Just read '1984' and 'The Animal Farm' for the first time.

[trof]

I thought I'd read '1984' decades ago, but once I got into it I remembered I'd only seen the movie.

Orwell was ahead of his time with '84 and dead on with his send up of Russian communo-socialism in 'Animal Farm'.

I asked Miz t. if She'd heard of '1984'.
Nope.
She's a sweetie, and my heart's desire, but not so literary.
"Have you heard the term Orwellian?"
"Yep."
"Do you know what it means?"
"No idea."

Now I'm re-reading 'Brave New World'.

[trof]

1. Oh yeah, the intro to the combined Orwell books was by Christopher Hitchins.

Interesting.

[Zomby Woof]

2. I recommend Orwell's "Homage To Catalonia"

It is his memoir of fighting against Franco's fascists in the Spanish Civil War. It gets to the crux of why the Left cannot stay united for any sustained effort. It helped me understand GD when I first joined DU.

[trof]

3. Thanks, I will read it.

I was reading his list of publications in the front of this two volume book and that one looked interesting.
I'm not nearly as cerebral as Orwell, but his writings interest me.

[NMDemDist2]

4. I need to re-read those

I read them back in the 80s but


well, let's just say I'm clean and sober now, and remember what I read. 25 years ago... not so much....

:hide:

:rofl:

[Career Prole]

5. If you're re-discovering the classics

I'd say read (or reread) Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. :)

[trof]

6. I did read that in my late teens, early 20s?

But I'd like to read it again.
Second childhood.
;-)

[Career Prole]

7. I read it in high school, then reread it in my thirties,

and just reading your thread today brought it to mind and now I'm going to read it yet again! Thanks for the brain bump!
:toast:

[Left Is Write]

8. It's always interesting to read 1984 and follow up with Brave New World.

The differing visions of the future dystopia are fun to compare.

[RandomThoughts]

9. 1984 had 3 really huge lessons in it for me. This is what I learned from it.

(May contain plot spoilers, if you havn't read book yet)






1) The way a system will have a fault tolerance to gather the 2% of disruption and feed it back into system in some method. And how this thought breaks down all institutional thought of any organization. Since they always wonder if they are being played or set up.

Which means just do what you can that is best as you can, for me at least, then if you are getting set up, you get to do it with integrity and style, and most of the time, you are not being set up and it is fear or confusion trying to knock you off your stride.

2) When the 'rebel' was being told an organization was resisting, he was asked what he would do, he was asked if he would throw acid in the face of children. Then this was used to help show him he was no better then the system he fought. And he wasn't any better because he was willing to join their methods in that statement he made.

It is true people all have faults, and this argues that changing the system must be because of the methods you want to use, not the ends you wish to see. You can't overthrow evil with evil, or you really don't change things, so you must overthrow evil with good, this is the only way to win. Even if the ends seem outside of vision, you live in the means in life.

3) And the biggest lesson, the non-people :wave: sitting at the cafe, they were broken for one reason, they had lost hope. They believed it would never change, and they gave up fighting.

This teaches me the only way I lose is to believe I can not win, and knowing that winning is not always what it seems to be, it might be just fighting the good fight with kindness the best I can, knowing it wont all work out, and I will make mistakes.

1984, in its essence, is a defense of the system, and is part of the doctrine that it is all powerful and not good, because it looks at results not methods. It also looks to fix the broken system, and does not embrace winning by trying based on what you believe. In my belief, through enough people trying, the system gets fixed, since the system really is the people in it.

In the year 1984, I went out and bought an 1984 edition of 1984, it was put out in that year on acid free paper(there was a big thing about new books being published on cheap paper that was dissolving in less then 200 years due to use of acid in it).

I always found that deeply ironic, since if asked, I would never agree to fight the way the main character did. like that edition, I hope to always choose to live acid free :)