Book Review: 1984 by George Orwell

I wonder how many reviews there are of this book? Probably thousands. So what could I possibly write or express that would be worth repeating? I can't expect to come up with something new to say about it. I'm certain people talk endlessly about the historical references to communistic countries like Russia and China during the first half of the 20th century. Places where millions of people were murdered by their governments. Where the media was manipulated to show the virtue of the system and the evil of the enemy. Where their leaders were venerated as living gods. Where anyone that was inconvenient to the regime was imprisoned, tortured, and eventually killed or left so broken that they couldn't recognize themself in a mirror.  

I shouldn't write about how the book shows a world where the government spies on everyone, which we just take for granted in the modern world. We joke about our Xbox recording us. Google thinks you're talking to it when your not. Alexa gives away all your secrets when the right question is asked. Snowden showed us how the US is spying on anybody it wants. 

A world where the government runs the schools and convinces children to spy on their parents. That's in this book too. 

What hasn't been said about this book? What about the fact that it has a very stirring romantic plotline? A vision of secret love, torn asunder by the needs of the many. A love destined to fail as it represents the thing the system can't have. What's the point of life if love is forbidden? Can love break through the pavement like a flower or does it get the same poison as the rest? What can I say about this book that hasn't already been said?

It's written in a way that seems like the ride at Disney Land where the song "It's a small world, after all" plays continuously while you slowly float down an artificial river in an artificial world. Where little men and women pretend to be happy and wave to you but you know deep down they are just pawns in a system that would toss them aside the first time a gear breaks. The book leads you into a world that is not unlike the world you live in but for the ever-looming judgment of a confusing master. A perfect master that demands eternal obedience, and adulation. A master that demands that not only do you obey but that you believe. 

What can anyone say about this book, other than that it is dark, mesmerizing, and a third adjective hitherto unknown. Other than that there is nothing. 

I guess I could add something about the way this book made me feel. That's not something anyone else can know. While reading I felt anxious for the characters as they tried to skirt around the surveillance system that seemed to be everywhere. The worst crime in the book is thoughtcrime where one's thoughts are rebellious to the state. I hold skepticism in high regard and this book reaffirmed in my mind the need for the freedom to criticize the government and any other institutes with power over people. 

By the end, I also felt hopeless. The author does not lead one down a path toward redemption. It is a true tragedy in that there is no hero and no resolution. I think that the author intended for the book to act as a cautionary story of the dangers of seeking power, especially on a global scale, and of the dangers of giving power to institutes to dictate right and wrong. 

Or... Maybe freedom is only an illusion and no matter where you are or who you are you are just a pawn to a system that emerges from elements that no one controls directly. A system that is built on the momentum of history and the corruption of intentions. Or... maybe morality has to be fought for and subjugation should be met with resistance. I think that people naturally resist oppression but they are not always up to the task. Sometimes they need help from others that share their notion of freedom. The problem with righteous groups with righteous intentions is that they can justify force no matter how barbaric. 

Such a tricky game we play when we play with power. I liked this book and its message is important. I recommend it to anyone that is interested in political philosophy or fiction set in a dystopian future.   

 

A Pleasant Haunting

I hold many hymns inside my head.

A pleasant haunting from a time before.

I have a complicated relationship with "The Church".

There are two types of churches that I attended growing up. One was the mainstream small-town Christian Church. It had youth groups, Sunday school, basketball hoops, and a few hundred people would show up each Sunday. I was in a youth group that was a religious version of the Boy Scouts called Awanas. We memorized Bible verses, had sack-races and I'm sure there was some kind of music involved. It was not an unpleasant experience and I was pretty good at memorizing lines from the Bible. Later I would despise the idea of rote memorization and to this day do not put much effort into memorizing things. The idea of memorizing information that someone else thinks is important is offensive.

Also, I remember finding no joy in the words from the Bible. They were just sentences in a book that adults expected me to know. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son," was just a line from a book and if I could recite it to an adult they would praise me. I don't remember anyone ever asking me if I believed in God. It was assumed, even by myself. Until one day I started to ask questions and found that none of it made any sense.

The second kind of church I attended was called the "Home Church", as it was not affiliated with any known group. Just a bunch of adults getting together to worship God. It was held at the homes' of its adherents and its leader was a permanent bachelor named Jim. The man had never been married or at least that is what I remember of him. He manufactured toilet paper holders with his huge CNC machines and lived alone. I remember visiting his house a few times. He lived in an upstairs apartment attached to his factory. I remember finding it generally unkempt but he had cool stuff like an airplane simulator on his PC and a massive sniper rifle. I suspect that no woman had ever made their way to his apartment long enough to have any input into its design or its inhabitant.

