ORWELL RECONSIDERED
19
ent, and
if
proof
is
required of this it lies in the fact that no answer
to a question of the first kind could
be
an answer to a question of
the second kind. For if it could be, then it would be possible to rule
out
by
definition
the possibility of an
x's
being what it oughtn't to
be,
or, more simply, of a bad
x:
which is an evident absurdity.
Now it is no part of my case to defend Orwell from a charge
of philosophical naivete. But, after all, it is I, not Orwell, who
formulated the question in this seemingly objectionable way, and
since I have argued that the case for
The Road to Wigan Pier
hangs on this question,
it
is undeniably my task to explain what I
understand by it.
We might put it like this: A certain number of people (per–
haps ourselves included) are in the habit of describing themselves
as socialists. At elections there is every reason to believe that they
vote for a Socialist candidate or the nearest thing they can find.
The question now arises, over and above voting Socialist-and, of
course saying that they are socialists-what makes them socialists?
Or are these two things enough? Do they by themselves constitute
a belief in socialism?
If
they do, then a belief in socialism seems to
be,
in the first place, something easy to come by, and, secondly,
curiously unconnected with the great practical problems to which
socialism is supposed to relate. But, then,
if
these things do not
constitute a belief in socialism, what more is required?
The question is a salutary one. As the barest minimum it must
have the following effect on anyone who considers it at all serious–
ly: that either he will require more of someone before he regards
him as a socialist, or he will attach rather less weight to the as–
signment of political belief. It was characteristic of the 'thirties, at
any rate in England, that they at one and the same time distributed
political labels (both honorific and pejorative) with greater liberal–
ity than had traditionally been the case, and also set greater store
by these labels. Orwell was, if anyone ever was, a child of his age,
but in posing what I have called the central problem of
The Road
to Wigan Pier
he provided a solvent for some of the worst super–
stitions of
his
contemporaries.
Orwell's concern is, then, not so much with socialism as with
