Orwell was right and he was wrong. Forces were emerging he didn’t anticipate, so turns out he was right about the goals but wrong about the method. Orwell, heir to the enlightenment, valued his free will and individual identity, and didn’t want to wear a number and be told what to do. In his lifetime he had seen bloody total war lead to a great depression, which led to an even bigger war, regimentation all around, breadlines, everyone dressed in somber dark clothing full of holes and patches. In a totally plausible future he thought dictatorial governments could stifle dissent, or any serious thought, by despoiling the language, all the while maintaining total control through secret police intimidation.
Communism demonstrated for all to see that the harder you squeeze down on people the more likely they are to resist, they write books, they get out. In the end it didn’t work. Instead 'commercialism' has been able to demonstrate that seduction can be much more effective than brute force at turning the population, itself, into a commodity, blissfully and unwittingly controlled from above. It’s a thing they do with language, either way, and it’s very difficult to overcome. In Orwell they used loudspeakers declaring truth was a lie, that love was hate, tangling up the language so effectively that it couldn’t be used for anything more than taking orders, doing a job.
There turns out to be a better way to corrupt the language. Here’s an example on the back cover of super literate new yorker magazine, oct 24, opposite the front cover Bob Dylan, noble winner for literature. It says, “Just because you need a four-door for everyday use, you don’t have to let your soul freeze.” The attribution simply says ‘automobile.’ This appears above a picture of a dashing red ford with four doors. It’s an esoteric message for sure, one with the manifold allure of tribal mystique for some pinpoint demographic suddenly ready to buy a car, but it really doesn’t give a damn about their soul.
Jerry Rubin, momentary hippie spokesman who later went into advertising, decried to a crowd all those years back, ‘how can I say I love you when cars love shell?’, interesting point, and it still is news. One of the reasons our politics have become so strange is because we don’t have enough good words to get out of it -- we’ve been buying and selling with the ones we have. If you think nothing’s wrong, fine, but a current candidate for the highest office can barely articulate any thoughts at all, blithering moronic superlatives without syntax. Orwell sits in the corner nodding his head.
Art was actually savaged more consciously, in a more open and documented fashion, using similar techniques. Most obviously there’s Orwell’s ‘double-speak’ style declarations, that ugliness is beauty, that permanent is temporary, that the highest achievement is ‘deskilling,’ such as that. The first overt act of art’s debasement was the destruction of the Rivera mural at Rockefeller Center, recently discussed, and by channeling rivers of money into abstract and conceptual art via foundations, grants, and government programs, the ultra rich have finally reduced art to an insider joke, a poker chip, a monopoly token.
Painters resist, since anyone with the talent required could probably go into advertising, Jerry did, and find the going much easier. For whatever reason they’re not into the four door vs two door controversy with peculiar theological implications. They’re in the studio searching for truth in pictures, and if they find it you’ll know too. Truth, the ephemeral abstraction, for this discussion means direct communication beyond language. It's almost always a surprise.
Communism demonstrated for all to see that the harder you squeeze down on people the more likely they are to resist, they write books, they get out. In the end it didn’t work. Instead 'commercialism' has been able to demonstrate that seduction can be much more effective than brute force at turning the population, itself, into a commodity, blissfully and unwittingly controlled from above. It’s a thing they do with language, either way, and it’s very difficult to overcome. In Orwell they used loudspeakers declaring truth was a lie, that love was hate, tangling up the language so effectively that it couldn’t be used for anything more than taking orders, doing a job.
There turns out to be a better way to corrupt the language. Here’s an example on the back cover of super literate new yorker magazine, oct 24, opposite the front cover Bob Dylan, noble winner for literature. It says, “Just because you need a four-door for everyday use, you don’t have to let your soul freeze.” The attribution simply says ‘automobile.’ This appears above a picture of a dashing red ford with four doors. It’s an esoteric message for sure, one with the manifold allure of tribal mystique for some pinpoint demographic suddenly ready to buy a car, but it really doesn’t give a damn about their soul.
Jerry Rubin, momentary hippie spokesman who later went into advertising, decried to a crowd all those years back, ‘how can I say I love you when cars love shell?’, interesting point, and it still is news. One of the reasons our politics have become so strange is because we don’t have enough good words to get out of it -- we’ve been buying and selling with the ones we have. If you think nothing’s wrong, fine, but a current candidate for the highest office can barely articulate any thoughts at all, blithering moronic superlatives without syntax. Orwell sits in the corner nodding his head.
Art was actually savaged more consciously, in a more open and documented fashion, using similar techniques. Most obviously there’s Orwell’s ‘double-speak’ style declarations, that ugliness is beauty, that permanent is temporary, that the highest achievement is ‘deskilling,’ such as that. The first overt act of art’s debasement was the destruction of the Rivera mural at Rockefeller Center, recently discussed, and by channeling rivers of money into abstract and conceptual art via foundations, grants, and government programs, the ultra rich have finally reduced art to an insider joke, a poker chip, a monopoly token.
Painters resist, since anyone with the talent required could probably go into advertising, Jerry did, and find the going much easier. For whatever reason they’re not into the four door vs two door controversy with peculiar theological implications. They’re in the studio searching for truth in pictures, and if they find it you’ll know too. Truth, the ephemeral abstraction, for this discussion means direct communication beyond language. It's almost always a surprise.
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