doctor disease

[John Halle]

>
> As vituperative prejudice goes, ya gotta admit this is mostly sterling stuff!
>
> Here's another favourite Orwellism of mine, one which I've cherished ever
> since my erstwhile love, Cultural Studies, decided that language was the
> ultimate problem and, always the rebel, duly resolved never to express
> itself in anything recognisable as such again:
>
> "If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of
> orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you
> make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself.
>

And isn't it annoying that Orwell himself (arguably) invented the
field of Cultural Studies with his Boys' Weeklies essay.


> From: Christopher Rhoades =?iso-8859-1?Q?D=FFkema?= <crdbronx at erols.com>
> Subject: Re: doctor disease
>
> As I recall from reading Orwell in about 1962, he saw the Labour party people
> he described as socially marginal, outré, quirky, and a bit nutty. There was
> an implied contrast to the good solid working- and middle-classes with
> reliable anal characters.

Well yes, but O. also had contempt for the fellow traveler-
technocratic-vanguardist wing of the LP-e.g. Kingley Martin, Harold Laski,
Konni Zilliacus, Claud Cockburn (who he shows to be a liar in Homage to
Catalonia and Alex has been trying to settle the score ever since) etc.
I assume this is who he is identifying as "LP backstairs crawlers." Hardly
"nutty" or "outre."  Devious is probably a better word.

John