The Lion and the Unicorn

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• wallace_f · Nov 29, 2018 · Recommends

  …continue to grow because it wont be addressed in this way. Committees, bureaucracies, academics and journalists will surely discuss it though. Orwell speaks more eloquently about this concept in The Lion and the Unicorn.

  on “30,000 empty homes and nowhere to live: inside Dublin’s housing crisis” ↗
• brigandish · May 13, 2019 · Recommends

  …are the ones who are truly above this, because they are just so damned woke. It reminds me of George Orwell's classic observation (one of many, let's give credit to those who really deserve it) in The Lion and the Unicorn[1]: > England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being…

  on “Strong Opinions Loosely Held Might Be the Worst Idea in Tech” ↗
• foldr · May 12, 2022 · Recommends

  Orwell was not really an anarchist in his political views. You can get a fairly good overview of his political views from The Lion and the Unicorn: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...

  on “Ashton Kutcher’s non-profit, Thorn, supports EU plans for CSAM scanning” ↗
• foldr · Jul 10, 2025 · Recommends

  Read The Lion and the Unicorn if you want an overview of Orwell's political views: https://www.fadedpage.com/books/20180531/html.php He was was in favor of wealth redistribution and nationalisation of key industries, but his political…

• DC-3 · Jan 9, 2021 · Mentions

  …guy is a shame (and is particularly jarring when right wing populists invoke his name to decry people who try and get them to stop lying). Orwell's essay 'England Your England' (the first part of 'The Lion and the Unicorn') is perhaps his piece which is dearest to my heart, as a patriotic but anti-reactionary Englishman. However, of broader appeal are 'Shooting an Elephant' and 'A Hanging' - essays which expose the brutal…

  on “The lesser-known Orwell: are his novels deserving of reappraisal?” ↗
• frereubu · Mar 11, 2024 · Mentions

  …Disobedience": https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/history-o... Virginia Woolf, "A Room of One’s Own": https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/history-o... George Orwell, "The Lion and the Unicorn": https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/history-o... Simone Weil, "Human Personality": https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/history-o... James Baldwin, "Notes of a Native…

  on “The Best Essay” ↗
• dredmorbius · Apr 24, 2026 · Mentions

  There's one further piece by Runciman (the podcast's creator) on Orwell's "The Lion and the Unicorn", referenced in the series above: <https://www.ppfideas.com/episodes/history-of-ideas%3A-george...> I'll also note: David Runciman is one of my absolute favourite podcasters. I'd discovered him through…

  on “Why I Write (1946)” ↗
• vidarh · Aug 15, 2023 · Mentions

  Read his treatise about the need for revolution in England ("The Lion and the Unicorn"), and it's clear he was firmly statist, not libertarian, but you're right he was certainly a democratic socialist.

  on “A Warning from the Unpublished Preface to Orwell’s Animal Farm” ↗
• woopwoop · Aug 9, 2021 · Mentions

  In "The Lion and the Unicorn," he advocates for a militaristic socialism with nationalization of all major industries and severe wage and price controls.

  on “The Principles of Newspeak (1949)” ↗
• vidarh · Aug 15, 2023 · Mentions

  Absolutely agree with that. I think Orwell overall was sympathetic to any anti-authoritarian socialists, even though his own thinking was still caught up in the need for a state. E.g. what he argued for in Lion and the Unicorn [1] is more early (pre-Paris Commune) Marx, with his emphasis on nationalisation [2]. I've always found it curious that given both what he experienced in Catalonia, and his firm rejection of Stalinism…

  on “A Warning from the Unpublished Preface to Orwell’s Animal Farm” ↗
• int_19h · Mar 30, 2023 · Mentions

  …comparative immunity of Britain and the USA. Whatever the pacifists etc. may say, we have not gone totalitarian yet and this is a very hopeful symptom. I believe very deeply, as I explained in my book The Lion and the Unicorn, in the English people and in their capacity to centralise their economy without destroying freedom in doing so. But one must remember that Britain and the USA haven’t been really tried, they haven’t…

  on “A misleading open letter about sci-fi AI dangers ignores the real risks” ↗