Finns det något liknande om det politiska livet nu?
George Orwell skrev helt underbart.

I read Animal Farm once a decade. It is a quick read that constantly reminds me that I need to keep the blinders off and not take everything for granted.

I have a strange desire for bacon for some reason.

Always a good one to reread and remind ourselves of the future (now!)

Communism bad

Two of my favorite books! Meant to re-read 1984 with the student book club, but it got away from me. 1984 was one of my favorite required high school reads my senior year, and I LOVE to teach Animal Farm!

This is my second reading for George after his amazing book 1984. In Animal Farm the author used the animal model to describe what happens in real-world totalitarianism regimes. Yet, this novel goes beyond addressing the Russian Revolution, it speaks to all revolts there have been and will ever be. It suggests an uprising is futile, that things will remain how they have always been neither getting better nor worse. All simply remains constant.
After finished this novel, I cannot wait to read the next work for George.

Джордж Оруел, или Дж. Оракул? Това е въпросът.

1984:
Отвъд идеологическите изобличения, това е една книга за съставните части на човека и по-точно за извора на неговите мисли и желания. Доколко, как и защо те могат да се моделират, освободят, насочат, или пленят в определена поза. Това ми се струва най-точното опредление - пленяване на човешкото в една определена, форматирана поза.

Какво ли повече мога да добавя за книга, която някъде към 98,4% от вас са чели. Случайно, или не - това звучи и като изборен резултат на Партия. Чак сега си давам сметка, че в Океания няма избори, та явно не му е нужно на Големия Брат да отчита пълна изборна победа на всеки 4 г. Партията, за която говорим е преминала на друго ниво - тя определя езика, мислите, че дори и нагона. Битието дори не е под въпрос и трудно бихте посегнали към джин по същия начин някога повече. А бръснарското ножче е най-ценният предмет, ако трябва да продължа с упражнения по двумисъл. А, ако трябва да го кажем с думи прости - на новговор (ангсоц):

ВОЙНАТА Е МИР
СВОБОДАТА Е РОБСТВО
НЕВЕЖЕСТВОТО Е СИЛА

От тези трите, нито едно не може без другото. Те поддържат баланса в едно абсурдно общество, на което обаче някои елементи изглеждат плашещо познати. Да речем, че в по-голямата част от света сме отрекли тоталитаризма (вече ... все пак тя е писана във вихъра му) и няма да се спирам на явленията свързани с него. Да разгледаме само темата за НЕВЕЖЕСТВОТО - за мен тя е по-актуална днес, отколкото е била тогава. Това е силата, с която накрая пречупиха нашия герой. Това е ултимативната сила на Партията за контрол над масите и партпериферията. А откривате ли връзки с реалния свят? Нима не опростяваме речниците си. Нима не сме намалили буквите и нима целият свят не комуникира на най-опростения английски, така че всички да се разбират с малко думи. Ще дам един пример за въведена доброволно двумисъл - нима не използваме емоджита вместо поредица от думи. На края на 1984 има едно приложение, в което се обясняват принципите на измислянето на нов език, който да служи на партийните цели:

"Всяко съкращение беше победа, тъй като колкото по-малко беше изборът на думи, толкова по-малко беше изкушението да се опиташ да мислиш. Крайната цел бе членоразделната реч да идва от ларинкса, без изобщо да засяга мозъчните центрове."

Това в същия този новговор се нарича "паткореч" и в зависимост от контекста може да носи положителен, или отрицателен смисъл.

За "Фермата на животните" - тук:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Няма нищо по-логично от събирането на двете най-известни и тематично обвързани произведения на "Оракула" в една книга. Може би, аз бих разменил последователността и започнал с Фермата. Чел съм и двете в началото на двайсетте си и съм си обещал, че някои най-важни ще препрочитам поне веднъж на декада, та бях щастлив да я зърна на щанда на Фама при посещение до колега на тазгодишния коледен панаир на книгата. Много добре ми дойде, а и я нямах в библиотеката ми в София.

