Quote: (08-09-2017 11:05 AM)debeguiled Wrote:
Quote: (08-09-2017 03:38 AM)Robert High Hawk Wrote:
Quote: (08-09-2017 03:25 AM)speculator Wrote:
The reason that 1984 is so widely read and discussed is to make masses familiar and, in fact, ready for such a scenario. Movies, books, and other forms of art and entertainment are used to introduce new ideas to masses. This is done to weaken the defense shield called unfamiliarity. When something is unfamiliar, you instinctively resist or are suspicious of it. By reading a book like 1984, your brain becomes ready for such a scenario and won't resist it too much. All of us see elements of 1984 around us but none will do anything because we have been prepared to feel the boot on our faces.
Interesting theory. Do you think though, that this is what George Orwell intended by this novel, or just an unintended consequence of it's popularity?
That is a good question.
I love the work of Orwell so much, I kind of don't want to know. If speculator is right, we weren't being informed by Orwell, we were being softened up.
We like to think that Orwell was warning the common man, and it would be really dispiriting to find out that he was really playing a mind game with us.
Unfamiliarity would be part of it. Once you know something exists, there is a human tendency to think that you have some sort of power over it. Like, yeah, I'm not like all the sheeple, I know what's really going on.
If we are to assume there is a small group of elites controlling the masses, then from their point of view, it doesn't matter whether you are a member of the ignorant class, or the clued in class, just so long as you are passive and let them exploit you.
So, from a strategy standpoint, we can say that moving some of the population from unfamiliarity to familiarity, as long as they remain passive, is an approach that works.
I haven't heard exactly this take on it before, and would be interested to know as well where it comes from.
I started to question the intentions of Orwell and his book when I realized that Orwell is widely read and discussed in all community colleges of California. If it were a warning, it wouldn't be a part of curriculum, especially in this quasicommunist state.
This process is very similar to marinating steak before grilling it. The warning has been there for thousand years in Greek mythology. It's called Pandora's box. There are some ideas and things that must be kept away from masses and by opening this box every time we are making our lives more miserable.
Here are other examples of intentionally opening Pandora's box in recent history. The sexual revolution was started and then catalyzed by Andy Warhol's 1969 movie
Blue Movie. This started the "porno chic" trend with
Deepthroat as its culmination. This trend made promiscuity mainstream with devastating consequences for nuclear family. When people see/read something on the screen/painting/book, they are preconditioned to accept and adopt those ideas.
Another example is the establishment of Church of Satan in 1966. All major rock groups were created around 1966 (The Beatles - 1960, The Rolling Stones - 1962, Led Zeppelin - 1968, Pink Floyd - 1965, and dozens of others). The rock and roll opened the door to paganism and other occults and the Church of Satan was intentionally established to capture the wandering souls. Goths, emos, punks are all branches of this destructive ideology.
The Global Warming agenda went mainstream with the 2004 movie The Day after Tomorrow. Then Al Gore hammered the message with his 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth. All done for the purpose of collecting carbon taxes and limiting freedoms.
Another example is eating ass or analingus. 10-15 years ago it was reserved for the most adventurous souls. However, they used hip hop to make it mainstream and cool. Nowadays, it is as common as eating pussy.