Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details.Keep them barefoot and terrorized By J. G. Fabiano "From the moment when the machine first made its appearance it was clear to all thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and therefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If the machine were used deliberately for that end, hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy and disease could be eliminated within a few generations. ... But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the destruction - indeed; in some sense was the destruction - of a hierarchical society. ... the most obvious and perhaps the most important form of inequality would already have disappeared. If it once became general, wealth would confer no distinction. ... But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away." This is a quote from George Orwell's novel, "1984". Since I've been a teacher for the past quarter of a century I watched many of my students read and analyze this work. But, for the past few years I see fewer students being introduced to this mirror into our future. I am not saying there is some sort of conspiracy trying to keep these ideas away from my students but the thought that fewer of my students even know what this novel is about worries me. There are many realities that reflect what this novel is about. The most obvious is our present economy. Wall Street has broken all records. There is more money going into our economy than any time in our nation's history, but, whose economy is it going into to. People are getting richer than some countries and these riches are becoming condensed into being enjoyed by the very few. Proof of this is simple. This is the first time in our nation's history where the present generation's net wealth will be less than their parents. In fact, this is the first time where an average 30-year-old's gross wage will be less than their fathers. Compound this with rising fuel prices, exploding food prices, ever-increasing middle class debt, and a middle class inflation that defies our government's assertion that inflation is under control; the very existence of a thriving middle class is questionable. Our governing class tells us this is all necessary because of the threat of terrorism. Orwell predicted the same thing by writing, "As long as a country is at war, its citizens will put up with personal deprivation." But, the citizens must think that it is a just war, that the enemies are devils whom they are morally obliged to exterminate. If anyone believes the ultra-rich will give up this concentration of wealth and power I believe, as did Orwell, this simply is not going to happen. "We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. ... How does one man assert his power over another ... By making him suffer? Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is inflicting pain and humiliation. ... A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself." The war on terrorism is easily explained by Orwell's work. We are now involved in a war that has no boundaries or common enemy. This is a war we have never seen before but to Orwell it would make perfect sense. "The very word 'war', therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. ... War is Peace." Since we are told we have to be at war in order to keep the enemy away from our homeland and thus remain 'peaceful' the comparison of what Orwell imagined to what is reality today is easy to understand. We are now involved in a massive change of our own philosophies. Many tell us we have to change because of present day conditions. But, are we changing in order to reduce our freedoms thus our heritage we assumed would always be ours. With the present war came imprisonments, the acceptance of torture, and an isolationism that is accepted throughout our nation. "And in the general hardening of outlook that set in ... practices which had been long abandoned ... -- imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages and the deportation of whole populations -- not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive." Comparing the reality of today to Orwell's novel becomes increasingly simple. In the past I have compared the Viet Nam War to the war in Iraq. I have been told I am foolish and do not understand present day situations. Basically I am warned the history of the past is not the history of today. "Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary." The comparison of going from WMD in our present war as a reason for war has evolved so quickly even Orwell would have a tough time keeping up with it. In my real life I teach science. I attempt to educate my students into the concept of scientific methodology. Today I see my own scientific concepts being changed by people who have no concept of what science is. All one has to do is look at what is happening to our Theory of Evolution and our scientific knowledge of global warming. "Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for 'Science.' The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles." How we think about our children and our future has also changed in our new society of what we are told is true has to be true because how can it be any other way? As a teacher I am told every day how today's youth are worthless and lazy. As a teacher I argue against this concept because by working with young men and women every day it is obvious they are filled with hope and intelligence. Intelligence I would have a difficult time keeping up with. To again quote Orwell, "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, 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... 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." The final question I have is does it have to be this way. Can we go back to a time where equality was more important than wealth, when the whole was more valuable than the small part, and does the honor of the past have a chance to mirror the reality of our future? Will we discover what Orwell wrote about many decades ago? "It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody. And the people under the sky were also very much the same-everywhere, all over the world, hundreds or thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant of one another's existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same-people who had never learned to think but were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world."
The End.
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