Status Updates From Politics and the English La...

'Why I Write' is a really good essay but it just abruptly stops.

This essay is about Jonathon Swift, who wrote 'Gulliver's Travels'. It's funny how Orwell wrote so much distaste for the book to the point where I don't want to read it but it's revealed that he actually loves the book, even if he disagrees with it politically and its author.

Orwell examines how Jonathon Swift is a reactionary and how is book, Gulliver's Travels, is simply a grievance surrounding his opinions on politics.

Orwell's essay deeply affected me. I've highlighted passages, written notes - both on the Kobo and on my phone - and looked back upon my own actions.

I'm going to be writing more detailed physical notes tomorrow morning using my previous notes. And, hopefully, I'll be doing this with nearly all new books in the future.

Please read 'Politics and the English Language'.

Orwell laments at the 'decline' of the English language, which is a self-fulfilling cycle as the reduction of language causes simpler and stupider thoughts.

I think this is where the concept of newspeak comes from. Reduced vocabulary creates reduced ideas.
Later, he will argue how to reverse this trend.

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happened here to them all.