Animal Farm: Reviewing the classic

This is perhaps one of the most famous books of all time, and I heard about it countless times but kept delaying its reading. Finally dug into it, and it was even better than I expected. It tells the story of a farm where the animals rebel against their tyrannical farmer and set up their own society.

It’s a very obvious parallel with the Soviet Union. In the story, the community was initially bonded over the vision of equality and prosperity, but things tended to decay, and power structures were soon created, in which corruption came along.

What I absolutely loved about the book was the nuance I encountered. Despite being of course anti-communist in many aspects, you can nevertheless tell there is a big respect for what it stands for and does not shy away from the problems it tried to solve, as evident by the fact that Orwell was a socialist, which a lot of conservatives who blindly reference the book tend to ignore.

It doesn’t quite fit the narrative of the left or the right very well. While it does critique and even mock the communism revolution, it’s certainly not pro-capitalism, or pro-hierarchy. Notwithstanding, it also does a brilliant job of showing how reactionary thinking almost inevitably leads to many of the atrocities humanity witnessed in the 20th century.

While Orwell was aiming at Stalin more specifically, it’s clear in the book that he didn’t lay blame at any specific individual for the fact that it got corrupted. Although Stalin was certainly evil beyond measure and made everything worse, it’s clear in the book that Orwell realizes that the system itself has a tendency to bring such people into charge, both in pragmatic problems of social organization and the narrative that it uses to frame the revolution and progress.

Definitely a fantastic book that will hopefully be read forever. The character Boxer (the workhorse) was one of my favorites of any book for a million different reasons, and I will never forget it. “I will work harder!”.

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I also have a philosophy podcast. If you want to check it out look for Anagoge Podcast.

Tiago V.F.