From "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell:
Consorting with prostitutes was forbidden, of course...*
Harriet Harman, 2007:
Paying women for sex should be outlawed...
* I like the flourish "of course", old Eric saw that one coming a mile off.
Friday, 14 November 2008
1984(16): Prostitution
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5 comments:
Believe me, no-one in their right mind would consider paying Harriet Harman for sex and very few would accept it for free so she's safe whatever happens. More likely she has to pay for it but, of course, there's no intention to oulaw women paying for sex.
GO was a bit weird - reading Down and Out in Paris and London should tell you that, but 1984 is a masterwork. His prescience as to the course of the politcal economy is astonishing. The creation of Newspeak was not hard for him to imagine in 1930's. That era's propaganda made use of the technique in spades. What is most concerning is that modern New Labour politicians fall into the same useage. My particular 'favourite' is 'investment' as used as an excuse for 'spending'.
Sending copies of 1984 to all MP's was a small attempt to get them to think, but I doubt it will have any real effect on the worst of them, in particular the Great Leader.
On the subject of which, no modern times PM is a better visual model for Big Brother than Gordon Brown. Combine that with his deceits (his "what's true is false, what's false is true approach" to debate), and his absolute adoption of the Newspeak vocabulary and the assumption of Big Brothership is complete.
One thing Orwell could not forsee was the stunning advance of technology, especially IT and the relational database married with micro camera surveillance techniques. This has put untold power in the hands of big government and the big corporations far in excess of the simple unturnoffable visiscreen in Winston's flat.
1984 HAS become an instruction manual.
....a bloke has just been sighting in his new rifle in the field near my house. He telephoned me to warn that there would be some bangs. No problem.
I nearly asked him whether he was taking commissions as to the things he would hunt for money, thinking that the most use that could be put to his skills was a bit of specific political assassination - Gordon Brown. Do you know what? I hesitated to make this joke over the mobile network, not at all worried for myself you understand - but for him. It was in my mind that I was being monitored. Bloody Hell!
...later. Hey up? Who's that banging on my door?....aaaghhh!
sending copies of 1984 was an important first step.
The fascinating thing about '1984' is that both left and right are terrified by it. Each thinks the other will make it real.
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