Stats for nerds
2recommend
6mentions
3people
2016–2026years
67% recommend33% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I really do think the class system holds us back as a society in Britain, George Orwell had a lot to say on this subject in England your England and I fear the decline he describes in the 1940s only accelerated through the 20th century and into the 21st. That essay is a good read for anyone interested in the topic, although of course much has happened since it was written.
I resented being constantly 'corrected' on the local accent I was picking up from school as a child, but now I appreciate that an RP or close to RP accent turns down the difficulty slider in certain British interactions.
- England your England by George Orwell is essential background reading for understanding why the UK looks the way it does in my opinion.
- George Orwell had a lot to say on this sort of subject in his essay England your England, a lot of it rings true even to this day.
- I adore Orwell. The second chapter of The Road to Wigan Pier (separately published in the excellent essay collection 'Inside The Whale'), which describes the working conditions of coal miners in the North of England, is one of the greatest pieces of journalistic writing in history [1]. In fact the whole book is very good, and contrary to this article I think only a fool would not find it relevant to the modern day - especially in its discussion of utopianism and the post-work society.
In general, the fact that Orwell is remembered in the public consciousness as the 1984 guy is a shame (and is particularly jarring when right wing populists invoke his name to decry people who try and get them to stop lying).
Orwell's essay 'England Your England' (the first part of 'The Lion and the Unicorn') is perhaps his piece which is dearest to my heart, as a patriotic but anti-reactionary Englishman. However, of broader appeal are 'Shooting an Elephant' and 'A Hanging' - essays which expose the brutal workings of colonialism better than any jargon-laden journal of post-colonial theory ever could.
But that's just the start when it comes to Orwell. I don't think the man wrote anything not worth reading and at his best he was near-untouchable in his ability to capture in the written word a society and its injustices.
- >A hopelessly out of touch political class
Orwell pointed this out in England your England which was written during the Blitz. Many of the problems he described have only got worse in the decades since he wrote about them in my opinion. While the essay is a bit dated now (it predates the post-war era of globalisation for example which created new axes in UK politics) I still think it's essential background reading for people who want to know what's wrong with the UK, and it's an excellent example of political writing in general.
- "But the famous ‘insularity’ and ‘xenophobia’ of the English is far stronger in the working class than in the bourgeoisie. In all countries the poor are more national than the rich, but the English working class are outstanding in their abhorrence of foreign habits. Even when they are obliged to live abroad for years they refuse either to accustom themselves to foreign food or to learn foreign languages. Nearly every Englishman of working-class origin considers it effeminate to pronounce a foreign word correctly."
From George Orwell - England Your England http://orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/e_eye
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