My father lived with Jim for some amount of time after my parents were separated. I always despised my father's lack of ambition and willingness to take from others. It seemed that he was more than happy to take the kindness of strangers until he outstayed his welcome. This is merely an impression I had/have of him but I don't have a lot of great evidence. Maybe it is an exaggerated notion born of my own resentment and ignorance.

"Home Church" was a nightmare. The sermons were dry and dark. I don't remember almost any of the actual content of the sermons but I remember some stuff about not being "worldly" and how to not go to hell. I think there were about 10-15 families at the most and its members changed throughout the years. It also expanded itself to other places a few times a year when we would go on camping trips. Those were a lot of fun and even though I still had to go to Chruch I would get to hang out with my best friend Caleb.

Honestly, Caleb was the best thing to come out of those early days going to Churches. Caleb and I would not stop talking. Even during sermons, we would exchange notes. I remember making fun of everything with him and getting into a little trouble for not paying attention and giggling a few too many times. We were mild scamps, whereas the older boys were the real trouble. They would call them "The Boys", like some kind of gang. "The Boys are going swimming," or "The Boys are going riding", they would say and I always wanted to be in that group. Caleb and I were still too young to go off and do things with "The Boys", so we did our own things. We had imaginations back then and had a lot of fun inventing situations and examining our lives.

As I was writing this I stopped and had a thought:
I should try to seek out good conversations and good conversationalists and not take them for granted. A good conversation is an invigorating thing.

Other than the good times with Caleb, the "Home Church" was generally boring and uneventful, other than the time when someone was expected to give a formal apology, in front of everyone, for separating from their husband and I think she still wasn't allowed to attend certain functions. I could be making that last part up. Or maybe the entire thing. Also, I remember how much pressure the church put on my brother when he got his girlfriend pregnant. They were very young and it was very stupid but the church and my father insisted that the two should get married. My brother, with the strong urging of my mother, decided not to marry her. This turned out to be an amazingly good decision.

Mostly I hate the idea of a "Church" as they represent a kind of propagandized inculcation that reminds me of my childhood and adolescence where I was convinced I was going to hell for most of the things I did and thought. There were so many ways to get there after all. I don't remember the last time I prayed to God but I do remember feeling very stupid for doing it that last time.

I do remember soothing myself by singing "Amazing Grace" while walking around Coos Bay at night because I was so nervous I would get into trouble for the raging High School party occurring at my mom's house, where I lived. My mom was in some high-level position at the same High School that most of the underage partiers went to during the week and she lived there too. She was out of town that weekend and my sister decided to invite a shit ton of underage people to the house to drink.

I might have been 21 at the time and as a resident, I probably would have been in trouble if the cops showed up. My sister was a junior or a senior at the time and had invited just about everyone from the school to come party at her house. I nearly had a panic attack when I realized how many young people were there so I decided to walk around the town in the dark singing to myself the words to "Amazing Grace" until I calmed down enough to go back to the house and deal with it. Nothing much happened, other than a teenage boy broke his leg while skateboarding in the basement. No cops showed up and no parents freaked out. I'm pretty sure my mom found a condom wrapper in one of the rooms. We hadn't cleaned up well enough.

The church represented a place to feel a part of a group that didn't seem to know or care much about me. Other than my friend Caleb I didn't feel connected to almost anyone else at church. It was a place of incoherent judgment and mundane philosophies.

One of my all-time favorite songs is "Hallelujah" by pretty much anyone who sings it. It is a masterful song. I recently started to learn how to play the violin and, more recently, the ukulele. Learning to play music (not that what I do should be considered "music") has completely changed my outlook and appreciation of music. It is simultaneously cognitive and imaginative. It requires a confluence of body and attention, all with the goal of making things better, easier and then automatic.

I am not ashamed or annoyed that I enjoy certain old fashioned religious music. It is one of the only things that I am glad for during my years of involuntary recruitment into "The Church".

Religion is just art turned upside down.

Some Thoughts on Writing

Writing about one's experiences allows one to relive experiences and allows others to relive the experience when they read it. Writing expresses thoughts that would have otherwise been memorized. When we have a persistent thought pattern and do not write it down the mind continues to go over those thoughts in an effort to not lose them but when you write them down you no longer need to go over those ideas. The writing acts like an external memory extending our capacities for thinking. 

Writing offers a mechanism for reinforcing memories and solidifying them. It also allows one to process experiences to better understand them. Through writing one can take different perspectives. It offers a glimpse into more of the world then one could have realized without writing it down or otherwise committing it to memory.

Writing can offer a means of trimming memories in that when one writes one creates a sequence that omits certain pieces of information. This allows the overall story to be told without having to remember all of the details. Unfortunately, important details can get lost in this process as well.

The more one writes the more one creates pathways that reinforce the consolidation of experiences into words and narratives. This process helps the mind process daily life in a way that supports and reinforces linguistic specificity.

