Tag Archives: George Orwell

RKS British Literature: Booze as the Cement of the British Empire (George Orwell)

“There’s a kind of spurious good fellowship between the English and this country. It’s a tradition to booze together and swap meals and pretend to be friends, though we hate each other like poison. Hanging together we call it. It’s a political necessity. Of course, drink is what keeps the machine going. We should allContinue reading “RKS British Literature: Booze as the Cement of the British Empire (George Orwell)”

RKS British Literature: A Public Bar in London: Home of Proletarians (George Orwell)

“Gordon shoved open the door of the public bar, Ravelston following. Ravelston persuaded himself that he was fond of pubs, especially low-class pubs. Pubs are genuinely proletarian. In a pub you can meet the working class on equal terms-or that’s the theory anyway. But in practice Ravelston never went into a pub unless he wasContinue reading “RKS British Literature: A Public Bar in London: Home of Proletarians (George Orwell)”

RKS British Literature: A Covert Socialist Embarrassed with His Wealth (George Orwell)

“But in some ways Ravelston was not even like a moneyed person. The fatty degeneration of the spirit which goes with wealth had missed him, or he had escaped it by conscious effort. Indeed his whole life was a struggle to escape it. It was for this reason that he gave up his time andContinue reading “RKS British Literature: A Covert Socialist Embarrassed with His Wealth (George Orwell)”

RKS British Literature: Master and Beggars in Burma! (George Orwell)

“No natives in this Club! It’s by constantly giving way over small things like that we’ve ruined the Empire. This country’s only rotten with sedition because we’ve been too soft with them. The only possible policy is to treat em like the dirt they are. This is a critical moment, and we want every bitContinue reading “RKS British Literature: Master and Beggars in Burma! (George Orwell)”

RKS British Literature: A British Colonialist’s Hatred of Orientals (George Orwell)

“Ellis really did hate Orientals-hated them with a bitter, restless loathing as of something evil or unclean. Living and working, as the assistant of a timber firm must, in perpetual contact with the Burmese, he had never grown used to the sight of a black face. Any hint of friendly feeling towards an Oriental seemedContinue reading “RKS British Literature: A British Colonialist’s Hatred of Orientals (George Orwell)”

RKS British Literature: Advertising the Dirtiest Ramp Produced by Capitalism (George Orwell)

“The interesting thing about the New Albion was that it was so completely modern in spirit. There was hardly a soul in the firm who was not perfectly aware that publicity-advertising- is the dirtiest ramp capitalism has yet produced. In the red lead firm there had still lingered certain notions of commercial honour and usefulness.Continue reading “RKS British Literature: Advertising the Dirtiest Ramp Produced by Capitalism (George Orwell)”

RKS British Literature: Two Ways of Living (George Orwell)

“There are two ways to live. You can be rich, or you can deliberately refuse to be rich. You can possess money, or you can despise money; the one fatal thing is to worship money and fail to get it. He took it for granted that he himself would never be able to make money.Continue reading “RKS British Literature: Two Ways of Living (George Orwell)”

RKS British Literature: Don’t Fight the British Colonizers of Burma: Be a Parasite (George Orwell)

“U Po Kyin’s earliest memory, back in the eighties, was of standing, a naked pot-bellied child, watching the British troops march victorious into Mandalay. He remembered the terror he had felt of those columns of great beef-fed men, red faced and red-coated; and the long rifles over their shoulders, and the heavy, rhythmic tramp ofContinue reading “RKS British Literature: Don’t Fight the British Colonizers of Burma: Be a Parasite (George Orwell)”

RKS British Literature: British Worship of the Money-God (George Orwell)

“The types he saw all round him, especially the older men, made him squirm. That was what it meant to worship the money-god! To settle down, to Make Good, to sell your soul for a villa and an aspidistra! To turn into the little bowler-hatted sneak-Strube’s ‘little man’-the little docile cit who slips home byContinue reading “RKS British Literature: British Worship of the Money-God (George Orwell)”

RKS British Literature: Money Worship as New Religion (George Orwell)

“What he realized, and more clearly as time went on, was that money-worship has been elevated into a religion. Perhaps it is the only real religion -the only really felt religion-that is left to us. Money is what God used to be. Good and evil have no meaning any longer except failure and success. HenceContinue reading “RKS British Literature: Money Worship as New Religion (George Orwell)”