[acatnamedjoe]

I don't think Orwell was ever a "man of ideas" and I don't think he would have seen himself as such either.

His writing is partly journalistic, partly literary.He's never really trying to assemble a coherent ideological or philosophical argument.

He's reporting what he sees and reflecting on the world he lives in and his place in it. He can see profound problems and injustices, but is deeply skeptical that any of the ideologies of his time provide solutions. But he is also acutely aware, I think, that he doesn't really have any better ideas. There's a profound anxiety and uncertainty than runs throughout Orwell's writing.

For me, this is what makes him a good writer. Judging him on not being "properly" socialist or anti-imperialist or whatever is completely missing the point.

[nortonham]

> Judging him on not being "properly" socialist or anti-imperialist or whatever is completely missing the point.

But there are people who put him on the pedestal. His claimed by the left, and western leftists love to argue over who is "more socialist" than the other. His time in Spain, books like Animal Farm and 1984...they're held up as examples of Orwell being a better leftist than others.