‘But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny — helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the earth was uninhabited.’
\n“‘Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.'”
\nAnd O’Brien, who represents the governing Party, which finally has figured out how to keep people in line, goes on to say dinosaur fossils are frauds and that stars are tiny and very close: “The earth is the center of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I just reread 1984<\/em>, well heard it, a terrific unabridged audio version narrated by Frank Muller, to help my upcoming review of What Orwell Didn’t Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics<\/em>, edited by Andras Szanto for PublicAffairs Books. Then I read parts of the print edition.<\/p>\nThe thing is, I forgot how well Orwell could write. Not just polemically about the wonders of freedom and the curse of power. But this novel, 1984<\/em>, is a capital-N Novel. If you haven’t read it since school, spring 2008 is a good time to do so.<\/p>\n-30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No, not that George, the other one. Not that George, either. It’s not fair to say if George Orwell were alive today, he’d be totally yada yada yada on creation science and intelligent design. But what if Orwell actually wrote about the subject, even though those two terms were not invented yet? 1984, Book 3, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-course-of-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":400,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/01\/by-george-part-ii\/","url_meta":{"origin":399,"position":0},"title":"By George, Part II","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 26, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Only some of the essayists in What Orwell Didn't Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics, edited by Andras Szanto for PublicAffairs Books, which I will review soon, think George Orwell (1903-1950) is the man for 2008. After all, their thesis is in the title. Any other George\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2224,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/09\/by-george\/","url_meta":{"origin":399,"position":1},"title":"By George","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"September 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"With apologies to George Orwell: Winston gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two Victory Gin-scented tears trickled down the sides\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Loose Talk of the Town"","block_context":{"text":"Loose Talk of the Town","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/loose-talk-of-town\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/07\/lead-the-press-to-water\/","url_meta":{"origin":399,"position":2},"title":"Lead the press to water","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 1, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Friday, July 1, 2005: In this morning's papers, we read again of local officials asking people to informally not waste water, before conservation steps are ordered. Again, they say there is no shortage, just that it's summer and yada, yada, yada. In previous summers, though,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8314,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2026\/02\/george\/","url_meta":{"origin":399,"position":3},"title":"By George, a Two-Way Sobriquet","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 24, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"An Awkward Salute to Black History Month My late Uncle George was a funny guy. That's how he thought of himself and how his friends and community saw him, too. He was quick with a quip, usually smutty. He kept these jokes out of my earshot until I reached high\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Alfred Wolf Pollock (1905-1985), older brother to Ben S. Pollock Sr.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Uncle-George-centered-still-16x9-was-PDF-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Uncle-George-centered-still-16x9-was-PDF-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Uncle-George-centered-still-16x9-was-PDF-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Uncle-George-centered-still-16x9-was-PDF-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Uncle-George-centered-still-16x9-was-PDF-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Uncle-George-centered-still-16x9-was-PDF-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":402,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/01\/the-green-candidate\/","url_meta":{"origin":399,"position":4},"title":"The Green Candidate","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Four years ago Charlie Rose interviewed Garrison Keillor, who said something so provocative that for a detectable millisecond Rose was speechless, a rarity. Keillor of course was on promoting A Prairie Home Companion, but early on they discussed the just-ended 2004 election, where the progressive Keillor nailed John Kerry's defeat\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":413,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/03\/georgie-porgie-porgy-and-bess\/","url_meta":{"origin":399,"position":5},"title":"Georgie Porgie, Porgy and Bess","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"March 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Democrat-Gazette published today my review of What Orwell Didn\u2019t Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics, Andras Szanto, editor. I was so excited by this book, even though it was disappointing, that I wrote three Bricks referring to George Orwell. Two of them were on revelations about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mr. Boo Klist"","block_context":{"text":"Mr. Boo Klist","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/mr-boo-klist\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}