Една класика със стойността на Библия за жанра, за социалното инженерство и за най-основните човешки елементи на мисълта и желанията.
Освен това е интересна до степен постоянно да се чудиш какво ще стане с нашия герой. Да, може системата да е изградена непробиваема и да няма съмнения, че нещо може да я разклати, но тази - вътрешната битка всъщност е по-интересна от междуконтинентална, или гражданска война. Битката на ценностите.
За финал, може да напишете отдолу - колко прави 2+2=?

Who controls the past controls the future. ...

2020-09-22 (This review is of 1984 only, at least for now.)

"the three slogans of the Party stood out in bold capitals:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH."

This is the defining import of this book to me. The slogans were not only repeated many times in the book, but what they represented was carefully explained many times and ways. Orwell's masterpiece did a fantastic job of showing how corruption of the language (in "Newspeak" words were supposed to mean the exact opposite of what they originally and truly meant) was key to the horror of the total state and every citizen's being controlled by "the party" of "Big Brother."

I first read this book about 50 years ago, when I was in High School. It made a very big impression on me. I learned much about it and from it. Over the years I have been referred to it or myself referred to it literally hundreds of times. Fortunately, it is a classic and still well read. It has so much to offer. It is so prescient in so many ways.

But probably because there were major errors, confusions, an almost total pessimism and lack of any good understanding of what a free society is really based on, that too many people just did not quite get or lost sight of the good and important parts. Our society today is so overrun by the very things that Orwell so graphically warned us about, that I urge you in the strongest terms to read this book (or again, like me, if necessary).

Take the three slogans highlighted above. Orwell calls them part of the "Doublethink" he explains was the crucial strategy of the party/Big Brother to get people to eliminate any real critical thinking and be able to just parrot back anything the party wanted them to believe. The book goes into example after example. But let me suggest a few that are happening in our society today
(and for the last 150 years or so), to show you how important Orwell's concept is:

Progressive = those who believe in progress, right? Well, in fact, NO. It means the OPPOSITE to the people who claim that title. "Progressives" for the last 140+ years have believed in and acted on the idea that slavery = freedom, that more government control of our lives somehow equals more freedom. Their program is to slowly, piece by piece (or faster, if they come clean and admit to being Marxists, Bolsheviks, Khmer Rouge, Chavistas, Juche, etc. etc.) put government in control of our lives by taxing, regulating, regimenting - controlling us.

Liberal = those who believe in liberty, right? Well, in fact, for most of them, NO, except in a few select areas. People who have taken over this word in the US (not everywhere in the world, where it actually does still mean pro-liberty policies, to a bit greater extent), want less liberty and more government taxes, schools, controls, regulations, etc. Very similarly to how "progressive" was corrupted the same way - liberal really now means partial slave or at least anti-liberty, in most key areas. They just delude themselves when they think they are getting more liberty with their policies. They always conveniently forget that taxes are compulsory, regulations put you in jail if you don't follow them, that you have less of your freedom the more the government takes from you or tells you what to do.

Antifa = those who are Anti-Fascist, and actually fight fascists, right? Well, in fact NO. They are the ones who act most like the fascists of the 1930s and 40s - using violence to achieve their goals. Not caring about civilized behavior at all. Starting or expanding riots. Disrupting peaceful meetings, so audiences cannot hear speakers, but only the chants/shouting of the "protesters." Guess why I put that word in quotations? Bet you can. Does the term "mostly peaceful" ring a bell? Another lie and type of doublespeak of the mainstream media. Sure, most of the "protesters" may well be "peaceful," for a time. But when they allow and actually support (even if passively) the violent rioters, arsonists, looters, etc. they should be called accomplices, NOT protesters at that point.

So, I have tried to give you just a small taste of how super-relevant Orwell's classic is today. There are so many parts I could highlight to show this. But I trust you get it. Treat yourself - you will not regret it.

So I want to move on to just a little on 1984's deficits and where you can and should go AFTER reading or rereading 1984. First is a great biography of Orwell: "Orwell Your Orwell" by David Ramsay Steele. It is simply indispensable in explaining Orwell 's milieu and his thinking on this and all his other key writings, and life. Orwell's pessimism and pro-socialist confusions (in 1984 and elsewhere) as well as brilliant insights are explained in that book. Don't miss it.

