See always has some great commentary. In this one he discusses an article that attempts to paint George Orwell as a “misogynist, sadistic, homophobic and sometimes violent”. The point goes to a deeper than Vee does. It speaks of where we are in society with the attempts to cancel historic figures because they were not perfect by modern standards. I have heard of efforts to remove statues of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington because they owned slaves. Of course the practice of slavery is repugnant. These historic figures should not be glorified for those acts but at the same time we cannot simply dismiss the great things they accomplished due to their flaws of character. They were simply a part of the world they were born into. One could even argue that some of the accomplishments of these founding fathers laid the foundation of what would eventually end slavery. Regardless, just because a historic figure was not perfect, you should not dismiss the actual contributions to society that they made. These founders are not being glorified for their flaws but rather the great things they did. Same goes with Orwell. Was he perfect?…who is? He just wrote some very compelling stories that live on well after his passing. Similar with Mark Twain. His stories had language that was typical of the time they were written but seem highly racist today. The stories are still great. There is a concerted effort to rewrite books these days to make the language acceptable to today’s standards. Sounds a lot like Winston Smith’s job in 1984.
