WFHB Bloomington Community Radio
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Today we speak with anarchist author Kristian Williams about his interest in George Orwell and Oscar Wilde, seemingly quite disparate thinkers to attract one’s admiration. But it turns out that Williams isn’t the first anarchist to be interested in them.
It also turns out that Orwell himself admired Wilde, writing in a letter to a friend that he’d always been “pro-Wilde.” Williams writes in his book of essays on Orwell, Between the Bullet and the Lie, that “It is a strange thing to hear from Orwell, given his disdain for ‘Nancy poets,’ ‘pious sodomites,’ and the ‘pansy left.’”
But the Orwell that Williams discusses has much in common with Oscar Wilde, in particular the ways both saw aesthetics, ethics, and politics as often impossible to separate, and the necessary stance one must take against moral saints – absolutists making no room for actual human experience and expression. Both raise questions about the relationships between culture and politics, between utopian aspirations and practical programs, and between individualism, group identity, and class struggle.
Oscar Wilde is remembered as a wit and a dandy, as a gay martyr, and as a brilliant writer, but his philosophical depth and political radicalism are often forgotten. In Williams’ new book Resist Everything Except Temptation: The Anarchist Philosophy of Oscar Wilde he locates Wilde in the tradition of left-wing anarchism, and argues that only when we take his politics seriously can we begin to understand the man, his life, and his work.
Kristian Williams is also the author of Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America and was on Interchange previously with segment host, Dan Young (see Related below).
GUEST
Kristian Williams is the author of several books, including Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America, Between the Bullet and the Lie: Essays on Orwell, and Resist Everything Except Temptation: The Anarchist Philosophy of Oscar Wilde, all from AK Press.
RELATED
“Preserving Our Capacity to Act:” An Interview with Kristian Williams (Hard Crackers)
Orwell and Resistance: Kristian Williams + Eric Laursen (YouTube)
The Men Who Brought Political Radicalism to Oscar Wilde: On John Ruskin, William Morris, and the Nascent Anarchism of a Literary Icon by Kristian Williams
The Soul of Man Under… Anarchism? by Kristian Williams
Organized for Violence: The Police and You (Interchange with Kristian Williams as the first guest)
MUSIC
“Oscillate Wildly” – The Smiths
“Between the Wars” – Billy Bragg
“Mr. Love & Justice” – Billy Bragg
“This Charming Man” – The Smiths
“Vicar in a Tutu” – The Smiths
CREDITS
Producer & Host: Doug Storm
Executive Producer: Kade Young
