How is it that conservatives can use the novel Animal Farm against socialism?
Animal Farm is a book about the dangers of totalitarianism. The farm animals unite around good ideals (Orwell at least accepts the ideals as good), but allows a few of their number, the pigs, to control everything. All that is bad in the book comes from the authoritarianism of the pigs, not from any sort of socialism.
For the record, George Orwell was a Democratic Socialist, i.e. he supported a form of government wherein all productive property is collectively, in some way or another, and government is by democratic representation.
This is in opposition to the Stalinist bureaucratic socialism, which the book critiques, of the USSR. There are bureaucratic dictatorship governed while the state owned all productive property.
I think you can see the difference in the two positions. Orwell was drawing attention to the fact that authoritarianism, no matter its nominal ideology, is not the way to go, and has nasty consequences.
THE QUESTION REALLY STARTS HERE (what preceded is background that would be general knowledge if our educational system were a touch better).
Conservatives use Animal Farm without really understanding its purpose or its logic. If you take it to be some slight against socialism go back and read it, point to me where there was anything that damages the Democratic Socialist edifice. It was a tract against Stalinism and and Soviet apologists.
Nearly everyone (now if not in the mid-century) can agree that bureaucratic socialism is bad. That is the end of the critique of Animal Farm.
When people use it for the purpose of denigrating egalitarian endeavors have they not read the book, have they not understood it? How is it that they use it? How can they feel justified in using it? Help me please.
I meant Animal Farm. 1984 for whatever reason is thrown around less it seems, probably because it is not so transparently satire of bureaucratic socialism.
If you aren't familiar with Animal Farm, here's a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm
<Shovel Ready> I tried to explain why I thought Animal Farm wasn't a useful tool against democratic socialist (and by extension social democratic) policies in my question. Can you explain to me why "Obots" would benefit from reading a critique of Stalinism?
<thor_torkinson> If you enter the three terms, Animal Farm and Obama, into google you will get over 700,000 hits. While I am sure a lot of these are coincidental, from the first few pages, it seems that it is a fairly popular point to make that "if Democrats would just read Animal Farm they would understand why they are wrong." I am just pointing out a misunderstanding.