Orwell nail it
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 29, 2024
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Here's a Wikipedia article about, which says, "No surviving sound recordings or video of the real George Orwell have been found." That made me sad, but Langham's portrayal is brilliant, with no actual recordings of Orwell, no one can be distracted by any inaccuracy.
And lucky us: The entire 90 minute documentary is on YouTube:
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68 comments:
"No surviving sound recordings or video of the real George Orwell have been found."
"Everyone has wanted their 15 minutes of fame to now. In the future, everyone will want 15 minutes of anonymity." - Banksy
Wise beyond his years.
the irony that they would try to erase Orwell, who worked for the BBC World Service, well it's crunchy,
in Mr Jones, it's suggested that Orwell came to the notion of Animal Farm, from a conversation he had with Gareth Jones about the Holomodor, back when he believed,
The movie "V For Vendetta" got the coming future more closely correct though the author's and the director's biases caused them to miss the true villains' politics by 180 degrees.
One of my future projects is setting up a blockchain news and history service.
The blockchain is immutable and completely transparent.
I am buying books in original versions from Book.io in NFT form.
George Orwell: The first Satoshi Nakamoto.
It really is uncanny how closely Orwell predicted our facist/authoritarian future. "1984" was the most influential book I read in high school.
they took it as a cook book, also Brave New World is also in the Gumbo,
Maybe living on the Island of Jura, like another prophet did a long time ago, gave some perspective,
he should have credited Burnham with the three Super States, however
"Don't let it happen." I think that this stops short of the direction of his expectation. It will happen. It will happen because people will want it to happen. Not the end result, but all the steps that lead to it. We have an extravagant optimism about our ability to fix the world if only we had the power needed to sweep aside those haters and doubters. Thus, we go willingly into autcratism so long as the promise is that our utopia is just within reach once we eliminate the opposition. The problem is that the people reaching for the power don't share the ideal, they just use it as a means to gain the power. And once they gain that power, you discover that their utopia doesn't match yours. History is repleate, but we always think we will do it right this time.
As I pointed out the Irony of the prophet of the age, being erased from consciousness, even though he worked for the BBC
now Goldstein was clearly Trotsky, but he might have been Vlasov, if Orwell thought such things through
I think it's a similar phenomenon with Science Fiction. People read fiction, and project it into their belief systems. And then, at least partly subconsciously, work to make those beliefs come true, because they have that creative image in their mind, and it bleeds over into intention.
It's the same as William Shatner's communicator, in 1960's Star Trek, breating the image of a cell phone, with some of early flip phones looking remarkably similar. Or the idea of Musk's rockets, landing upright on a precise spot - something that 1950's science fiction movies portrayed, or Jules Verne, even earlier. Or Captain Nemo's submarine, powered by a mysterious invisible energy source, becoming the Navy's nuclear subs.
the last post, was about how Mr Jones sees Animal Farm forming in his mind,
after a talk about the Holomodor, 'some animals are more equal than others'
Lenin was more intellectual than Orwell, would he have pursued Trotsky as willingly probably, as Fidel did with Camilo,
* 'creating the image of a cell phone'....*
I meant Stalin, who was more instinctive, the three party members Aaronson and Rutherford, (forget the last) were more Trotskyite references,
@Aggie
Highly recommend this: https://isaacyoung.substack.com/p/the-mystics-of-progress
"By the 1960s, progressivism had reached a new ascendancy. Fueled by the unparalleled wealth that came with a modern economy, millions were lifted into new, luxurious lifestyles. Now was the time to put aside the ignorance of religion and finally embrace the freedoms offered by a world liberated from Christianity....
But with any new religion, there has to be a story, and the story science told wasn’t so flattering. Men had gone from sons of God to sons of apes. Salvation was a lie and death was the end. There was no justice in the world, and mercy was just the delusion of fools. Man was a small being in a cold universe. The only thing modern men could be comforted by was his own increasing material comfort....
Reason and science needed romance. It needed adventure and a destiny. Without these things, it was a boring, uninspiring philosophy. Writers (good ones anyway) instinctively shy away from boring. Better to be dead than boring. If there is a victory, it has to be a glorious triumph. If it is a defeat, it has to be a last stand. And if it is banal, then it has to be the most shuddering and teeth clenching banality of all."
as what is this 'we' business, we don't aspire to transformative schemes, we want to keep what we have, maybe recover some of what we lost,
Hears what google AI says:
1984
(1949) Orwell's novel depicts a society where citizens are controlled by fear, propaganda, and constant policing. The main character, Winston Smith, is a government employee who rewrites history to make his country's leaders look good. Orwell's novel is considered a response to Huxley's prediction of the future in Brave New World, which Huxley once taught Orwell.
Brave New World
Huxley's novel depicts a society where citizens are controlled by state-sponsored hedonism and are unlikely to rebel. Huxley's novel includes a caste system created by genetic engineering, with alpha and beta types at the top and a slave underclass at the bottom. Some say that Huxley's novel is more prescient than Orwell's, and that it's closer to what's happening in today's world.
