Orwell, Arendt, and Camus on the Art of Writing and Political Thinking

George Orwell, Hannah Arendt, and Albert Camus were each masters of political thought and expression. As three exemplary writers on politics, they may be classified as representing the plain-speaking voice, the ironic voice, and the moral voice, respectively. The aim of this article is to retrieve their distinctive cultural legacy by focusing on their reflections on the mutually creative relationship between writing and political thinking—which were often ahead of their time. I argue that current institutionalised practices of writing in political thought and theory have much to learn from reflection on aspects of the writing voice, and that this learning should involve importing lessons from the humanities. More specifically, I demonstrate that Orwell, Arendt, and Camus anticipated five of the theoretical “turns” that occurred mainly in several subfields of the humanities from the 1960s onwards, including language, literature, moral philosophy, sociology, cultural studies, and the classics. I conclude that careful attention to how Orwell, Camus, and Arendt addressed and negotiated the challenges arising from anticipating these turns may be instructive for recasting political thought and theory as a communicative, as well as cognitive and contemplative, endeavour.