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From: eich@uiuccsb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: 1984 - (nf)
Message-ID: <4422@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 10-Dec-83 22:30:20 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.4422
Posted: Sat Dec 10 22:30:20 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 13-Dec-83 02:27:38 EST
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#R:aecom:-29100:uiuccsb:15500013:000:1083
uiuccsb!eich    Dec 10 04:34:00 1983


1.  I don't endorse funny names like Peacekeeper for weapons systems.

2.  (predicated upon 1.)  In 1984, War is Peace was an example of the
particular form of irony Orwell called doublespeak because there WERE
wars going on in the world of the novel, but doublespeak, enforced by
thought police, made it impossible to think of war as war.  Now, the
precise purpose of building the MX is so that it will never be used --
PLEASE, no flames; whether the MX will or will not make war less likely
can be debated elsewhere.

3.  There are no thought police in this country to enforce Reagan's
nomenclature.

4.  Orwell was writing about totalitarianism, and therefore it behooves
his students to study it.  Jean-Francois Revel's The Totalitarian
Temptation is a good start;  Leszek Kolakowski's (sp) Main Currents of
Marxism is a hefty followup.  Orwell was not writing about Multi-
National Corporations or American society (two examples which dishonest
exegetics found portents of in 1984).  He was writing about a very
particular thing.  Let's try to avoid obliterating distinctions.