"You too now begin to be a magician"
Ok – I’m going to puss out on this one because I couldn’t even come close to describing it as funny as it really was – so if you’re interested – you can read about it on Anna’s blog.
Man we spent almost the whole night laughing – but because I still have a persistent cough – which made me start wheezing and gasping desperately for air – I now have a headache. Oh well – it was worth it! 🙂
In a recent post – I made some comments of how people even in today’s day and age practice doublethink, crimestop, crimethink and blackwhite.
These are terms that come from George Orwell’s 1984 – and I felt a responsibility to define them for you, if you do not know them.
Winston Smith explains doublethink – which is the foundation of the beliefs of “The Party” in the book 1984 – it’s scary to realize how many people’s minds work this way today.
doublethink:
“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.’
crimethink:
All crimes begin with a thought. So, if you control thought, you can control crime. “Thoughtcrime is death. Thoughtcrime does not entail death, Thoughtcrime is death…. The essential crime that contains all others in itself.”
crimestop:
“The faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. In short….protective stupidity.”
(Ingsoc stands for English Socialism – which is the ideal of the Party).
blackwhite:
The willingness to accept the ‘truth’ you are taught, no matter how absurd it is.
blackwhite is “…loyal willingness to say black is white when party discipline demands this. It also means the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know black is white, and forget that one has ever believed the contrary
Emmanuel Goldsteim:
EG is the enemy of the party – he is the scapegoat, the party uses Emmanuel Goldstein to foster anger, and hatred, to create war (for war is peace according to Ingsoc). Through this fanaticism that they stir up, they control the thoughts of the party members, they teach them, through the fear and hate of Goldstein to pratice crimestop, crimethink, blackwhite and above all doublethink.
There are some people in life that will stop at nothing to have things their own way. They’ll do anything, say anything, teach anything, and believe anything.
There are some people in life, that think they belong to the thought police. They are adept invokers of the cultish practices of doublethink, crimestop, crimethink, and blackwhite.
There are some people in life, that believe things, things they know or are afraid that can’t be supported by facts or logic; they hold onto them so tightly, so religiously (if you will), that if you approach them and ask them to reconsider, they begin to act like cornered dogs. They bite, they nip, they growl, they bark. Foaming at the mouth, they become possessed. Will they reason with you? No! Will they talk with you? No! They shut you out, they shut you up, they try to discredit you, they use whatever is within their power to try and control you (or those around you).
There are some people that work in the shadows, they hide behind the trees, they hide behind the rocks, they slink back, and when you pass by, and they pounce and stab. Or, there are even those, who are worse. They will use propaganda, they will regurgitate untruths, they will stick them to your back, they will pass them around to your friends, they make sure to conceal the truth, they twist mind’s, they twist themselves, they are contortionists, or better yet, extortionists.
There are some people that want you to believe something so strongly, that they force it down your throat. They jam it, they cram it. They are in such a frenzied state of mind that they don’t even hear that you are choking; don’t even see that you are turning blue. They don’t even feel the anger, the hate, and the resentment that is welling up inside of you.
There are some people that won’t talk to your face, only to your back, and only if you can’t hear them. They claim that you are a troublemaker, and a problem causer, and they do this by running around and spreading trouble and problems that they focus on you.
I am none of these things; I will tell you to your face, I will try to tell it as it is, as I see it. I will promote thought and thinking, reasoning and logic. I won’t hide in the shadows – I will speak in public, I have nothing to hide. I provide a meal, but I won’t force you to eat. I provide an ear, but I won’t force you to talk. I provide friendship; use it as and if you will.
And above all, for those who are of the Spy’s and the Thought Police themselves – I am guilty of thought-crime, my name is Emmanuel Goldstein.
Joyce Kilmer. 1886–1918
Trees
I THINK that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
We went to the Augusta Museum on Friday. All I can say is wow! Every time I go there, I am just overwhelmed with nostalgic.
Now, let me start by saying that in reality, I am very glad that we have moved so far into the age we are in (I mean, I love technology), but I can’t help but being sad.
I am reminded of the ‘days gone by’, right before me; days that I hardly remember, days my children will never see. An age where both men and women had special skills, working with their hands, bringing forth magnificent works of art, bringing into the economy things that were needed for everyday life, and a few things that even brought pleasure.
I looked over little shops in the corner of a wall setup to mimic where people would heat and bend iron making so many wonderful things – wow, i bet it was hard, back breaking labor – but when you were done, you could admire what you had done, see it, feel it.
I saw wood working shops, where people built desks, cabinets, I saw sewing shops, I saw shoe maker shops.
My head was filled with information on these businesses as they started in Maine, as some grew to the point of having thousands of workers, and then as they replaced these workers with machinery (or in some cases, low-paid Mexican workers from another country).
Even the woolen mill was sad. I had a job in a woolen mill about 15 or so years ago – I remember the sights, the sounds, the smells, the feeling of accomplishment working with your hands. They’re all gone. Distant past – in a museum. My children will never experience the excitement; my children will never experience the aura.
What happened to the days of “White Christmas”, the feeling of home and family?
And while I’m thinking about it, what happened to childhood.
It makes me sad, and I’m getting old, I guess.
Sometimes, when young, something goes wrong in your life and you go down a path of self destruction…
Farther climbing out of sight
I do not even
Remember light
And where it comes from
Why it’s here,
Tasting sick deaths
Lovely beer
Intoxicates and follows through
And now my friend
If you only knew
What happens when
The lights go out
With scorching screams
And lemon shouts
To run from life
To run from home
To leave all known
I’ve ever known
So find my end,
Upon the rocks
Then climb inside
My wooden box!
©1996 Jediah Logiodice
Somewhere the sun is shining
I can’t see it,
But instinct tells me
If I am standing
Under clouds
I need to run…
Run until I find the sun…
© 1997 Jediah Logiodice
My professor asked me a question today, he said:
I study a lot about metaphors and “consuming” and “consumer” as we use these terms today especially interest me. But what do you think of this: We don’t “consume” computers or cars, we “use” them. But when computer and car companies think of their customers, they speak of them as “consumers.”
Here was my response…
What they are trying to sell us, is not so much a product, but an idea. We consume their rhetoric, their ideals, and their sales pitches. Day in and day out, we are hypnotized to think we need products to be fulfilled, to be independent, or to be satisfied.
I think in this way – we are all consumers.
Define: Hypocrisy is the act of condemning or calling for the condemnation of another person when the critic is guilty of the act for which he demands that the accused be condemned.
Where is the eternal destiny of a hypocrite?
(Mat 24:50)
The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of.(Mat 24:51) He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.Please tell me if you ever see me being hypocritical….
(Ecc 7:2) It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart.
Perhaps the teacher, son of David was a universalist, or a annihilationist, because it is not always better to go to a house of mourning….
I am on my way to a friends funeral in just a short while – as far as I know, he never accepted Christ, I invited them to Church a few times, but they never came. He was a very compassionate, friendly and caring person. Sure, he had his flaws, as we all do.
It’s moments like now that bring you back to earth; and make you want to question.
If only we could see things from begining to end.
-Gene