On Mon, 4 Nov 2002, Doug Henwood wrote:
> >Is a non-imperial occupation even imaginable?
>
> These formulations are giving new life to the word Orwellian.
That might be a good thing to ask him -- whether he thinks Orwell's 1984 has become dated. One of the most striking things about that book is its image of a state that always lies in a state of perpetual war. I ran across the passage below recently, and it looked as if it could have been written yesterday, down to the part about absolute evil. If he believes it's still relevant, does he think such radical skepticism about the utterances of the state can be reconciled with support for this war?
(BTW, one interesting side point: 1984 is not about the Soviet Union, but about where we live, Oceania, the Atlantic Federation of the US and the UK. The whole mass media brainwashing is supposed to have been set in motion by a nuclear attack in the 50s. Would he see 9/11 as a comparable starting point for a similar regime of massthink? There was power of 10 fewer dead, but it was much more of a media event than Orwell could ever have imagined in 1949.)
>From Chapter 1, Section 3
(http://www.eng.buffalo.edu/~smf7/175/ch1s3.html)
Since about that time, war had been literally continuous, though strictly speaking it had not always been the same war. . . . .. But to trace out the history of the whole period, to say who was fighting whom at any given moment, would have been utterly impossible, since no written record, and no spoken word, ever made mention of any other alignment than the existing one. At this moment, for example, in 1984 (if it was 1984), Oceania was at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. In no public or private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped along different lines. Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible.