Some nerds were doing that thing where 40k fans are like “OH NO SEXZ IS HERESY!” when it’s pretty definitively not and is basically one of the only things in 40k that isn’t heretical (as long as you’re not doing evil slannesh shit) and it got me thinking about repression of sex under “in bad country regimes”.
And a whoooooooooooooooooooooooooole fucking thing in 1984 was how liberating and humanizing it was that the author’s grungy middle aged self-insert was boning a 19 year old member of the Junior Anti-Sex League, and, like… America has several thousand different Junior Anti-Sex League and I’m not sure if the USSR ever had any? Like, yeah, maybe they did, but under capitalism Americans have literally convinced themselves they’ll go to hell if they see a tiddy and the English famously just hate joy. So what the fuck was Orwell trying to critique with his “Junior Anti-Sex League” in spoooooky Stalinist England?
I dunno, saying this is admiration is a mischaracterization. It is possible to find someone charismatic without admiring them. I mean, Orwell literally says he would kill Hitler if he had the chance - a sentiment I would not associate with an admirer.
You are correct. Orwell sucked and all, but saying he admired Hitler is at best stretching the meaning of his words and at worst outright slander; I see this take way too often in tankie spaces.
That said, I do find it kinda weird that he found Hitler having a persecution complex “deeply appealing”. I think most well adjusted people would find Hitler to be a pissy little insufferable brat even if he didn’t do the Holocaust.
It is deeply weird that Hitler was so effective as a politician, but then Trump is effective as a politician and that is also deeply weird. And Hitler was at least provably literate, at least enough to write a book.