re: Animal farm/ Brave New World/ Fahrenheit 451

I'm definitely excited for Brave New World, might even move it up to on deck and start after I finish No Place to Hide (figured I might as well read the non-fiction version of 1984 after finishing the fiction version ). I highly recommend No Place to Hide, btw. This is the first time I've actually sat down and read about the details of everything Snowden leaked and it's fascinating and frightening at the same time.

For 1984, there were two things that resonated with me this time around that seem to be different about US politics since I was in high school:

The first is using outrage to keep the public distracted. They use things like Two Minutes Hate and Hate Week to give the public a permanent enemy. The party created the character of Goldstein and turned him into a boogie man who was at fault for everything wrong in the world. Even when Winston is beginning to question the party, he still finds it hard to resist joining in with the crowd and becoming legitimately angry. It feels like this is just standard operating procedure for our two political parties today. Turn the other party into something evil to scare people into voting for you. Attack the person rather than disagree with the idea.

The second is the perception of truth. Ultimately the party realizes that facts don't matter when you control the perception of truth, and if you have other ways to make someone believe something, the facts don't matter. This also exists to a frightening level in today's world. If you are able to dance around facts to make someone believe something different is true, then ultimately the facts don't matter. This also happens on both sides of the aisle in American politics.