Tag: 3:3

December 9, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 3:3

December 9, 2022 /

I suppose that you could say that we are becoming fast friends: Friday’s with Ayn Rand. We started this journey July 8 so that makes us five months in with still nearly two months to go. Crazy because on one hand, it seems like it is just wizzing by but on the other hand, it seems like this had been going on forever.

I am not sure why Rand does this. Within this chapter, there are three distinct things going on and really could have been three chapters. At least the second sequence leads to the third and is loosely associated, but they really are three separate happenings. Once again, I am not going to give a plot synopsis but talk about it.

This chapter is titled ‘Anti-Greed’ which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for once. I think I would have titled it ‘Truth is a Choice’ or maybe ‘Choices have Consequences’. At the beginning of the chapter, Dr. Robert Stadler is whisked away for a demonstration. It turns out the demonstration is a new weapon. A weapon to end all wars and bring peace forever (sound familiar?). It is Stadler’s science and experimentation that provided the basis of this new weapon even though the research was allegedly unrelated.

The weasel that is Dr. Floyd Ferris has been working with the government to create this new weapon without the knowledge of Sadler. When it comes time to do the Public Relations after the demonstration, Ferris essentially blackmails Sadler to either stand for the new weapon as a show of unity or face the consequences. Sadler, being a prototypical liberal turns out to be spineless and goes with the flow.

Later in the same chapter, James Taggart informs Dabny that she is booked on the Bertram Scudder radio program. Her survival for over a month is cause for national celebration and an event to promote unity. Dabny refuses to do it until she is called on by Lillian Reardon. At such time Mrs Reardon threatens Dabny with blackmail about her affair with Hank Reardon unless she goes on the radio show. Dabny does go on, but it is not a repeat of the Sadler affair.

I am a believer in Social morals and codes. I think they are necessary for well functioning society. I guess to me that those are really derived from a higher power and not necessarily an obligation to a peer. For instance, do not lie is not in the 10 commandments.

8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Notice that this is not written as Thou shalt not lie, it is more circumstantial than that. Do not lie at the expense of someone else. When it comes to the truth, some truth’s are not earned when they are purely for someone else’s gain. As an example “Do you own firearms?” Now, I ask you what business is it of yours? What are you going to do with this information? Who really wants to know? To me, this is baseless questioning where the worthiness of the truth is subjective.

I am not naïve. The fact of the matter is that most lies do harm someone else. I am merely pointing out that we are not biblically commanded to always tell the truth. Ironically, when I read the biblical analysis this is all in reference to business type proceedings be court or trade. I think that if we look at the other related commandments.

2. Thou shalt not have any other gods before me

4. Honor thy mother and father

10. Though shalt not covet

These are all directing us to remain faithful and have a form of lying associated. I do find it interesting that they are directed at specific people God, parents and peers. There really is no code of conduct for spouses, children, slaves or extended family. If you are taking the Christian approach, extended family could be neighbors but I certainly don’t see people within the nuclear family impacted by these commandments. My wife is not my neighbor – you get the point.

How did we get here you ask? If I quote Hank Reardon from the chapter “People think that a liar gains victory over his victim. What I have learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself to then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked.” From a biblical lie, even in the case where someone ‘gets away with lying’, they are still trapped in that alternate reality.

End Your Programming Routine: This chapter actually had another theme in it that I completely ignored. But what I wrote about was so much bigger. Tom Gresham is famous for saying ‘a lie is only a lie if you deserve the truth’. Sometimes, it takes guts to tell the truth and sometimes a lie is completely justified. You just have to know when is the right time for either.

August 20, 2021 – 1984 3:3

August 21, 2021 /

So we are to another Friday; at least this one is a little less dramatic than the last. And we are through another chapter in 1984, I think that there are four more to go. I might even combine a couple short ones, we will see.

In this chapter we see more of the torture process with Winston and are revealed some of the slogans and their meanings, at least to Obrien. I am going to surmise that the purpose of this chapter is for Orwell to explain his intent to using these these slogans throughout the book.

Early on in the chapter one of the first lines are the three stages to the process Winston is undergoing. They are learning, understanding and accepting. The last chapter was about learning and this one will be accepting.

The use of power: I think by far and away that this is the ‘how’ of all of this world that Orwell has conceived. There are so many intersecting ideas with slogans and quotes to re-enforce the idea that power is the most important mechanisms to perpetuate the party. Here are a couple to support what I am saying.

  • The party seeks power for its own sake
  • Power is inflicting pain and humiliation
  • Power is not a means but an end

What more can you say about this? It seems obvious that any regime is going to exert power to propagate its values. I don’t have any doubts that China uses power when it deems necessary. The State of Oregon is going to exert power over businesses to enforce the new mask mandates, as they stated so.

I have heard it another way and that is power is force. Winston states that he believes in humanity and that they will somehow eventually overthrow the Party. The only card that really hasn’t been addressed in this entire 1984 scenario is that absolute exertion of power can never be exercised otherwise it will likely fail. The counterpart to power is compliance. Either appropriate force must be exerted for compliance or there will be no one left to have power over or the system itself will become corrupt and fail within.

I think the idea that all the high party members are complete and exact ideologues is extremely unlikely. But, this is a story after all. Once we extrapolate the concepts and overlay them into our own world today, we can still get a lot of good insight into human nature.

Ideas are eternal: Orwell makes a point to that highlight humanity’s ultimate finiteness. We finally hear the definition of ‘Slavery is Freedom’ and that is to say that by keeping everyone working for the party (slavery) the idea will live on forever (freedom).

I think the enlightened reader might have a problem with how this concept is play out. We can all agree that the human body has a limited lifespan. We also can agree that ideas and concepts can be useful way beyond our lifespan. I am proclaiming to have the same beliefs as people over 2000 years ago with names Peter, Paul, Luke, Matthew and John.

Where we balk is the value of those beliefs. First of all, mine are personal not enforced on an entire civilization. But, second what if I am wrong? What would it hurt to try and live a better life, be better to fellow humans and strive for a cleaner existence? What am I really missing, the opportunity to prove survival of the fittest?

So while I 100% agree with Orwell’s portrayal of the concepts, I am not solidly in the camp that this is just a foreboding tale of the future, more to come on this as I wrap of the book.

End Your Programming Routine: What I got out of this chapter is more supporting information for my conclusion (so sorry you will have to wait). I think that is going to be exiting to come all the way back around to the beginning and look at where I am at now versus where I was when I started. I think that it is going to reveal a lot about me and how I think and I hope that I can do this series justice. I guess that we will see.