1+1+1 for 365 day 6: Scary stuff

TODAY'S QUOTE:   "Big Brother is watching you."

OK, since it was so short, here is another by the same author: "In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act."

Still too short?  Well, I am really breaking my own rules, but here  is a third one: "Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."

And all those come, of course, from George Orwell.

TODAY'S BOOK:
 
1984 by George Orwell
 
This is not a work of gothic horror. It is not about murder, war, vampires or some extraterrestrial threat to Earth.  But few books are as scary as this one.  
 
Yet as much as it is uncomfortable to read as it may be, there are few other books that I would rather recommend for every single person in their late teens and early twenties - and again once every decade or so thereafter.

 
But let me say something about the auhor.  George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair (1903–1950).  He was a British journalist as well as a creative writer: a description that fits quite a
number of my own friends and acquaintances equally well.  In addition to his two best known works, the brilliant 1984 and Animal Farm, Blair also wrote four other novels, non-fiction and poetry. 
 
Much has been said about his political views and he commented of his own work that "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." (Why I Write, 1946).
 
What makes 1984 so special?  Well, for a book written just a bit more than 60 years ago, it remains startlingly fresh as a vision of what happens in totalitarian states - or where people allow themselves to be governed and oppressed in that way, even if the society they live in is not "totalitarian" in its formal structure.  It also desctibes how individuals and society can be manipulated through using language, censorship and mass communication as ominously effective and terrifyingly effective weapons. 
 
But of course it does not happen to us today, does it?
 
Blair's intellectual honesty and visionary incisiveness hit you in the stomach every time you read all or part of this book.
 
It is the book that introduced words and phrases into everyday speech such as the quote above: "Big Brother is watching!",  but also things like "doublethink", "newspeak" and "thought crime"
 
It has been filmed, spoken about, prescribed at school and university and has become part of modern culture - even for people who have not read it.    
 
Have you?   
 
If not, consider adding it to your reading list.  Also consider "Animal Farm",  from which comes that other very familiar phrase:  "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." 
 
I'd love to debate/share ideas about this with some of my readers.   Speak up - Big Sister is Listening...


 
 
TODAY'S PICTURE:



Fishing boat in Kalk Bay.   I thought this quietly peaceful scene would act
 as a welcome contrast to the brooding thoughts evoked by Orwell.
Boats and ships have always been some of my favourite photographic objects.
I took this aftter lunch during an afternoon excursion with my niece Tara.

 Picture & text: © Lee Labuschagne - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

TODAY'S WEBSITE:

http://freedocumentaries.org/  Comes with a conspiracy theory warning in some cases and some of it surely needs to be taken with a  pinch of salt - or at least one should do some additional research.  But some darn good stuff there.  You'll need an uncapped Internet account to watch live or download.  It's free.  Have fun.

I would particularly recommend the movie related to the media and which refers back to 1984:
http://www.freedocumentaries.org/teatro.php?filmID=87&lan=en&size=big