At least read the books (rant warning)

[snoscythe]

....if you are going to use them as shorthand.

Today on the Drudge Report, Matt has linked to a story about new neurotech with the headline "BRAVE NEW WORLD: Brain scan 'can read people's thoughts.'"

Matt must not have read Brave New World---it has nothing to do with reading minds or Thought Police. It's a personal pet peeve of mine when people refer to the dystopian literature to dredge up fear, but they apparently haven't even read the books.

Matt--Brave New World is about social and genetic engineering, 1984 ("Big Brother") is about the Thought Police and the government getting into your head.

And while I'm at it....George Orwell was a socialist. Once you learn to differentiate communism from socialism (both very bad in my book), reread Animal Farm and 1984, and you will find that Orwell was anti-capitalist as well as anti-communist, but he focused his attention on communism as it was the biggest threat to his beloved socialism. Animal Farm was a cautionary tale about how a good idea (the animals initially went for socialism with great success) can get ruined if not guarded carefully from those who would take the pendulum to the other extreme (communism).

In short, if you are going to cite to the dystopian literature, do so intelligently after studying it. It's like all of these young bucks who read Glenn Beck and drink in everything he says as gospel truth. GB has some good ideas and great points, but he has an agenda just like everyone else. Glenn likes to play fast and loose with the facts when he needs to inject some drama (e.g. he doesn't like to adjust numbers for inflation or population increase if it drops the increase in spending from a prima facia 45% to 9%). He makes great points a lot of the time, but the times he hides the weinie really make it hard to trust that we are getting the whole truth all of the time. Put effort into your political views--when you've thought critically about the concepts and the numbers and done your own study, you're going to be much more persuasive when you can cite source material and personal conviction rather than saying "Glenn Becks says....." or misciting literature.

[BoiseBYU]

Well said Sno. I once was talking to a dude who was sure Darkness at Noon was a sci fi thriller

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[Schmoe]

I disagree with your assessment of Animal Farm. I know that Orwell intended to write it as a reflection of the Soviet Union and more loosely about Communism in general. However, the animals, even Old Major, obviously do not understand how the outside world works: the fact that they will need outside resources to run a farm, they will need to trade, they will need to store food for winter, etc. etc. etc. Their plan was doomed from the get go and their ideals and animal rules were flawed and would never allow them to succeed.

Perhaps it's just the deconstructionist in me that needs to break down books that I love and figure out why I love them.

[snoscythe]

I disagree with your assessment of Animal Farm. I know that Orwell intended to write it as a reflection of the Soviet Union and more loosely about Communism in general. However, the animals, even Old Major, obviously do not understand how the outside world works: the fact that they will need outside resources to run a farm, they will need to trade, they will need to store food for winter, etc. etc. etc. Their plan was doomed from the get go and their ideals and animal rules were flawed and would never allow them to succeed.

Perhaps it's just the deconstructionist in me that needs to break down books that I love and figure out why I love them.

Read a biography on Orwell, and then reread Animal Farm.

[Schmoe]

My argument is not with what Orwell intended to say, it's with what he actually says. Many authors set out to write something and end up contradicting themselves, proving a different point, or going in a completely different direction. Harper Lee set out to write a love story and we got To Kill a Mockingbird. I don't doubt that Orwell believed that true Socialism was ideal, he just proved something completely different in his books.

[snoscythe]

My argument is not with what Orwell intended to say, it's with what he actually says. Many authors set out to write something and end up contradicting themselves, proving a different point, or going in a completely different direction. Harper Lee set out to write a love story and we got To Kill a Mockingbird. I don't doubt that Orwell believed that true Socialism was ideal, he just proved something completely different in his books.

If you reread Animal Farm with the knowledge that Orwell was a staunch socialist, you will recognize that the Farm is very productive, the animals are happy, self-sufficient, share-and-share alike and in essence, living the socialist dream until the pigs push the revolution from socialism to communism. It's there, and it's plain once you look for it. The farm was doing quite well without any need to trade with the humans until the pigs initiated the windmill project....well after the decline into communism had begun. The partnership with Whymper, the trading with humans, the food shortages etc. all came as part of the devolution from socialism into communism.

It's one thing to write something different from what was intended, but it is something else to misread what is written for something else. Most people assume that something anti-communist is also anti-socialist, so they simply read right over the secondary themes. Orwell intended to write an anti-communist book, and that's what he wrote. Where people have gone wrong is in building the book up as a pro-capitalist book or anti-socialist book. The capitalists (the neighboring farmers trying to hem in on the animals for a profit) are as much the enemy as the communist pigs, but educators in middle school don't make us write book reports about the pro-socialism or anti-capitalist material, but focusing on the global theme of anti-communism.

[SpiffCoug]

Bottom line: All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

[Schmoe]

I'll agree to disagree on this one.