As the seasons change, I find that things go back to normal. It is hard to find time to read when it is light out until 10pm. At that point, I can barely keeps my eyes open let alone focus on what I am reading. Now that the sun is setting before 8pm, I am finding that I can make preparations to go to bed earlier and therefore pick up the pace on reading (at least stay ahead a little better).
So what is going on in this section? I guess you would say that it is the surreal struggle for right and wrong. D-503 is struggling with the attraction to I-330. It is now effecting his relationships with R-13 and O-90 as well as his work. Like all subversives, he needs to hide his behavior, so D-503 gets a doctor’s note justifying that he is sick. All this is really messing with his head, so maybe he is really sick or is D-503 just seeing things for the first time?
If you are old like me, then you might remember MagicEye from the 1990s. You tried and tried to see it, then once you saw it once, you couldn’t stop seeing it. Somehow the brain just got it and you could even see the image at a distance.
Isn’t that how all propaganda goes? You have to be programmed so that you don’t see the real picture. Once the doubt has been created then you start to see it everywhere. I remember a story distinctly from eighth grade, US history.
We were studying the 20th century progressives and the era of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. We had just gone through all this mantra of Republican party is the party of small government and Andrew Jackson was vehemently anti-national bank, what heroes they were. In the next sentence, how great all these new departments of government was like the USDA. It was necessary to protect the public. We needed the Federal Reserve to regulate monetary policy and keep the value of the dollar.
I was so confused, how could both be true and right? We had spent half a year drumming these principles to just change on a dime. We got in some sort of discussion about the dollar no longer being backed by gold. I remember the teacher’s comment how thankful he was that these experts were in charge of things. They were protecting the value of the dollar so that we didn’t have some kind of hyperinflation event.
The truth be told, I believed it for many years myself. I had no reason to think that protecting our money actually meant stealing our money with controlled rate inflation. It meant borrowing today to pay back with less valuable money in the future in the form of bonds. Did you ever have a savings bond? The maturity rate on the bond is paid with the same money that you paid. So, in seven years your $25 is now $50 – magic. Oh, by the way, they invented that money to pay the $50. Think about it…
Now, I don’t there was any intent of malice. I think the teacher was really expressing his true opinion. After all, he was taught by the same system that he was teaching. That being said, does anybody see anything wrong? Kids are impressionable. It took me many years to overcome this opinion. When you don’t know anything, the first opinion is the strongest one until evidence suggests otherwise. Just like Animal Farm, it was two legs bad and now it is two legs are bad unless you are a pig.
I also remember several grade school teachers with strong opinions. Those are ones that really stick in your head; stories for another day. But it is the reason that I get really alarmed when the school system starts deviating from teaching and heads off in the direction of indoctrination. It is not necessarily that people will be taught opinions that I disagree with but that most people won’t give a flying ‘F’ to do their own research or challenge an opinion. They will just accept it as status quo and move on with life.
And even worse, people love to get indignant in their wrongness. Exhibit A, how many people are pro-Ukraine? Ever wondered why their leader is an actor? This is deadly, dinner theater where nothing is really what it seems. The best possible outcome for everyone would be to end this war where it is at. It is what the people of Crimea want, to be part of Russia and not Ukraine.
Wrapping this back to the book a little better, we see what we know to see. If no one told us that there was a 3D picture buried in the graphics, then we might not even take a second look. That is a cool design. There is a reason that the United State is walled off from the rest of the world. It is only by manipulating the variables that you can that you can achieve any source of control over society. What is even better is when you believe that you have a choice and that you are being told information from a trusted source. Those people are never coming back to truth, they cant.
I don’t know where this book is going. But, the fact that it influenced Huxley and Orwell to me hint that things aren’t going to end well for D-503. If I were to go out on a limb, I would guess that D-503 is ultimately going to get caught and punished. This will be a warning to us all to pay attention to the friendly United State. Because no matter how much they mettle in the perfect version on humanity, life finds a way to evolve around it.
End Your Programming Routine: Before the Prussian Education System, people used to be taught how to think using classical philosophy. Logic, reason and rhetoric were seen as the most valuable education tools people could possess. Now we are taught what to think because this system was developed to train factory workers. They needed to be smart enough to read, follow instructions and maybe even innovate some. We don’t want them smart enough to know that there is a better life and starting their own factories. But, life has a way and some eventually do.
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