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George Orwell
"It is often argued, at least by people who admit the importance of subject-matter, that a book cannot be ‘good’ if it expresses a palpably false view of life. We are told that in our own age, for instance, any book that has genuine literary merit will also be more or less ‘progressive’ in tendency. This ignores the fact that throughout history a similar struggle between progress and reaction has been raging, and that the best books of any one age have always been written from several different viewpoints, some of them palpably more false than others. In so far as a writer is a propagandist, the most one can ask of him is that he shall genuinely believe in what he is saying, and that it shall not be something blazingly silly. To-day, for example, one can imagine a good book being written by a Catholic, a Communist, a Fascist, pacifist, an anarchist, perhaps by an old-style Liberal or an ordinary Conservative: one cannot imagine a good book being written by a spiritualist, a Buchmanite or a member of the Ku-Klux-KIan. The views that a writer holds must be compatible with sanity, in the medical sense, and with the power of continuous thought: beyond that what we ask of him is talent, which is probably another name for conviction."



It made me think of Dakka, because of the number of people who will condemn a source for being biased, or defend a source because everything is biased. I don't think that's a very useful approach, I accept that every source will show bias, and don't believe being free from bias is either possible or useful. What matters is that a writer's "shall genuinely believe in what he is saying, and that it shall not be something blazingly silly".

Anyway, it's an argument I have tried making here a lot of times, but never expressed very clearly. Then Orwell goes and does what Orwell does best, writes it in clear English.

sebster, I am dissapoint. This should be in YMDC.

What matters is that a writer's "shall genuinely believe in what he is saying, and that it shall not be something blazingly silly".

Is this the George Orwell quote? If so, can sources still be challenged by proving them factually false or contradictory to other sources? What I means to say is, the fact that someone truly 'believes' what they are writing shouldn't be admissable as water tight evidence. And in regards to writings that are 'blazingly silly' who decides what falls under this category, if the writer genuinely believes what he is saying?

The reader.

So the reader is who we base the definition of sanity on? Lovely.

Not quite. Sanity is a concept that has a few different definitions, but to what that concept, and those definitions, are applied is the decision of the reader. That's all a fancy way of saying that its up to the individual to make his own choices, and develop his own opinions.

Well sebster said:

The views that a writer holds must be compatible with sanity, in the medical sense

I'm not sure whether this is Orwell or sebster talking (could you seperate your words and the of Orwell's via quotes please?) but it does imply that some sort of outside medical view is taken on writings. Hence, if someone clinically insane was to scribble inane transcripts and another clinically insane person were to find the views expressed within the writings to be perfectly moral and sane, the medical opinion would dismiss both as insane.

Insanity is no longer a medical diagnosis.

Interesting observation, but I don't see how th-Wuuuuht?

Emperors Faithful wrote:I'm not sure whether this is Orwell or sebster talking (could you seperate your words and the of Orwell's via quotes please?)

I've added """, hopefully that makes it a bit clearer.

but it does imply that some sort of outside medical view is taken on writings. Hence, if someone clinically insane was to scribble inane transcripts and another clinically insane person were to find the views expressed within the writings to be perfectly moral and sane, the medical opinion would dismiss both as insane.

I'm not sure Orwell was meaning a person would be discredited only when they're actually diagnosed as insane, just that the argument has some relation to the real world. From there it should contain some consistancy in it's argument, and be presented well. Bias would not matter, quality is the only real criteria.

You're right that this is something the reader would be taking upon himself, something less problematic in Orwell's time as political debate was by the technology of the time much more exclusive than it is today. You need dial up and a keyboard to take part these days, and that's both a blessing and a curse. That said, I think we can be fairly generous in the quality of argument allowed and still show a marked improvement over what is accepted today. People don't have to be that astute to recognise Glenn Beck as an utterly useless contributor (I'm beginning to suspect he fails Orwell's honesty criteria).

The main point, though, is to be open to all sources, not to scan them for political leanings before considering their argument. Valid argument can come from many places - despite being well and truly on the left wing rather than the right, I would much rather read the The Times than The Guardian.

So why did you feel that it was most relevant to Dakka? For background issues I rarely see any such accusations of bias other than declaring something as valid or invalid such as comparing a codex to fan fluff. Even when such accusations occur, in the case of arguing that Space Wolves would only report the victory of Space Wolves in their fluff, one cannot claim "Orwell's Defence" as the entire 40k is a work of fiction. Unless GW actually do believe what they are writing which would be a very entertaining notion, to say the least.

And yes, thanks for the " ".

Emperors Faithful wrote:So why did you feel that it was most relevant to Dakka? For background issues I rarely see any such accusations of bias other than declaring something as valid or invalid such as comparing a codex to fan fluff. Even when such accusations occur, in the case of arguing that Space Wolves would only report the victory of Space Wolves in their fluff, one cannot claim "Orwell's Defence" as the entire 40k is a work of fiction. Unless GW actually do believe what they are writing which would be a very entertaining notion, to say the least.

Well, relevant to OT, not to greater Dakka. There's been a bunch of threads here on FOX and how it's biased and therefore bad, or how all media is biased and therefore all of it's bad so it's alright to listen to FOX, and links to al Jazeera will be rejected without consideration.

When that stuff has come up I've tried to argue that bias doesn't automatically make a source bad, and struggled. Then I stumbled across Orwell's quote, where he was saying exactly what I was thinking, only he was saying it clearly. At least, I thought it was clear.