I also don't know why it has to be Clever OR Kind. Nothing clever about being unkind, and nothing kind about being stupid. Sometimes it is stupid to BE kind, when you're busy handing over all your rights and safety and security, rather than standing up for them and being at risk of being told "you're not being kind"; but in general most people are able to be both clever AND kind without too much difficulty.
I would always take clever over kind if it was a mutually exclusive choice though. Not being kind is not automatically the same as being unkind - there is a middle ground, where one is neither.
On the subject of the books - Animal Farm really upset me - yes, the Boxer incident primarily, but most of it. I came from a very political family, so could see some of the allegory, but not all of it (read it at 12, at school).
Lord of the Flies really upset me too - another school book - and although I too have read the article about the boys who were stranded for months without anything like this happening, I believe culture has a lot to do with how that panned out. Read Tom Brown's Schooldays to see how the power hierarchy among boys at public school played out and it's not that much of a jump to believe that Lord of the Flies was possible!
I missed ANY sexual subtext in the Harry Potter books, apart from between the teenagers. And I don't see why Harry or the others should have had any idea about their teachers' sexuality at all - in general, teens have a distinct revulsion to the idea that teachers or other adults they know even "do it" still! I went to senior school in the 1980s and I was very unaware that our headteacher was gay, and having an affair with one of the other teachers, until I was explicitly told about it. I'm quite slow with things like that though, and worse with books. 
I'm trying to remember if I ever actually read 1984 or not. I think I did (or maybe I only saw the film), but apart from the cage of rats in Room 101, and the tv that kept an eye on you (Big Brother of course) I don't remember much of it - it didn't stay with me in the same way that Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies did. And I still haven't read Brave New World. I know what 1984 is about, of course - so much of it has made it into our social culture that it would be difficult to know absolutely nothing about it.
Regarding ideologies - I think the worst aspect about ANY of them is the evangelical believers who insist that THEIR WAY IS RIGHT and no other, and that all others must bow to THEIR WAY. And that's the problem with the TRAs. I agree that there are problems on both the Left and the Right of the political spectrum, largely when they swing too far and become too ideological and with no room for compromise.
AN evangelical ideologist is my worst nightmare - you can't sway them from their fanaticism, they will resort to any level of argument to try and persuade you that Their Way is the only right and true one, and will tie themselves in literal knots to do that - and then get angry when you use logic and reason to show them that there actually are other ways that are equally valid (and sometimes more so).
But when it comes to anyone trying to say that "Biological sex is a made up social construct" and pushing that onto everyone, enough is enough. Biology is science. Gender is a made up social construct that has been harming everyone for EVER. Remove gender stereotypes entirely - it's the only way forwards.