Orwell

My favourite author is George Orwell. Ever since I first read The Road to Wigan Pier I was completely hooked and scoured libraries in my youth searching and uncovering everything he had written. By the time I was 20 I had read everything. Now, at the ripe old age of 55, I have read, re-read and written about him more times than I care to mention.

So when I come across articles titled "Please stop comparing things to 1984" my interest is slightly piqued.

Whatever could these "things" be? I mean, it is a dystopian novel written in the shadow of the aftermath of WWII (1949) And its an easy book to reference due to the sheer scale of its global reach, Anybody with a penchant for reading will have read it at some point.

So why should we stop referencing it? lets look at the article..

https://electricliterature.com/please-stop-comparing-things-to-1984/

In the first paragraph its pretty easy to see the authors political views. I'll go out on a limb and say. Far left, Anti Trump. And when I look at the title of the article, we can read between the lines, what the author actually means is "I wish right wing people would stop referencing 1984"

I quickly skipped through the article before continuing, I was 100% correct.

When reading any article, its important to take a look at the author, especially one who states her credentials not once, but twice in the first 100 words. Its not possible to pin down her credentials, but she has taught at high school level, but in order to teach at that level is a pretty low bar. This is not to say she's thick, but its hardly something to brag about.

Anyway....

The article is over 4 years old now, and its drawn from the backdrop of the Capitol hill riot. I think its safe to call it a riot, it certainly wasn't an insurrection. But like so many demonstrations, it quickly spiralled out of control. Klein specifically calls it an insurrection. But under US law, insurrection is an action or conspiracy to overthrow the government.

But if Americans really wanted to overthrow its government, they would be armed. I digress though, lets look at the article.

She understands why its so appealing: Good. And she often urged her students to resist easy moralising, strange thing to say. A good teacher should ALWAYS urge students to resist easy moralising.

"The good guys are good"

The principle character (Winston Smith) is not depicted as a good guy, if she's read the book (as she claims) Winston is the victim, struggling against a suffocating totalitarian regime. Its his imperfections that resonate with the reader and keeps you engaged.

"The bad guys are bad"

I have to question if Klein actually taught at high school level, this smacks of elementary level teaching.

"The characters are singularly minded" 

I would go deeper on this, but suffice to say, this was Orwells intention

"Such simplicity is helpful when it comes to presenting complicated ideas"

Its a novel

"And so, like many other teachers, I clung to Orwells cautionary tale for a long time as a pedagogical tool."

Good, its a very useful tool. Until that is, it becomes politically inexpedient no doubt.

"But when Trump began his rise to political power, i started to notice the dangerous, inoculating quality the text had in my own classroom"

"It functioned not as a cautionary tale but as a kind of proof that we could never get that bad"

"1984 was such a simplified, exaggerated caricature"

A startling change of pace. Now the author is hinting that Donald Trump is somehow the dawn of authoritarian oppression! Say what you like about the man, but he's an old school, free market capitalist. The idea that he spells the dawn of extreme totalitarian government is laughable. And of course, 4 years on, we know this is a ridiculous idea.

"Most students could not bring themselves to consider that the United States could actually sink into the kind of totalitarian control that Oceana experienced"

Klein even says it herself, 1984 is an exaggerated caricature, its little wonder most students would not consider the United States could ever sink into that kind of totalitarian control. That's not to say its 100% impossible, but its highly unlikely. Conditions may one day arrive. After all, nobody ever believed Rome could fall. But the very suggestion that Donald Trump could be that guy is utterly ludicrous.

"They trusted norms, even as those norms were being continually tested"

And they were right, Klein was wrong.

"High school students aren't always known for being thorough readers. Even reading 1984 cover to cover hasn't prepared them for this moment that we now find ourselves."

The moment being a bloviating, narcissistic, free market capitalist as its President? America seems to have survived unscathed. In fact, the Democrat party has swung so far to the authoritarian left, they even ended up voting for Trump a second time!

"I've watched students who align with right ring ideology see the text as a clean-cut repudiation of communism"

Well, it is. Okay its not as direct as Animal Farm, but at the time, far left ideology was running rampant throughout Russia, culmination in the Soviet Bloc, and Maoism was just about to have a similar, devastating effect on China

This was Orwells principle idea for the book.

"White Americans usually have trouble internalizing the historical context of the book"

They do?

"Russia and China as nearly unchallengeable scapegoats"

In the context of the book, they would be correct.

"Orwell wanted us to see the Tyranny that rises from within"

No he didn't. You could say that about Animal Farm, but not with 1984. Maybe Klein is getting her books mixed up? In Animal Farm he mapped out the communist revolution in Russia, step by step. On every single page you could see the rising fear among the rest of the animals as it slowly dawned on them what was happening.

In 1984 the Tyranny was already in place, it had already risen.

"The students I was teaching were mostly Jewish"

Okay...?

"They were easily more able to see the book as a Nazi Adjacent dystopia"

Probably because Klein told them it should be. But this is disingenuous. Millions died because of the racial supremacist bedrock of Nazi ideology. Millions died under the Stalinist, Soviet regime because of horrific, authoritarian policy, twinned with a despotic megalomaniac (Stalin)

Kleins is the exact person Orwell was warning us about. He already knew all about fascism, and as a socialist himself he was committed to highlighting the dangers of socialism. To forcefully brainwash people into unabated love of the state was textbook Communism.

"This is just like 1984, the right wing mob cries"

Because it probably was

"Its a text that allows them to frame themselves as a victim"

What if they are actually the victim? Klein seems unable to perceive the idea.

"Winston seems an unlikely hero"

Because he's not, he's the victim.

"What white supremacist wouldn't see himself as Orwells hapless hero"

White supremacist?

"Even if they'd read to the end and actually seen Winston captured and brainwashed"

I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people who have read the book have read it to the end.

"Poisonous ideas, like viruses, travel quickly and are not easily eradicated"

Like Communism or Nazism or Fascism?

So to sum up.

Klein skates over the core point of the book, draws a whole host of false equivalences and finishes aplomb where she implores the reader (its geared to an American audience) to look inward at how bad a regime they've always been since the declaration of independence.

She accuses her students of missing the fundamental principles of the novel, but it is she herself that misses them.

The biggest issue she has when right wingers quote 1984, is she knows they're right and she hates that idea.

The latest I can find on Klein is she's writing her own book about an unlikely friendship between 2 Jewish women.

I bet its a real page turner...