Endymion <disintegration@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On May 15, 3:27 pm, Joe Brenner From: <d...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > Jennie Kermode <"Jennie Kermode"@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:
> >
>
> > I think the Orwell novel "1984" did an excellent job of holding
> > back this particular tide. For many years, "that sounds like
> > something out of '1984'" was an effective argument.
> >
> > I guess the question would be why it *stopped* being an
> > effective argument.
>
> Through overuse, the same way comparing one's opponent to Hitler
> stopped being an effective argument. If every trivial thing is called
> Orwellian, people start to think of his work as trivial.
>
> Secondarily, because the techniques and technologies Orwell described
> (the way one pushes the buttons, as opposed to the buttons that are
> pushed) are increasingly dated.
True. But Orwell's work is a kind of satire, after all, and one
shouldn't have to reserve the term "Orwellian" only to acts as extreme
as those depicted in *1984*--or, more precisely, one should be able to
apply the lessons that book teaches to less extreme acts, like, say,
*what's happening at Gitmo*.
> ...do you mean people
> stopped worrying about the political leader****p because they came to
> see it as irrelevant next to market forces? I can't think of anyone
> who's suggested that.
What--didn't you hear?? Government isn't the solution--government is
the problem!!
> Inability or unwillingness to take things seriously
> is often a reaction to people who take themselves *too* seriously.
Well, what's the worse transgession, then?
Point is, the people *to whom the argument stopped being effective*
don't seem to be Snarky Gen-X Types, but rather Reaganite Republicans
and less-"involved" fellow travelers.
--
"He who wishes to go beyond it must die."
--Arnold Schoenberg, on Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony
FWIW: www.myspace.com/PanurgeATL
|
