When you meet anyone in the flesh you realize immediately that he is a human being & not a sort of caricature embodying certain ideas. It is partly for that reason that I don’t mix much in literary circles, because I know from experience that once I have met & spoken to anyone I shall never again be able to show any intellectual brutality towards him, even when I feel that I ought to.
3 thoughts on “George Orwell on Blog Comments, 1938”
Comments are closed.
Why waste time on people, when it’s the ideas that matter?
And why be brutal, when you can hand someone a series of questions and let them demolish their ideas at their leisure?
C. Smith, “brutal” and “intellectually brutal” are two different things.
If one is certain that one KNOWs something, confident in one’s intellect, and it’s clearly demonstrated that one’s thought process has been inadequate to the task of comprehending the subject…..that can be pretty brutal.
But, C Smith, what good are ideas without people?
And Lex, to apply this quote to the present day represents very stale, destructive thinking.
Have a nice day.