George Orwell on Political Realism and the Future of Europe

Abstract

George Orwell perceived the possibility of a postwar united Europe, based on regional integration along social-democratic lines, as a means of survival in a world struggle rather than as a preamble to peace. This was the logical conclusion of his understanding of political realism: his endorsement of its assumption that violence is endemic to social life and that the force-wielding sovereign cannot be done away with. Yet Orwell also had reservations about realism. He argued that a purely realist analysis that was not normatively connected to any values outside itself would go astray because analysts would be unable to factor in their own positions and would thus lose the analytic distance from their objects of study. Orwell was thus as suspicious of a politics managed by experts as of the utopian anticipation of a violence-free world. His world-view, rooted in realist necessity while leaving room for the values of democracy and socialism, offered a vision of a postwar united Europe that fostered the spirit of solidarity and could endure the existential struggles of world politics.

Notes

1. McLaughlin, “Orwell, the Academy and the Intellectuals”; Rodden, Every Intellectual’s Big Brother.

2. Heater, European Unity; Burgess, “Federate or Perish”; Prettenhaler-Ziegerhofer, “Richard Nikolaus Coudenhove-Kalergi.”

3. For the trajectory of realism in the twentieth century, see Haslam, No Virtue Like Necessity.

4. For an outline of the different configurations of the encounter between political realism and regional integration, see Newman, Democracy, Sovereignty. For a dissenting opinion on the relationship of realism and national sovereignty, which casts realists as less favourable to the idea of sovereignty than apparent liberals, see Maus, “From nation-state to global state.”

5. This roughly follows Morgan, A European Superstate.

6. Hall, “A ‘shallow piece of naughtiness’”; Cf. Ingle, Social and Political Thought.

7. Shklar, “Should Political Theory Care?” See also Rai, The Politics of Despair.

8. Orwell, Collected Works, 2.111. See also Newsinger, Orwell’s Politics, 96–97.

9. Orwell, Road to Wigan Pier, 81–83.

10. Orwell, Coming Up for Air, and Keep the Aspidistra Flying.

11. Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 515.

12. Ibid., 613–14.

13. Ibid., 539, 477.

14. See Newsinger, Orwell’s Politics, 89–109.

15. Orwell, A Patriot After All, 421–28.

16. Compare with the argument in Horton, “Realism, Liberal Moralism.”

17. See Orwell’s own explanation in Complete Works, 13.309. Cf. Collini, Absent Minds; and McLaughlin, “The Academy and the Intellectuals.”

18. Orwell’s position seems close to Morgenthau’s view of the mismatch between politics and positivist science. It is not surprising to find Morgenthau citing Orwell’s criticism of Carr in Politics among Nations, when he warns against the indeterminacy of power and inaccuracy of political predictions, even when voiced by realists. See, also, Bull, International Society.

19. Jolly, The European Union.

20. Sylvest, British Liberal Internationalism. See also Burgess, “Federate or Perish.”

21. Beveridge, The Price of Peace.

22. Beveridge, Peace by Federation? Most welfare state philosophies are hostile to the Hobbesian world-view, the premises of which they see as incompatible with their own; see Offe, Modernity, 161–70.

23. Hayek, Road to Serfdom, 223–31.

24. Hayek, Constitution of Liberty, 253.

25. Kenealy and Kostagiannis, “Visions of European Union.” This has some correspondence with other integration projects based on realist insights, particularly with Schmitt’s. See MacCormick, “Carl Schmitt’s Europe”; Müller, A Dangerous Mind, 87–103; and Untea, “New Middle Ages?”

26. For an overview of Carr’s view, see Haslam, Vices of Integrity; and Molloy, “Dialectics and Transformation.”

27. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 86, 91–112, 129, 82.

28. See the discussion in Haslam, Vices of Integrity, 86–91.

29. Carr, Mass Democracy, 61–79.

30. Goldfischer, “E. H. Carr.”

31. Carr, Nationalism and After, 45, 49, 73.

32. Ibid., 54, 55, 71.

33. Kenealy and Kostagiannis, “Realist Visions,” 235–37.

34. Orwell, A Patriot After All, 178.

35. This is obviously echoed in Orwell’s fiction; see Newsinger, Orwell’s Politics, 124– 30.

36. Orwell, Complete Works, 17.321. See the discussion in Conquest, “Socialism and the Cold War.”

37. Orwell, A Patriot After All, 381.

38. Ibid., 260.

39. Orwell, The Complete Works, 17.319.

40. Orwell, A Patriot After All, 293, 387–89.

41. Ibid., 458–64.

42. Toynbee, Civilization on Trial, 126–49.

43. Majone, Europe, 202–3.

44. On how “realism” in international relations was severed from its moorings in political theory, see Bell, ‘Introduction.”