I see 1984 by George Orwell cited A FUCKTON. Keep in mind, I’m a white tranny living in the US, and I lead a relatively comfortable life. For now. Before you read further, check on the black women in your life. Give them money. Buy them things.
Now, let’s begin with the question of whether or not the US is like the world of 1984 by George Orwell.
Do we live in a post-fact society? Maybe a little. That’s what skepticism is for, though. NOT SPECULATION, BUT SKEPTICISM. Skepticism is about reserving judgments and seeking facts to avoid error. There is a difference. Read Descartes. Don’t read into Descartes. Just READ Descartes.
Do we live in a society that calls things by a name other than their actual function? A lot of the time, yes. Prisons that enslave people that are run by corporations are called “correctional facilities” for example. Given recitivism rates, I’d say they are bad at their jobs. Thus spoke Nietzsche (paraphrasing from The Gay Sciences): “It doesn’t matter what a thing is or does. It matters what a thing is called.”
Do we live in a society where works of yore are re-written into the modern language to be more accessible to a modern audience? Mostly just the Bible. That seems odd. I wonder why that is. I thought it was Holy. The Holy Bible. Shouldn’t the original texts be the final authority? If the word was in the beginning, and it became flesh, and it was and is God, and it doesn’t change (citing the Gospel of John and Paul’s letter to the Hebrews), shouldn’t the leadership encourage the laity to learn written Hebrew and Greek? And these newer editions in this “newspeak” seem to be happening more and more often. Further, I banged my head against the wall for a week shouting at Rene Descartes (who has been dead for almost 400 years) to “HIRE A FUCKING EDITOR!” while reading Meditations on First Philosophy and that’s supposedly the work most creationists base their work on.
In short: I can see where the shouts of “THIS IS JUST LIKE 1984!!!” come from. Where did they read 1984, though? In public school, probably.
I read 1984 in Kuwait in January 2005. I was finishing training to deploy into Iraq as a “Motor Transport Operator.” After that, I read “A Fistful of Sky” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, and it was a much more enjoyable novel. It felt more real because I, like the protagonist of that novel, have curse magicks inside me that just need to get out, so fuck y’all.
I remember reading it one day while on lunch break while we were doing Close Quarters Marksmanship training. A PFC with a 3rd ID patch stopped walking and stared. I asked if I could help him. He asked if I was an officer (who would require a salute while passing since we were in a garrison environment). I asked why he asked such a question. He said it was because I was reading a book. I pulled my SPC rank insignia out from under my ballistic vest and told him, “We’re allowed to read books, too, y’know? You should try it.” I realize that sounds like some chain email, “and then everybody clapped,” shit, but that’s kinda… most of my stories? I wish I could make them up.
First of all: I think maybe we should stop bringing up these kinds of novels (movies/TV shows/whatever) in justice movement spaces unless there is a specific action goal in mind, and the piece of media in question is your only reference point. And we should definitely stop moralizing about them (except Harry Potter, because all cats).
Second: I think it’s not a bad idea to do group reads of fiction works. It can help us better understand ourselves, each other, and the world around us. If everyone in a space has read the same work, it can be an easily understood social rallying point.
HOWEVER, 1984 is not without its problematique elements.
All the women are two-dimensional characters. Julia is only rebelling only in small ways for herself alone. Katherine is Winston Smith’s wife and doesn’t even get to appear in the book, but she is portrayed poorly due to her orthodoxy with the society in the book. No matter what the women do in 1984, they are naughty and evil and duplicitous, or they are nameless. And even one of the nameless ones fits that description.
There’s a big part of the book that is DEFINITELY relevant and doesn’t get talked about: Winston Smith says he will throw acid in a child’s face for the fucking resistance. That statement is used against him. I’m not a cop. I don’t think like one. HOWEVER, justice workers need to keep in mind everything they say and do is being weighed and measured. Big Brother is watching us. We need to watch ourselves even harder and paradoxically remember that we are beings of liberation.
Our Lady of the Perpetual Metamagic 