美国国家公共电台 NPR What Churchill And Orwell Had In Common: Both Could Say, 'My Side Is Wrong'

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

The journalist Tom Ricks stopped writing about the present to write about the past.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

We have heard Ricks often on this program. His newspaper reports on the U.S. military received two Pulitzer Prizes. One of his books was a takedown of U.S. policies in Iraq. Eventually, he says the wars after 9/11 wore him down, and he left daily journalism¹.

INSKEEP: He moved to an island off the coast of Maine and wrote a history called "Churchill And Orwell" - Winston Churchill, George Orwell, the British prime minister and the author of "1984" among other books. They were very different people except for this - both lived through World War II and shared an outlook.

TOM RICKS: What is striking is at a time not unlike today when people were wondering whether democracy was sustainable, when a lot of people thought you needed authoritarian² rule, either from the right or the left, Orwell and Churchill, from their very different perspectives, come together on a key point - we don't have to have authoritarian government. And in fact, the key question of our time is how do you protect the individual conscience against the modern state? How do you fight for freedom?

INSKEEP: How was it that Churchill began to focus on that question? What was his path?

RICKS: Churchill and Orwell have another commonality here that I love and I think is key. They were both willing to say no, my side is wrong on this.

INSKEEP: Churchill was a member of the Conservative or Tory Party.

RICKS: That's right. And Orwell was a socialist³. Churchill, in the 1930s, breaks with his own party over the issue of Nazi⁴ Germany. Can we live with them? As early as 1933, he gets up in the House of Commons and says the key fact is that Germany is rearming. He was telling an ugly truth that people didn't want to hear and especially his own party, which had settled on a policy of appeasement⁵. We think we can contain Germany, and we don't have enough military strength to confront them.

INSKEEP: And let's just remind people the 1930s is when Hitler has risen to power in Germany. And this is a country that had been defeated in World War I. But he said, we're going to bring Germany back, and we're going to take over larger and larger parts of Europe.

RICKS: And throughout the 1930s, Churchill's getting up and calling attention to that. And for that, he is cast into the political wilderness⁶. He is not allowed into the cabinet, even though he's a prominent member.

INSKEEP: Because he sounded like a warmonger⁷.

RICKS: Because, A, they thought he was a warmonger. B, they thought he was not - clearly not a team player. And C, they thought he was being stupid and silly and was kind of a washed-up politician past his time.

INSKEEP: So Churchill called out the political right. How was it that Orwell came to call out the political left?

RICKS: Orwell's great transformation⁸ comes when he goes to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War...

INSKEEP: As a reporter?

RICKS: ...Late in 1936. Ostensibly, he goes as a reporter. But almost immediately, he signs up to fight for the government there, which is...

INSKEEP: Which is a leftist...

RICKS: ...Republican government, leftist. And he's shocked when he gets back to England that what he reads in the newspapers has nothing to do with what he saw in Spain. And he's also shocked it's not just the conservative newspapers that are printing untruths. It's the leftist newspapers.

INSKEEP: What were they lying about?

RICKS: Well, can I read you a little bit about that?

INSKEEP: Please, go ahead.

RICKS: Quote, "I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors⁹ and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories. And I saw newspapers in London retailing¹⁰ those lies and eager intellectuals building superstructures over events that had never happened."

And this is, I think, one reason that Orwell resonates so much today. Fake news is not a new thing. Putting ideology¹¹ over the truth is not a new thing. It always has happened in politics. And what we see with both Churchill and Orwell is they believed in facts, believed in observation and then believed in applying their principles to those facts.

INSKEEP: What price did they pay for that? You mentioned that Churchill was kept out of the government for years.

RICKS: Churchill was kept out of the government for years to the point that it was almost too late. I mean, we now retrospectively know, of course, Churchill becomes prime minister and leads his country to victory.

INSKEEP: World War II started off very badly and they finally needed a new leader, and they picked Churchill.

RICKS: And his own party really still doesn't back him, doesn't trust him. And there are a lot of people around him who think the smart move, again, would be to negotiate a peace with the Nazis¹². And he says no.

INSKEEP: What did it cost George Orwell to be criticizing the left when he was on the left?

RICKS: Orwell becomes more and more remote. He lives his last few years on an island in the inner Hebrides, windswept, rainswept, cold. He carries a pistol because he has lost friends to the Russian spies in Spain. And he's worried that they're going to attack him as well - a little paranoid maybe, but not too paranoid. In fact, one reason he found it difficult to get his great book "Animal Farm" published was a guy named Peter Smollett in the British government advised publishers not to publish it.

INSKEEP: Wow.

RICKS: We now know that Peter Smollett was working for the Russians.

INSKEEP: I don't want to give away the ending of your book, but I'm about to ask you to give away the ending of your book. Would you read the final paragraph of this joint¹³ biography of Churchill and Orwell?

