Subject:
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Re: Question for the Conservatives out there
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 7 Jun 2004 15:14:00 GMT
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Viewed:
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1680 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys wrote:
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Orwell has some passages that could easily be uttered by Rumsfeld today, for
example, and no one would notice a change in diction or message.
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For the sake of literary snobbery, I did a little looking over the weekend, and
here are two examples I came up with:
From Book One,
chapter 4:
Winston thought for a moment, then pulled the speakwrite towards him and began
dictating in Big Brother’s familiar style: a style at once military and
pedantic, and, because of a trick of asking questions and then promptly
answering them (‘What lessons do we learn from this fact, comrades? The lesson
-- which is also one of the fundamental principles of Ingsoc -- that,’ etc.,
etc.), easy to imitate
Anyone who’s heard Rumsfeld speak should easily recognize this as his signature
discursive style.
And here’s something interesting from
Book Two,
Chapter 3:
It was not merely that the sex instinct created a world of its own which was
outside the Party’s control and which therefore had to be destroyed if possible.
What was more important was that sexual privation induced hysteria, which was
desirable because it could be transformed into war-fever and leader-worship. . .
All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simpIy sex gone
sour. . . For how could the fear, the hatred, and the lunatic credulity which
the Party needed in its members be kept at the right pitch, except by bottling
down some powerful instinct and using it as a driving force?
What’s interesting to me about this passage is how it meshes with the FCC’s
authoritarian lockdown of all-things-carnal in the wake of Janet’s breast. It’s
a good thing there are two wars to help us channel all of our obscene lusts away
from sex and toward good, wholesome carnage.
***stepping onto my soapbox***
It’s also interesting to me that pundits are constantly railing against the
alleged banishment of religion from the public square, but sexuality is much
more thoroughly banished from public view, and certainly from public discourse,
though it’s been a part of human culture for far longer than relgioin!
***stepping down from soapbox***
Dave!
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Question for the Conservatives out there
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| (...) What is the link you see (or want to see) between time-in-culture and publicity? Maybe the fact that religion keeps reinventing itself is specifically why it stays newsworthy while human sexuality is mostly static. (And note that when we do (...) (20 years ago, 9-Jun-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | More Orwell, for everyone!
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| (...) Mmmmm. I have long advocated that 1984 should be required reading in the last year of high school education. And the older I get, the louder I hear it echoed in the world around me. Maybe that's me, maybe its the world. The other thing I have (...) (20 years ago, 10-Jun-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Question for the Conservatives out there
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| (...) I hate to have to tell you this, but JMS was actually a few decades behind his time! Orwell pegged all of that stuff way back in 1948! I'm not a B5 fan, so I can't comment on the particulars of that series, but it sounds like JMS was offering (...) (20 years ago, 4-Jun-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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