Coming Attractions -- 1984

The novel for next month is George Orwell's 1984. I read Animal Farm in the context of attending a private, Christian (evangelical) high school. The general vibe I was always given is that Animal Farm was a treatise against both Communism and Socialism (the two were often conflated). Interestingly, Orwell was a Democratic Socialist. His critiques were not leveled against socialism or capitalism but against the abuses of totalitarianism found in 20th century forms of Communism and Fascism.

I think that our discussion of 1984 will be particularly timely, in light of many of the debates that take place in the current U.S. political climate. I often see ideological debates about the merits of socialism or capitalism. Discussions of the abuse of government are usually merely an attempt to criticize someone else's ideology. That is, I find it rare that we can put the labels "liberal"/Democratic or "conservative"/Republican aside long enough to have honest discussions about the degree to which government is intruding on freedom and civil liberties.

Jean Francois Lyotard some thirty years ago wrote his classic The Postmodern Condition, which has become a definitive postmodern text. Lyotard says that information will be central in the years to come. He goes so far as to say, "It is conceivable that the nation-states will one day fight for control of information, just as they battled in the past for control over territory, and afterwards for control of access to and exploitation of raw materials and cheap labor. A new field is opened for industrial and commercial strategies on the one hand, and political and military strategies on the other."

The central character of 1984 is Winston Smith. He works as in the "Ministry of Truth" to revise historical records in order to advance the propaganda of The Party. Knowledge, information, politics, government, and the struggle for freedom are all interconnected. This is as true today as it ever has been.

Happy reading.