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Why George Orwell wrote 1984
Renegade:
This is one of the things that bothers me:
...but I would support it against Nazism or Japanese imperialism, as the lesser evil. Similarly I would support the USSR against Germany because I think the USSR cannot altogether escape its past and retains enough of the original ideas of the Revolution to make it a more hopeful phenomenon than Nazi Germany.
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I don't think supporting evil really ever works out very well.
Remember, Stalin murder far, far more people than Hitler. Hitler was an amateur. Stalin was a pro. Mao was even better than Stalin when it came to murdering people.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/MURDER.HTM
And while a lot of people may call the Nazis "fascists", remember what Hitler had to say about it...
We are socialists.
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Perhaps a bit meta, but still on the topic of authors, from J.R.R. Tolkien:
http://peacerequiresanarchy.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/the-letters-of-jrr-tolkien/
My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) – or to ‘unconstitutional’ Monarchy. I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in any sense other than the inanimate realm of England and its inhabitants, a thing that has neither power, rights nor mind); and after a chance of recantation, execute them if they remained obstinate! If we could get back to personal names, it would do a lot of good. Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so as to refer to people.
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Remember the meaning of "anarchy" and the etymology - "an" meaning "no" and "archos" meaning "rulers" -- "no rulers". It does not mean "no rules". Well, unless you're Humpty Dumpty...
TaoPhoenix:
...
George Orwell Explains in a Revealing 1944 Letter Why He’d Write 1984
Posted: 09 Jan 2014 04:45 AM PST
...
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"...Already history has in a sense ceased to exist, ie. there is no such thing as a history of our own times which could be universally accepted, and the exact sciences are endangered as soon as military necessity ceases to keep people up to the mark. Hitler can say that the Jews started the war, and if he survives that will become official history. He can’t say that two and two are five, because for the purposes of, say, ballistics they have to make four. ... That, so far as I can see, is the direction in which we are actually moving, though, of course, the process is reversible.
...
Yours sincerely,
Geo. Orwell
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Things to think about as we enter a new year. :tellme:
-40hz (January 09, 2014, 01:25 PM)
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At the slight risk of studying plague beetles on one single apple tree in an entire orchard, I think this section is worth pondering.
I truncated certain portions to make his broader point clearer "in today's / tomorrow's world".
(Paraphrased) "For the purposes of a weapon which you wish to kill someone with, 2+2=4 and that can't be changed because you need your scientist to make you more weapons that kill people and for that they need to work, and for that, the math needs to work. But if you say things like 'America is overrun by terrorists! Ban all Apple Juice from Airplanes!', then 2+2=5 because no natural phenomena are 'hard coded' to it."
Slashdot likes its Correlation vs Causation arguments about once a week, so yes, brainwashing people "does stuff", but it's a "soft effect". The herds of masses mostly do what you want, then you shoot the rebels.
Whereas if you have a nice shiny gun pointed at your enemy, and somewhere in its design it has an equation where 2+2=5, it's liable to shoot 135 degrees polar on the vertical axis (or however it's phrased) and shoot YOU in the heart. So after the first three of those deaths, the troops point it at their own heads. Except this batch is made correctly, so they also die.
Not good for an army. :D
But these "soft people things", you can twist them forever, and if you wind it tight enough, they can't ever fully break out of the Zork Maze of Twisty Little Mental Passages.
40hz:
I don't think supporting evil really ever works out very well.
-Renegade (January 09, 2014, 06:16 PM)
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I think Orwell was being excessively pragmatic in that instance, opting to do what he felt was doable, as opposed to doing what he felt was right.
That's always going to be a problem whenever you permit the "other side" to frame, and define the terms of, the debate.
So whenever given a choice between A and B, it's important to remember there's also a third option: neither.
8) :Thmbsup:
wraith808:
Well, for all of my middle of the road stance, I'm nothing if not practical. A practical man has to have a sense of humor, because being practical is hard.
I think from his writings, Orwell was a practical man.
Renegade:
So whenever given a choice between A and B, it's important to remember there's also a third option: neither.
-40hz (January 09, 2014, 09:58 PM)
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Exactly.
On the topic of total control...
Camp 14 : Total Control Zone
FAIR WARNING: This is about a fellow who was born into a North Korean death camp and escaped. It might not be all that wonderful for some to watch. Of particular note is how and what he thought, e.g. that beating a girl to death in a school classroom was normal, that torture was normal, that he thought the rest of the world was exactly like where he was, etc. Oddly enough, if you think about it a little bit, you probably know (or are) people who have similar though patterns, though your circumstances be different...
http://www.camp14-film.com/
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