1984 in 2017?

Reading 1984 in 2017, really?  I can’t think of a more trite idea.

Granted, doublespeak and groupthink are pretty big these days.  Doublespeak has been big in politics at least as long as I have been eligible to vote.  It is common in business and management.  It is everywhere really, and we have to learn to see past it and get on with our lives in an intelligent way.  To think that anything unique with doublespeak is going on right now is to show an ignorance to what has been going on for a long time already. 

Groupthink has a strong history in the US in recent decades too: the run-up to the Iraq War; the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis; the US involvement in the Arab Spring.  Neo-liberal or Neo-conservative, it doesn’t matter; these camps are filled with groupthink that doesn’t want to recognize the real and sometimes drastic differences in ideals, values, cultures and people around the world.  Politicians are blinded by ideology and business as usual from the everyday reality, concerns and experience of everyday people, and then they are surprised when backlash occurs.  Their solutions seem to be to double down on their ideology and current path.  I think that qualifies as groupthink. 

Reading 1984 now is like waking up the day after the election and watching the debates as if they are the most important thing on YouTube. 

What do I think is worth reading now?  I think Camus’ The Plague is a very timely book.  Most people take it as a work talking about the struggle against Fascism, but Camus was far more deep and philosophical than that.  The plague that people struggle against in the book is not a human nor a government.  It is something bigger than that: a force of ‘nature,’ a part of reality that is bigger than humanity. 

What we are struggling against right now is not other humans.  We are struggling against ideas and realities (different interpretations of the world we live in) that are bigger than any person or group of people.  When we blame those things on people or groups (and demonize or make heroes of them), we are taking the stupid way out.  Stupid because it really doesn't get us out; it just draws us deeper in.  We divide ourselves, alienate ourselves from the experience and concerns of others, and all of this leads us to be more deeply entrenched and blinded by the assumptions of our interpretation of the world.  This is a recipe for disaster for a democracy, and I think it is the situation in many failed states. 

Big Brother is not our enemy.  Our enemy is a world that we are ignoring more and more as we retreat further and further into ideology and the virtual.  We make this worse by using others as a scapegoat, blaming them instead of seeing that we are all at fault. 

So please, spare me anymore talk of 1984. It is a great book, and if you haven't read it, you should.  But stop the hysteria because it is no more timely now than it was ten years ago.  (I also think Brave New World is a better dystonia novel, philosophy wise. Yet, it is no more timely now than it was 10 years ago.)

Trans-valuation of Values

We need a trans-valuation of values.  Our ideals, values, categories and words need to be examined and refashioned. 

This is a re-drawing of the lines that define things and a re-configuration of the categories we organize things into, especially good and evil, right and wrong.  The world has changed-- both the physical world and the world of thought-- and our way of thinking and speaking of it needs to be re-calibrated. 

Right now it is easy to demonize corporations and profit, and there are a lot of good reasons to question and criticize.  However, these things are necessary for society to be anything like it currently is.  When we demonize them, we are setting them up as a straw-man to be burned. This doesn't really solve any real problems in a way that most people would find desirable.

It is easy to demonize universities and intellectuals, especially those with liberal political agendas.  But again, they are necessary. Without the universities and intellectuals, we are not only ignorant but we are less and less likely to have goals and the ability to think critically no matter how much or little information we have.

These are just two examples.

In addition to that, we have an environment where not supporting something is seen as hating it.  This is the old "if you are not with us you are against us" adage taken to a logically and practically absurd extreme.  If you don't support unrestricted gun ownership, you want to take all of our guns away.  If you don't support some specific push for human rights for some certain group, you hate them.  This is the way that too many people talk and, it seems, the way they think.  It is absurd, but that is hard to see when you are inside of it.  When you are in over your head with those values and categories, it is hard to see things any other way. 

We need to stop entrenching ourselves in our separate camps and demonizing others.  Criticism and debate are good, but there is little of that now because our public discourse is filled with false dichotomies, hyperbole and lack of trust.  What we need is to re-define the words we use and ideals we hold. Lines need to be re-drawn and categories re-configured.  Otherwise we are stuck preaching to the choir on one hand or talking past each other on the other, or worse yet constantly attacking each other.   

This sort of thing is the job of philosophers, theologians and artists.  Yet, these people are not taken seriously these days because science rules.  Science however is (mostly) descriptive, and this task is (largely) prescriptive.  What is worse is that entertainers (some of whom can actually claim the title of artist) are not doing this job even though they think they are.  What they are doing for the most part is simply reaffirming and strengthening the values and ideals that they hold.  They are not refashioning; they are simply reusing, not even recycling them.  And when they are in decline or being questioned (which they proclaim to be attacks and hate) the artists exaggerate and radicalize them to try to prop them up.  That is nothing more than a downward spiral. 

To everyone: Your ideals, values, categories and words do not come from the world. They come from humanity: our minds traditions and habits.

The the political and intellectual elite, and the media: Your ideals, values categories and words correspond less and less with the reality the rest of us live in.

To the artists, especially writers: It is high time to forge new ideals, values, categories and words.  Not to defend the old or completely reject them, but to refashion them into something that can unite and inspire. A trans-valuation of not just values but of reality is needed. Who is up to the task?

(Yes, I am channeling Nietzsche here more than a bit here, but his thoughts in this area are quite timely.)