snuff out the Trotskyite POUM.

5) Faithful readers of this blog know that I generally think highly of Orwell as an opponent of totalitarianism but such admiration does not blind me to his flaws, and in his writings on the Spanish Civil War some of his worst flaws are amply on display.