RICKS: Thank you for asking for that because these last few pages of this book are really my journalistic will and testament¹⁴, what I think journalism is important for. And remember, these two guys are both journalists. Churchill's a politician, but he makes his living by writing.

INSKEEP: Yeah.

RICKS: (Reading) The struggle to see things as they are is perhaps the fundamental driver of Western civilization. There is a long but direct line from Aristotle and Archimedes to Locke, Hume, Mill and Darwin and from there through Orwell and Churchill to Martin Luther King writing his "Letter From Birmingham City Jail." It is the agreement that objective reality exists, that people of goodwill¹⁵ can perceive it and that other people will change their views when presented with the facts of the matter.

INSKEEP: Do you think that we as a society still agree on that?

RICKS: No, I don't think we do. Increasingly, Americans seem to believe that you can have your own facts, you can ignore the evidence. And this is not just a hit on the right. This is a hit on the left as well. And related to that, I see less support for a fundamental view of free speech as key to our society. But when I see people on the left saying it's OK to punch Nazis on the streets, I really disagree with that.

INSKEEP: Or push them out of college campuses.

RICKS: It worries me. Free speech for the marginalized, the abused and even for the repugnant is essential.

INSKEEP: Thomas E. Ricks is the author of "Churchill And Orwell: The Fight For Freedom." Thanks very much for coming by.

RICKS: You're welcome.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUM SONG, "GREEN GRASS OF TUNNEL")

1 journalism   

n.新闻工作，报业

参考例句：

• He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师，可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
• He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。

2 authoritarian   

n./adj.专制(的)，专制主义者，独裁主义者

参考例句：

• Foreign diplomats suspect him of authoritarian tendencies.各国外交官怀疑他有着独裁主义倾向。
• The authoritarian policy wasn't proved to be a success.独裁主义的政策证明并不成功。

3 socialist   

n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的

参考例句：

• China is a socialist country,and a developing country as well.中国是一个社会主义国家，也是一个发展中国家。
• His father was an ardent socialist.他父亲是一个热情的社会主义者。

4 Nazi   

n.纳粹分子，adj.纳粹党的，纳粹的

参考例句：

• They declare the Nazi regime overthrown and sue for peace.他们宣布纳粹政权已被推翻，并出面求和。
• Nazi closes those war criminals inside their concentration camp.纳粹把那些战犯关在他们的集中营里。

5 appeasement   

n.平息，满足

参考例句：

• Music is an appeasement to shattered nerves. 音乐可抚慰受重创的神经。
• There can be no appeasement with ruthlessness. 对残暴行为是不能姑息的。 来自演讲部分

6 wilderness   

n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠

参考例句：

• She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

7 warmonger   

n.战争贩子，好战者，主战论者

参考例句：

• The president is not a warmonger.这位总统并非好战分子。
• Since he did not start the war, no one accuses him of being a warmonger.他没有发动战争，所以，没有人可以称他为好战分子。

8 transformation   

n.变化；改造；转变

参考例句：

• Going to college brought about a dramatic transformation in her outlook.上大学使她的观念发生了巨大的变化。
• He was struggling to make the transformation from single man to responsible husband.他正在努力使自己由单身汉变为可靠的丈夫。

9 traitors   

卖国贼( traitor的名词复数 )； 叛徒； 背叛者； 背信弃义的人

参考例句：

• Traitors are held in infamy. 叛徒为人所不齿。
• Traitors have always been treated with contempt. 叛徒永被人们唾弃。

10 retailing   

n.零售业v.零售(retail的现在分词)

参考例句：

• career opportunities in retailing 零售业的职业机会
• He is fond of retailing the news. 他喜欢传播消息。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 ideology   

n.意识形态，(政治或社会的)思想意识

参考例句：

• The ideology has great influence in the world.这种思想体系在世界上有很大的影响。
• The ideal is to strike a medium between ideology and inspiration.我的理想是在意识思想和灵感鼓动之间找到一个折衷。

12 Nazis   

n.（德国的）纳粹党员( Nazi的名词复数 )；纳粹主义

参考例句：

• The Nazis worked them over with gun butts. 纳粹分子用枪托毒打他们。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The Nazis were responsible for the mass murder of Jews during World War Ⅱ. 纳粹必须为第二次世界大战中对犹太人的大屠杀负责。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

14 testament   

n.遗嘱；证明

参考例句：

• This is his last will and testament.这是他的遗愿和遗嘱。
• It is a testament to the power of political mythology.这说明，编造政治神话可以产生多大的威力。

15 goodwill   

n.善意，亲善，信誉，声誉

参考例句：

• His heart is full of goodwill to all men.他心里对所有人都充满着爱心。
• We paid ￡10,000 for the shop,and ￡2000 for its goodwill.我们用一万英镑买下了这家商店，两千英镑买下了它的信誉。