It seems more likely that 1984 and Brave New World are converging where the current and former communists are 1984 and the West is Brave New World
Except Orwell had the Soviet Union with war time Britain as the template, Huxley's was made of whole cloth
You make a reasonable point, Howard. I read both books when I was an impressionable young man (and believed that the ring wing would usher in such a world, thanks to lefty propaganda). They are classics.
I prefer Orwell for his body of work and for his more incisive style. I am currently rereading Down and out in Paris and London which is nonpolitical and his first book (1933). He is just a delightful story teller.
The "news" media in the United States is nothing more than an arm of the government.
Kamala Harris has finally announced her first interview. She's bringing along her "father." So who got the famous interview?
Dana Bash
You know Dana. She's married to Jeremy Bash. You know Jeremy. He's one of the 51 CIA\FBI\NSA agents who signed the Hunter Biden laptop letter ... telling America it was fake and Russia disinformation.
Dana Bash then platformed this for her husband, Jeremy.
She's the one who got the Harris interview. And we're all supposed to not notice this stuff.
Orwell's novel depicts a society where citizens are controlled by fear, propaganda, and constant policing.
Sounds like he got a good education in this as an officer in the Indian Imperial Police in Burma.
she's now married to John King, another Minitrue drone, Bash was played by Stephen Dillane in the Zero Dark 30 film, which unwittingly illuminated certain elements they didnt want to focus on,
Yes!
but there are some cringe lines that I guess Mark Boal put into the film, glorifying the awesomeness of Obama, gack,
stephen Hunter is one of his one off world war 2 novels has a manque of Philby and Orwell, facing each other in Civil War Spain
Check this out…
https://x.com/ClownWorld_/status/1828834736527265932
The real Orwell fell off a coconut tree, broke his neck and never actually wrote any of the books attributed to him.
Orwell existed in the context of all in which he lived and what came before him.
Absolutely Orwell.
Having seen it, I cannot unsee it. The documentary rewrites history and physics in the best 1984 manner. Several early scenes show Orwell smoking. Long thoughtful focus on his inhaling. But, no smoke ever comes out of his mouth or nose.
Well, he was 180 degrees wrong about the sex, and I say that as a great admirer.
Little did we know today's Progressives would treat it as a how-to manual.
Better than life AR and direct dopamine injection are almost here.
People will be able to live in a world where they can fly, everyone likes them, they run the most successful company in the world, they can travel to new planets using wormhole space travel in an instant etc.
Virtual/Robot sex is going to be hard to beat.
Genetic engineering already happened. The world already looks like magic to most people.
Imagine trying to have sex with a Generation Z girl. Constantly having to interrupt to seek consent for every new sex idea you do? Every time you have sex. Or risk prison. What was OK yesterday ... might be rape today if you don't ask consent all over again.
Orwell was 100% right about sex.
https://www.theblaze.com/align/days-after-rfk-jr-signals-desire-to-make-america-healthy-again-time-issues-defense-of-ultra-processed-foods
Anthropogenic Intelligence (AI) mis [sic]. Or was it Andrea misleading her human user? Oh, well, indeed.
It is amazing to watch leftists in America and Western Europe skip down the Orwellian path like its the yellow brick road. ZERO recognition of the correlation between modern censorship, media propaganda, language manipulation, milieu control and Orwell's predictions. Animal Farm is even scarier.
Of course liberals simply write off and ignore Orwell and Ayn Rand.
A Boy and His Dog will be the sex.
I saw that film the other day, Don Johnson's debut film I think, a Harlan Ellison Work
Winston Smith's job was in the records division of the Ministry of Truth. His job was to delete previous information as it became unhelpful and to replace it with the new "narrative."
Watch this happen in real time, 2024 ... with MSNBC's Ari Melber locking his X account after denying he said that Trump "his own biggest prop: a large white bandage on his injured right ear, a spectacle.”
X user's of course, published the video of him saying exactly that after he threatened to sue Corey Lewandowski for defamation over the claim. The present-day ministry of Truth has been broken by Elon Musk, which is why they will destroy him.
See if you had told me, I wouldn't know that particular claim
Meanwhile Brazil Oceania south is going after Starlink accounts
Maynard,
I agree about orwell as a great writer, storyteller, essayist and more. I think I have read everything he ever published including 4 volumes (@3000 pages) of letters essays book and movie reviews and more. Most more than once, some 20-30 times.
His novella "coming up for air" is one of my favorite books ever. I've read it over and over for the past 45 years. It is an OK story but the way orwell tells it just knocks me out.
John Henry
Maynard,
I agree about orwell as a great writer, storyteller, essayist and more. I think I have read everything he ever published including 4 volumes (@3000 pages) of letters essays book and movie reviews and more. Most more than once, some 20-30 times.
His novella "coming up for air" is one of my favorite books ever. I've read it over and over for the past 45 years. It is an OK story but the way orwell tells it just knocks me out.
John Henry
I also like Down and Out. Most people don't realize it is autobiographical.
John Henry
180 degrees wrong. Imaginary Gen-Z girls aside, I see no evidence that the orgasm is disappearing.
Dana Bash divorced Jeremy Bash in 2007, and divorced John King in 2012, according to Wikipedia. She is not currently married.