 Communicating via narrative is the main way humans pass on knowledge and therefore any activity that solidifies lessons will be selected for and valued. Prior to widespread formal written language lessons were passed down via oral traditions but writing allows for messages to be shared in a more permanent and spreadable way. One person with a good story was no longer limited to sharing their message with those in their immediate environment. With writing and now the internet messages are spread throughout the world. 

Photo Journal 11/5/2018

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Lone Fir Cemetery

Portland, Or 

Shot w/ Canon 80D w/ 70-200 & 14-24

Click to Enlarge

Restitution Then and Now

America made a costly compromise in allowing slavery but I believe that they believed that it was the best way to compete with other large countries. When they decided to end slavery and rightly so they should have paid restitution to the aggrieved parties, both the slaves and slave owners. In my mind, the slave owners would not get nearly what the slaves would but just enough to recognize that the government is to blame for the hardship that will ensue*. 

The problem is that the government didn't do enough to own their responsibility for slavery and to make it right when they could have. The problem is that with time restitution becomes impossible to calculate. When the aggrieved party is deceased who should the money go to? Their children? And in what amount? And what can people now do with random amounts of money thrown at them for no reason? This is what the government did with welfare and that isn't working out very well. The government should have treated freed slaves as citizens who are wrongfully imprisoned and paid as a lump sum or periodic payment but with terms and conditions. Such as the money ends with the individual. It would not be welfare for all but specific restitution for a specific person for a specific crime inflicted on them.

What should happen if you are taken out of your home and enslaved today? When you are freed it would be reasonable to allow you to sue for damages in restitution and the kidnapper would be held accountable. They would be jailed but the problem comes when your government is the kidnapper. You can try to sack members of the government or the government in whole but they are a loyal crew and not easily other thrown. It may be cost many lives to cause an effective coo and in the end, there have been no real solutions to the issue and measures taken to ensure it doesn't happen again.

So the peaceful way to hold the government accountable is to have them pay for their crimes in restitution. The downside to this is that the cost to the government due to this kind of grievance is really the cost of the people through taxes or debt.

If the government is to act as the countries ultimate leadership then it must take responsibility for everything that occurs within its scope of control. In the modern state, this means that when it unjustly imprisons people for crimes that should never have been crimes, such as marijuana possession, and if that crime is decriminalized, they should release those whose crimes were only that, and then pay restitution in an amount that is reasonable based on what an average person in that city would have made plus a penalty fee paid from the personal pockets of the tribe that caused it, the politicians. This might incentivize the government from taking laws more seriously or it might incentivize them to never change laws. I am not sure. 

Here is the last problem I see in regards to restitution now for slavery back then in the form of racially based special programs. I don't think it can be done logically, financially or effectively and so the crimes of the past must remain in the past. There are plenty of new crimes that we should hold the government accountable for. If the government displays some Extreme Ownership (as described by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin's book by that name) as a foundational guiding standard then we might see real change and real leadership from the government.

To explain the previous paragraph:

It is not logical because it is too far removed from its original recipients and too complicated to make work. It is not financially possible due to the same reasons and due to inflation, current living conditions and the massive population that exists compared to those originally aggrieved. Either you would have to spread the money too thin or too thick on those that would have gained from it had it been distributed thoughtfully in the past. It wouldn't be effective for same reasons.

And of all the descendants on either side of the issue whom would be to blame and whom would be entitled to compensation? In mind, it is either all descendants, 1 descendant or none. This is all hypothetical and really just an exercise in thinking about restorative justice, I suppose. I do not think that anyone is actually promoting giving restitution now to descendants of people who were enslaved. Maybe someone is but I doubt it is more than a few people. This is not a debate against a real opponent. It is just a thought experiment about what can be done to ensure that African Americans feel that their government is on their side just as it is on the side of all its citizens. 

The government has done what it will do about slavery and the Native American conquering (as another example of complicated political crimes), and it does seem that if it is too late for restitution for slavery so I am not sure what else the government can do to appease the descendants of the aggrieved.  I certainly do not see the government succeeding in unifying the country as a citizenry that works together toward a common cause.

I also see many people blaming others for their problems and not taking it on themselves to be successful. I see people who want to use the government to enact their self-interested justice instead of holding the government accountable for its crimes. It also seems that people forget the difference between the private and governmental sectors as more wish to adopt a governmental control over all aspects of life. I do not see people working to come up with counters to power run amock and remembering to keep freedoms from being lost in the chaos. 

*Revision on 6/29/2018: Slave owners that profited from slavery should not receive compensation for losing their slaves because they have already benefited so much. I suppose I just wanted a symbol of responsibility from the government. It is not the fault of the slave owner that they were able to own slaves, as the government allowed and facilitated it and I don't know how to justify taking the money from the slave owners to pay the restitution because they did nothing illegal at the time. They certainly benefited from something immoral but at the time was not seen as immoral by many.