George Orwell's Animal Farm Podcast

Today’s episode of the Hardcore Literature Podcast is a long one. A long one for a short book with a huge impact. We’re reviewing, analysing, discussing, and drawing modern day parallels with George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945).

This podcast takes it’s time getting into the book itself, but it’s all relevant. The first 40 minutes of the show are basically my comments about 2020 – politics, lockdowns, and media.

If you don’t want to listen to that stuff, feel free to skip ahead to the Animal Farm book analysis, or choose from any of the topics in the timestamps below the podcast player.

George Orwell’s Animal Farm Podcast

Show Timestamps:

1:57 – #2020
2:45 – why I don’t talk politics
7:30 – going into lockdown on birthday
9:30 – my tinfoil hat conspiracy theories
10:30 – the state of the UK right now
12:45 – that time the FDA told me to stop recommending healthy living
15:30 – dishing some dirt but not naming names
16:00 – the traditional media was dying before this year
19:00 – a lot of people can’t just “work from home”
20:00 – scapegoating – “anti-vaxxer”, “anti-masker”
20:30 – let’s talk vaccinations
23:00 – let’s talk lockdowns
27:00 – let’s talk mental health and students being lied to
35:40 – if you’re struggling at the moment…
37:15 – the Biden/Trump thing
41:33 – finally start talking about Animal Farm
41:45 – allegories, fables, fabula, sjuzet, and anthropomorphism
43:19 – top 3 most bloodthirsty dictatorships of 20^th century (in reverse order of brutality)
47:39 – George Orwell on the freedom of the press
49:10 – T.S. Eliot’s reaction to Animal Farm (lol…)
49:50 – intellectual cowardice and voluntary literary censorship
52:28 – a poem about not speaking out
54:00 – Major’s Hobbesian speech
55:00 – those who want the power should not have the power
56:00 – “Man is the only real enemy we have.”
57:00 – parallels between Animal Farm and the modern Left
58:30 – changing definitions and names
59:00 – “overnight” results
1:02:00 – inter-party cannabilism and tribalism
1:04:03 – the ending of Animal Farm
1:05:00 – the commandments: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
1:07:00 – power, (re)education, religion, literacy, and questioning everything
1:08:00 – socratic discourse vs re-education and rote learning
1:09:30 – theory of linguistic relativity – language influences thoughts
1:11:00 – “Four legs good, two legs bad.”
1:12:12 – complete certainty and censorship
1:15:18 – making things mandatory
1:17:15 – how to get mass compliance/quell rebellion
1:18:52 – struggle sessions, medals, and virtue signalling