I think it’s fine that Ben's query into the Orwell “liberty” quote forked off into the craft of funky spam and the minefields of baby-making, but I’d like to return to the quote itself. Alan raised the spector of it being an Orwell pseudo-quote, and although it turns out that it’s not, the fact that everyone and his cranky sister cites it without a source and that it comes from a piece most people have never read lends a lot to Alan’s point.
First, the quote, if this source, which I provided yesterday, is accurate, is:
If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
On the web (and Harry’s Place), it is often cited this way:
Liberty, if it means anything, is the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.
Now, both mean the same thing, but it has to be granted that someone has either erred or futzed with the words. This means that whoever first typed it out for web consumption was either working from memory (usually a mistake) or suffers from some sort of optic disability. After that, we have thousands (millions?) of people not really quoting Orwell, but quoting someone who has misquoted Orwell.
What this means is there is a literal horde of Orwell “liberty” quoters out there who’ve never read that particular work of Orwell. This is backed up by the work not being a widely distributed one. Oh sure, a lot of people have read Animal Farm; but how many have read the preface to it that was suppressed in most editions?
In context, Orwell was speaking of freedom of the press, specifically in the light of the difficulty of criticizing Stalin in the 40’s. I have to doubt he would have gotten behind the right of some blogger to call Bill Frist a turd.
A few paragraphs above his now famous misquoted quote, Orwell says this:
If the intellectual liberty which without a doubt has been one of the distinguishing marks of western civilisation means anything at all, it means that everyone shall have the right to say and to print what he believes to be the truth, provided only that it does not harm the rest of the community in some quite unmistakable way.
Which is pretty much the same, but with a slight qualifier at the end.
This all may not be in the same ballpark as the “rough men” line Orwell never wrote, but it’s sitting in the parking lot outside, having a tailgate party.
What this means is there is a literal horde of Orwell “liberty” quoters out there who’ve never read that particular work of Orwell.
Caleb McDaniel touches on this in yesterday's Cliopatria post, where he quotes David Bell:
I could have read his book Universal Morality in the rare-book room of my university library, but I decided instead to download a copy (it took about two minutes). And then, faced with a text hundreds of pages long, instead of reading from start to finish, I searched for the words "war" and "peace." I found a great many juicy quotations, which I conveniently cut and pasted directly into my notes. But at the end, I had very little idea of why d'Holbach had written his book in the first place.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at May 20, 2005 02:24 PMYes. That's a problem that turns up in jurisprudence built up by hurried clerks using Lexis and Westlaw text searches. Print is a good thing.
On Orwell specifically I find that although he coined a lot of memorable phrases that can be used tellingly by themselves, the phrases very nearly always meant something more specific in their original context. He didn't string together phrases in what he called the "strips of gummed paper" way. He built them up depending on each other like stones in a mortarless dome. Pull one out and it becomes much less than the sum of its parts.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at May 20, 2005 04:14 PMAh, the reappearance of the Socialist Protectionist Non-Re-Usable Orwell/anyone else Quotes protocal.
Posted by: Airbrushed by the Commissars at May 20, 2005 04:28 PMHuh? Robbie, I don't understand how you manage to see politics in everything I say.
Just because quotes lose value in extraction doesn't mean they should never be used. Certainly a lot of people, including Harry and Gene and also, for example, Bill Moyers, use Orwell quotes to say things I agree with. If you happen to have noticed, sometimes *I* use Orwell quotes to say things I agree with. It's just that Orwell quotes pretty much always lose value by leaving their surroundings, no matter who's using them or why.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at May 20, 2005 05:12 PMOn reflection --
Maybe a more general way of putting it has to do with support vs. illumination. That quotes from existing works are used to richest effect when they're invoking the original work, which the reader is presumed to also know. Like what Hitchens says about the word "Promethean": it's saving words by invoking a widely known story. Whereas presenting a quote denuded of context may convey an interesting sentiment but it doesn't add as much meaning, and it's also open to suspicion that part of the intention is to claim a Great Figure's backing for something the user also happens to believe.
Yeah, I do both kinds of quoting too. We all do.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at May 20, 2005 06:07 PMHuh?
I knew you were going to say 'huh?'
This follows from your idea a while ago--which was much more hardline then--about how quoting is useless and Beckett's good because you can't quote him effectively outside his text (something like that) which actually isn't true because even though he's eye-wateringly overrated he still gives us 'I can't go on, I'll go on.' which does very nicely thank you oustide the text.
The Orwell protectionism thing is probably due to my observation that Orwell fans that are also still Socialists get antsy when Orwell quotes give the impression--correct, in my view--that Orwell wouldn't be a Socialist in today's world.
--and another thing...
I probably see politics in everything you say because you--and the whole leftist movement behind you--see politics in everything *everyone else* says.
So that's why.
Posted by: Airbrushed by the Commissars at May 21, 2005 12:57 AMAs you know, the other AFAIK apocryphal "Orwell quote" is one more frequently used on the left -- the one about how "in a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." If anyone can find a real source for that in the real Complete Works, well... I won't eat my left shoe but I'll think of something.