To Orwell Today,

Hello,

I wonder what you think about Orwell's essay on Anti-Semitism in Britain?

I think it is interesting. I believe that Orwell was trying to say that Jews are often used as a 'bogeyman' that can be blamed for many number of ills, so as to divert attention from the real cause of many problems, as Hitler did. I think he chose the name Goldstein specifically in 1984 because he saw that a lot of people think the Jews are this all encompassing malevolent force rather than individuals, some good some bad.

Like his quote from said essay - "Plenty of people who are quite capable of being objective about sea urchins, say, or the square root of 2, become schizophrenic if they have to think about the sources of their own income." -

I think it is human nature to want to have something concrete, identifyable that you can blame everything on and it is also a way of dehumanizing people so that they are a term, an object, an enemy, rather than individuals with differing opinions etc.

What is your opinion of his essay?

Thank you,
Dina S.

Greetings Dina,

I assume the essay you are talking about is Orwell's AS I PLEASE columm for Tribune, February 11, 1944.

One of the main points he seems to be making is that anti-semitism in Britain is a reality that should be talked about in the open and that it isn't just lunatics and Hitler who can be accused of it. Here's an excerpt:

"...Recently I happened to review some books dealing with the persecution of the Jews in medieval and modern Europe. The review brought me the usual wad of antisemitic letters....The disquieting thing about these letters is that they do not all come from lunatics. I don't greatly mind the person who believes in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion....But in addition to these types there is the small business or professional man who is firmly convinced that the Jews bring all their troubles upon themselves by underhand business methods and complete lack of public spirit. These people write reasonable, well-balanced letters, disclaim any belief in racialism, and back up everything they say with copious instances. They admit the existence of 'good Jews', and usually declare (Hitler says just the same in Mein Kampf) that they did not start out with any anti-Jewish feeling but have been forced into it simply by observing how Jews behave....

Antisemitism flourishes especially among literary men. Without even getting up from this table to consult a book I can think of passages in Villon, Shakespeare, Smollett, Thackeray, H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, T. S. Eliot and many another which would be called antisemitic if they had been written since Hitler came to power. Both Belloc and Chesterton flirted, or something more than flirted, with antisemitism, and other writers whom it is possible to respect have swallowed it more or less in its Nazi form. Clearly the neurosis lies very deep, and just what it is that people hate when they say that they hate a non-existent entity called "the Jews" is still uncertain. And it is partly the fear of finding out how widespread antisemitism is that prevents it from being seriously investigated...."

I don't think anyone knows for sure why Orwell chose Goldstein - a Jew - to be the "all encompassing malevolent force" in 1984. See GOLDSTEIN'S CONSPIRACY FOR WORLD DOMINATION. Some people have accused Orwell of being anti-semetic because of it. But as Orwell himself has said, even Shakespeare - a fellow literary man - has been accused of anti-semitism.

To answer your question about my opinion of Orwell's essay, I found it instructional and interesting as I do almost all of everything he wrote.

All the best,
Jackie Jura

PS - The above AS I PLEASE article was later developed into the ORWELLIAN ANTI-SEMITISM essay which, on second thought, is probably the one you were referring to.