Friday, April 8

Survival of the Totalitarian

How are you all my dears?  Surviving?  Thriving?  Good.  I thought that you might be interested to know that I went to the State Library yesterday, and was shown, not into, but past, a room in which the books were so valuable and old that nobody is permitted to have skin contact with the paper. 
Well, anyway, I didn't really have a favourite part of Chapter 4, but I had an extreme revelation in my Modern History class, today.  Nazi Germany.  I don't doubt that for many of you, this will be no surprise.  But listen, just like in 1984, Hitler had all history books that were not congruent with his current views recalled and destroyed, and just like the children that made their parents terrified they would be dobbed in to the Thought Police, Hitler recruited a mass of indoctrined, "brain-washed" youth to act as his spies.  And the name of almost every Jew that was killed by the Nazis was erased from the past so that they 'never existed'.  It is Totalitarianism (Fascism), just as 1984 is an allegory of.  What we are reading, ladies and gentlemen, as you recline in your beds, sweat in your baths and curl on your sofas with the book before you, is massively meaningful.  Nearly scarily.  (Scarily is a word, ay.  If it isn't, at least I've spelt it right.)  This isn't a notice for you to take it all from an opinionated, political view, but rather an invitation to keep in mind that what you see as fiction has already, more than once, been fact.  I'm proud to be reading something so important, and of course, I adore Orwell.  That is innocent enough.   

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please leave a comment to respond to my post or start a new conversation about whatever it is that you're passionate about.

If you don't have a Blogger or Google account, you can always leave an anonymous comment. Thankyou for taking the time!