In "Shooting an Elephant," what does Orwell's change of mind say about him?

The way that the presence of "the natives" pressurises
Orwell into shooting the elephant, against his better judgement, precisely emphasises
the central point of Orwell's essay. By playing the role of white master, colonisers
ironically only destroy their own freedom rather than the freedom of others. The
youthful Orwell reflects that he could have done something different to avoid shooting
the elelphant, but interestingly what stops him is the threat of being laughed
at:

The sole
thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see
me pursued, caught, trampled on, and reduced to a grinning corpse like that Indian up
the hill. And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That
would never do.

We are thus
presented with a youthful George Orwell who is desperate to save some form of face and
is willing to go against his better judgement in order to do so. He is a perfect example
of how when "the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys." It is
interesting to reflect though that the older Orwell who is of course looking back and
narrating the story does not say that he would have done any different if he could go
back, which perhaps reflects the immense pressure facing the younger
Orwell.