... brings decidedly mixed results, as Boyd Tonkin reports.
Orwell's descripion of "prolefeed" in 1984, which Tonkin quotes, is worth pondering: "the rubbishy entertainment and spurious news which the Party handed out to the masses."
Only it isn't Party or Big Brother or any government agency or agent that is handing it out and the "masses" are presumed to be hungry for it. I have always thought that Orwell's thinking, mostly so admirable and sharp, would have been even more so had he spent some time in the U.S. and seen how modern advertising works. For generations now Americans have been the most propagandized people in the history of the planet - only it's called advertising and everyone does it, from McDonalds to Al Gore. That's the only thing good to report on it: There's so much of it, a good deal of it automatically cancels out a good deal of the rest of it.
And speaking of Gore, I liked this comment that Holman Jenkins had in Wednesday WSJ regarding Gore's new agitprop flick :
... a valid service is performed in satisfying the eternal human appetite for gloom and doom (and no virgins were sacrificed), distracting people from the reality of life, which is that we all are doomed, while the universe, the Earth and all that environmentalists hold dear will go remorselessly on and on without us.
In a million years, the time it takes the earth to sneeze, the planet will likely be shorn of any conspicuous sign we were ever here, let alone careless with our CO2, dioxins, etc. Talk about an inconvenient truth.
Carpe diem, folks.
Two thoughts:
ReplyDelete1. The doom and gloom sayers are always with us. I am reminded of a brilliant line from Neil Gaiman's and Dave McKean's brilliant graphic novel about the end of the world, "Signal to Noise:"
There is no big Apocalypse. Only an endless progression of little ones. That applies to us personally, as well as to issues.
2. Orwell was correct in that prolespeak is about bread and circuses: distracting the masses so that they don't notice what the Man Behind the Curtain is doing. The phrase dates from Nero's Rome, but seems increasingly applicable to modern-day USA, in my opinion.
I read the whole posting thinking you were writing about "proofreading" not "prolefeeding". My eyes are tired. It's been a long day and a lot of close reading during it.
ReplyDeleteYou can say that again about advertising and propaganda. Goebells must be laughing in his grave. ( I allude not to Al Gore, who I quite like in theory though he does seem rather earnest and dull in practice. I am sure he would not put an apostraphe in potatoes anyway, unlike Dan Q.)
I meant Goebbels, sorry.
ReplyDeleteIt "has" been a long day.
apostrophe. I am off to bed! My senses are deserting me.
ReplyDelete