War is Peace...

I'm an Obama supporter and this means I'm guilty of hero worship. This is not my fist offense however, my genuflections towards George Orwell are long standing. This post stems not just from my rereading of his Notes on Nationalism cited in yesterday's post, but also from watching Terry Gilliam's amazing movie Brazil yesterday. It went sorta like this:

I had downloaded a newer version of Quicktime and was testing it out on the videos on the apple website. My roomies caught onto this and we began to watch trailers, specifically for the new movie Wall-E. The music used in the trailer is a reiteration of Michael Kamen's music written for Brazil, which of course led us right into watching the movie. Brazil is a vision of the future in an ->Orwellian Society<- encumbered by bureaucracy and technology just extended from 1984. (The year, not the novel. Though the movie is in conversation with Orwell's ideas, Brazil was released in 1985). It takes Orwell's version of the dystopian future to absurdity and confounds it with technology making for quite an enjoyable time. It made me want to read 1984 again.

So, here we are back at Orwell. My first exposure to Mr. Orwell was Animal Farm in the ninth grade. A great little allegory of historical events I hadn't studied and didn't care about. At the time I even confused the author with Orson Welles -- I was 15, I didn't know any better. Then I got the chance to read 1984 in 11th grade. Again, I didn't really care about the warnings presented against totalitarian government and it wasn't until I got to college that I reflected back on the choices of my teachers in these books to be part of my curriculum. I picked up a collection of Orwell's essays and I got caught up in his work. Not only was his political outlook on life helpful in defining my personal politics, his writing style was truly a joy to read and extremely helpful when I was trying to develop my own (I still am).

The first few essays that got me hooked on his writing were Why I Write and Politics and the English Language. The latter of which is felt heavily in 1984. A few others that I can recommend would be Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun and The Lion and the Unicorn.

Then there's the perennial favorite: A Nice Cup of Tea.

Now, Orwell was a democratic socialist, but even if you don't agree with his politics, his essays contain well crafted and convincing arguments. These arguments can provide you with a cause to think, and who doesn't need to do more of that?