But in addition to Steele's bio of Orwell, one really needs to read at least some key works of Ludwig Mises to understand not just where Orwell went wrong, but the positive case for a better world, a free, peaceful and abundant world and the system of human social cooperation that makes it possible - free markets, otherwise known as capitalism, if you have a clear understanding of that term. To start, I would pick his "Liberalism" (in the original/classical sense). And next I would go to his fairly long, but totally worth it, "Socialism" to eviscerate that scourge of the mind and of the real physical world.

Feel free to check out any of my Goodreads reviews of these books.

Addenda:
Perhaps listing some more gems of doublethink terms from 1984's Newspeak might be enticing:
Ministry of Truth - Where the main character Winston works changing the historical record to suit the current party/Big Brother needs. Gee, any connection here to what Youtube, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. are doing with dissenting opinion from the mainstream government orthodoxy these days?
Memory Hole - where the past evidence is put and taken to be burned - and sooooo close to what is happening today.
Ministry of Love - where the torture of citizens is performed - especially in "Room 101." Think Lubyanka Prison.
Ministry of Peace - war making part of the government

And how about a few passages I loved that seem so appropriate today:
"He was a fattish but active man of paralyzing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms—one of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than on the Thought Police, the stability of the Party depended."

"so vicious was the boy’s demeanor, that it was not altogether a game.... He spun round just in time to see Mrs. Parsons dragging her son back into the doorway while the boy pocketed a catapult [slingshot]. “Goldstein!” bellowed the boy as the door closed on him. But what most struck Winston was the look of helpless fright on the woman’s grayish face....Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy. Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages..." Any parallels with today's society?

"and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it. The songs, the processions, the banners, the hiking, the drilling with dummy rifles, the yelling of slogans, the worship of Big Brother—it was all a sort of glorious game to them. All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children. And with good reason, for hardly a week passed in which the Times did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak—“child hero” was the phrase generally used—had overheard some compromising remark and denounced his parents to the Thought Police."
Think: Hitler youth, Red Guards, young pioneers, communist youth, present day eco groups, SJW groups ...

"Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like ‘freedom is slavery’ when the concept of freedom has been abolished?" Note: it is freedom that is abolished, not slavery!

"In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.” Note: Anther key point (think PC speak for "orthodoxy") that is happening now too.

“There is a word in Newspeak,” said Syme. “I don’t know whether you know it: duckspeak, to quack like a duck. It is one of those interesting words that have two contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it is abuse; applied to someone you agree with, it is praise.” Unquestionably Syme will be vaporized, Winston thought again. He thought it with a kind of sadness, although well knowing that Syme despised him and slightly disliked him, and was fully capable of denouncing him as a thought-criminal if he saw any reason for doing so. There was something subtly wrong with Syme. There was something that he lacked: discretion, aloofness, a sort of saving stupidity."

I could go on and on. this book has so much to give. But I bet you get the point.

dok ne postanu svesni, neće se nikad pobuniti, a dok se ne pobune, neće moći da postanu svesni

Вже вкотре перечитую 1984 і кожного разу захоплююсь майстерністю Орвела. А от Колгосп тварин читала вперше, і знову ж таки повний захват далекоглядністю та гостротою пера автора. Так майстерно передати усю суть та прогнилість радянської системи у вигляді ферми тварин. Браво!

To be completely honest, i hated animal farm. I’ve read Orwell before, and it just wasn’t as good. It was confusing and messy and i didn’t like it. The metaphoric use was amazing and I can’t argue with that, but the way it was told made me angry and unhappy. I think, however, this is why Orwell was such a good writer. His work was loved and hated by many, and I think it all really depends on the reader. My older brother LOVED Animal Farm- he says it’s the best book he’s ever read, and hates on 1984, calling it boring and slow. I loved 1984, calling it one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. I think that the magic of Orwell lies in the readers opinions, so there will always different views on it