A Dowd Update

We will let Maureen Dowd give us a little political update on the Republican campaign for the presidency. It has been a remarkable season with Republicans making a move against birth control as well as abortion, not to mention the bold insistence that corporations are people too and that we should be fair to them as well, and not begrudge them their enormous wealth even as the rest of sink into poverty. Ms. Dowd is optimistic, thinking that the times are leaving the Republicans behind, but I am not so sure that they are beat. Just because it is a scary picture, that doesn't mean that the Republicans cannot win. What a scene, our politics.

( Read more... )

A Dowd Update

We will let Maureen Dowd give us a little political update on the Republican campaign for the presidency. It has been a remarkable season with Republicans making a move against birth control as well as abortion, not to mention the bold insistence that corporations are people too and that we should be fair to them as well, and not begrudge them their enormous wealth even as the rest of sink into poverty. Ms. Dowd is optimistic, thinking that the times are leaving the Republicans behind, but I am not so sure that they are beat. Just because it is a scary picture, that doesn't mean that the Republicans cannot win. What a scene, our politics.

( Read more... )

1984 (2,5) Falling Asleep

I saved the last paragraph of the chapter for its own post. It is really just a summary peroration of the point that Orwell has been hammering home again and again through the character of Julia, about how ordinary people will pass their days with minimal political consciousness, being only interested in their own narrow well-being, and hence enabling governments to drive their own corrupt agendas, and shaping our realities in the bargain, as we just follow the dominant storyline in pursuit of our little happiness.

I think this is the one point that Orwell wanted to sell to readers, grabbing them by the shoulders and shaking them, to stay awake and alert to what is going on around them, looking gimlet-eyed in particular at their governments (and, by extrapolation, at their corporations), in the same way that Winston bemoaned the useless passivity of the proles, yearning for them to wake up and rise and revolt. Though, I don’t think that Orwell is only talking to the proles but to everyone.

_ _ _

In the ramifications of party doctrine she had not the faintest interest. Whenever he began to talk of the principles of Ingsoc, doublethink, the mutability of the past, and the denial of objective reality, and to use Newspeak words, she became bored and confused and said that she never paid any attention to that kind of thing. One knew that it was all rubbish, so why let oneself be worried by it? She knew when to cheer and when to boo, and that was all one needed. If he persisted in talking of such subjects, she had a disconcerting habit of falling asleep. She was one of those people who can go to sleep at any hour and in any position. Talking to her, he realized how easy it was to present an appearance of orthodoxy while having no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy meant. In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird.

--1984

1984 (2,5) Falling Asleep

I saved the last paragraph of the chapter for its own post. It is really just a summary peroration of the point that Orwell has been hammering home again and again through the character of Julia, about how ordinary people will pass their days with minimal political consciousness, being only interested in their own narrow well-being, and hence enabling governments to drive their own corrupt agendas, and shaping our realities in the bargain, as we just follow the dominant storyline in pursuit of our little happiness.

I think this is the one point that Orwell wanted to sell to readers, grabbing them by the shoulders and shaking them, to stay awake and alert to what is going on around them, looking gimlet-eyed in particular at their governments (and, by extrapolation, at their corporations), in the same way that Winston bemoaned the useless passivity of the proles, yearning for them to wake up and rise and revolt. Though, I don’t think that Orwell is only talking to the proles but to everyone.

_ _ _

In the ramifications of party doctrine she had not the faintest interest. Whenever he began to talk of the principles of Ingsoc, doublethink, the mutability of the past, and the denial of objective reality, and to use Newspeak words, she became bored and confused and said that she never paid any attention to that kind of thing. One knew that it was all rubbish, so why let oneself be worried by it? She knew when to cheer and when to boo, and that was all one needed. If he persisted in talking of such subjects, she had a disconcerting habit of falling asleep. She was one of those people who can go to sleep at any hour and in any position. Talking to her, he realized how easy it was to present an appearance of orthodoxy while having no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy meant. In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird.

--1984

Quote of the Day

“Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.”

--C. S. Lewis

Quote of the Day

“Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.”

--C. S. Lewis