Orwell’s Roses, Rebecca Solnit on Radio Open Source. This show first aired on November 11, 2021.
20:17 … he listens to a bird singing, and loves the fact that the bird is singing for no utilitarian purpose. Inutility is itself a kind of resistance this utilitarianism of an authoritarian state.
21:35 … Orwell is using the metaphor of the rose to make a point. And it’s a remainder that all that time in the natural world gives him and gives any of us metaphors, allegories, frameworks to understand the world around us. I often feel we’re really bereft without that metaphorical richness we get from the physical, spatial, and natural worlds.
By dint of hammer-song he makes his keen,
Raw point, and crowns utility with rose
The Rosehead Nail by A.E. Stallings