I re-read
Why Orwell Matters by Christopher Hitchens
every so often. Available now thru the host's portal!
The current battle between Elon Musk and the Orwellian Brazilian tyrant Alexandre de Moraes is epic. Moraes is what a corrupt judicial system produces. We've seen it here in the US with some of the Trump trials and the J6 sentencing. We see it on the WI Supreme Court. Musk is a modern day John Galt. We're fucked if people like Musk and Trump give up and take off on us.
There's no greater delusion than the notion that things will be better if only we choose the right people to run the government. This fantasy is always strongest among college-campus commies in their dorm-room bull sessions, but it definitely exists on the Right as well, among people who ought to be old enough to know better.
I think it was Milton Friedman that pointed out that any system that requires good people to be put in charge is doomed to failure. All you can do is design a system that creates powerful incentives for bad people to do good things.
In a related note, I believe that the two members of Daft Punk always performed publicly in full costume. This was obviously part of their performance theater but also served the purpose that now that they have quit performing they can live a semi-normal life, and go about in public avoiding constant interactions with fans.
It is a shame there is no actual recording of Orwell's voice. I just listened to an audiobook of Homage to Catalonia read by Frederick Davidson. He made Orwell sound like some twit hanger-on of Wallis Simpson and the Duke of Windsor. It didn't help that I found the book itself to be underwhelming. Recognizing the evil of Stalin and the Communist Party while still clinging to a naive hope in the anarchists doesn't say much for him. I found it to be an embarrassing bit of juvenilia. Still, it was not as bad as William Herricks' Jumping the Line, which I had read just before listening to Homage to Catalonia. Herricks had 60 years to think about his experience of fighting in the Spanish Civil War and came up with no more original thought than did Orwell who wrote his book just months after his departure from Spain.
Muggeridge and Conquest followed similar paths away from Stalinism, the latter into the IRD, the UK's version of USIA
Half the comments posted here would earn a visit from the police in Britain, and a very possible prison sentence. Don't think it won't happen here.
But if you're a swarthy pedophile, you can move to Rotherham and have at, and you will still get a suspended sentence, even if you sexually abuse hundreds of native British girls and are an illegal.
1984 is now taught in the schools as anti-Republican agitprop. I never thought my academic dissertation, written in 1999, submitted in 2005, would come this true. And people told me I was crazy. Back then, historian Eugene Genovese told me that if I started each sentence of the text with the word "Not," I'd be tenured at Harvard by now.
And he, a reformed Stalinist, though unreformed Yankees fan, would know.
well you were in good company, then
Narciso, I was in amazing company. I took care of Betsey and Gene for some years, after I was purged from academia. We talked about Burnham as if he was there, enjoying cappy abd some cheese and nuts with a jelly jar of excellent wine at lunch. Inside jokes about Marcuse. Who could want more? Well, besides baseball. I always enjoy your comments.
that would have been wonderful, that was rutgers, right
Orwell's animal version of WWI was pretty accurate;
but 1984 doesn't see Nearly as correct as Brave New World was..
[yes, i'm talking about SEX.. And genetic manipulation]
don't get me wrong, 1984 is interesting; but the idea that The Party would throw away such a powerful weapon as pneumatic females, is crazy.
Anti-sex league my ASS
they have ground huxley and orwell, maybe a little zemyatin into a mush, it's hard to see what the standard is now, is it me too, or the clinton free grab, it's all too confusing 'the only way to win, is not to participate'
except even with kavanaugh we discover you don't even have to be present, if they deem it so,
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240829-macron-defends-move-to-give-telegram-s-durov-french-passport who knows anymore
Here's a 6 minute Kamala/Hitler routine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWSRgPpYKrg
I have long suspected that the Anti-Sex League theme of 1984 contributes to the left not being able to see the parallels between themselves and Big Brother. Since the heroes are having forbidden sex, modern leftism naturally identifies with them against Big Brother, despite the many similarities they have with Big Brother.
Good comment Howard.
Oh no Maynard, "Down and Out in Paris and London" was NOT "nonpolitical". It was intensely political. Orwell was a socialist, but an anti-totalitarian one. Those of us (you and me both, I suspect) who honor Orwell as an enemy of the totalitarians, should recognize him as the rare socialist who perceived that the totalitarian solution to "Capitalism" was worse than a dead end. Yes, he was wrong to think that there could be a socialist solution to what he perceived as the evils of capitalism, but in 1933 the capitalists hadn't even begun to evolve a solution. And they still haven't got it straight in 2024.
I was born in 1943, so I grew up in a world in which different flavors of totalitarianism competed with each other as to which variety would rule the world, and which would defeat freedom.
Everyone knew about "1984" and "Animal Farm", and "Brave New World", and I read them, and a lot of other stuff.
But although "Fascism" was gone by the time I grew up, "Communism" was still around. Orwell died while Communism was still a fighting faith, and I think we're still fighting it under different names.
But what we, and Orwell, are fighting is not AGAINST something, but FOR an ideology of Freedom.
Orwell wouldn't give the Know Nothings the time of day.
That was Inga-esque
Mutaman. 1984? You're soaking in it!
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