3 Quotes from 1984

I recently went through 1984, by George Orwell. These are a few quotes that struck me:

1.      "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."

-1984 by George Orwell

There was another line I liked a lot. It read, "...the neat handwriting of the illiterate." The phrase summed up a big idea, and I won't jip you for the meaning with words of my own. It is such good writing. I am flipping out about that little phrase and with any luck getting the meaning all wrong right now, but I just love it so much.

2.      "You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane."

-O'Brian speaking to Winston in the book 1984 by George Orwell

The insight of this book, other than the looming and impending doom of free society, is that such an end is accomplished by fortifying the preexisting epistemological problems of post-modernity, and that such an end is an end in itself. It is hard to know what is true beyond what has been termed, ‘a justified true belief’. All anyone has to do to control another person is to make them doubt. All they have to do is make the other person try to be sane. Once a person is working at being sane, that person has surrendered their concept of sanity to a third party, which is terrifying, because it does take work to be sane.

3.      “The bird sang. The poles sang. The party did not sing.”

-Winston 1984

This quote hits like a ton of bricks. It goes well with something Hemingway said. He said, “But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed by not defeated.” The human soul sings, and everything that does not sing is not human. That is why the book is so powerful. It describes a fate worse than death, a fate worse than destruction. The party defeats its enemies fully, by making them no longer human, no longer man; a moving shell of a once living thing. It freaks me out.

This book is well writen, and quotable from cover to cover. It is a good read. Thanks for reading.

Seamus Heanney died today and that is sad.

Seamus Heaney died today. He was 74. I am affected by his death. I never knew him, and I will know him better after his death than I ever knew him while he lived. He was a writer. He did his digging with a pen. He is dead, after being born very Irish in April of 1939. Seamus Haney’s death is only as sad as any other person’s death. It is terribly sad.

Even as I read the news article about his death in the online USA Today page, I’m struck that somewhere there is a mother who lost her son, or a son who has lost a mother, and this did not make the news. It is mathematically impossible for every death to be mourned equally, it is unfair. There are many well meaning atheists, religious or otherwise inclined people who would make out like death is not so sad. They all have good arguments. There may even be truth to what they say, but death just makes me sad. I think that is sane. I understand that death is universal. Sure, and it universally sucks. Even Jesus cried when his friend died.

When someone dies, I always wish it would rain. I think the world should revolt and be miserable. I am always surprised when does not. Truly, I am. But no, the sun shines, and the wind rustles through the leaves of happy sapling trees. I think it is horrible unfair and unfeeling of the world to be so impassive, but then, it occurs to me that the natural world may be run by forces which are not juvenile. A cool sunny day is what is in order, or a fresh hot one. Perhaps death and life, and the weather are best left to their caretakers, and I can butt-out. What is fair is what happens. There is no way to know another possibility. I just think it sucks…but I’ve left the topic altogether now.

We may not be able to mourn all the dead fairly, but occasionally, we might be able to mourn a few aptly. It is fitting that Seamus’ death affects me, because his life affected me. His words changed my culture.  Seamus shared himself with us, who never knew him, and so the news of his death is carried to us for our sake that we will know to mourn him too.

I wonder how the execs at Faber & Faber feel. Faber & Faber has been his publisher for over 50 years, and this is very good advertisement. I hope they are sad for the loss, and happily sell more books. I hope they take some time to grieve the man. I hope we all send a toast his way tonight and a prayer (if you pray) for his family. I hope we read his poems, and find something good to show a friend…and if we really hated his poetry, we should hush up about it for a month or two. I hope we never leave the habit of seeing death as the terrifying sorrowful maddening peaceful enigma that it is, and that we always remember men as men, and worth a moment of mourning at their passing.