May 30, 2009 8:34 AM
Animal Farm - final thoughts
Animal Farm - Part Two - ObamaNation I am sorry that it has taken me so long to wrap up the Animal Farm discussion. I must admit I have been loathe to open the book again as the parallels to our current political regime are so profound and the outcome of both the book and reality so depressing.
By the end of Chapter VII, where we left off, the sweet brotherhood of animals envisioned my Major before his death has become a despotic nightmare. Major's dictum - the animals' equivalent of the Golden Rule
has been broken. The animals are tyrannized, some have been scapegoated, forced to confess to crimes they did not commit and ultimately executed.
It helps that many of the animals do not read (equating in our culture to the mass of people who are too busy living their lives - as they should be - to dig beneath the surface to see what's really going on), but in Chapter 8, following the executions, Clover's memory stirs. She remembers the Sixth Commandment says "No animal shall kill another animal." When she asks two literate animals to read the Sixth Commandment to her, Benjamin refuses, as he doesn't like to meddle (!) but Muriel finds that the Sixth Commandment actually says "No animal shall kill another animal without cause."
"Somehow or other the last two words had slipped out of the animals' memory."
It seems that the truism They can kill the body, but not the soul, is not really true. Under certain political systems, individuals do indeed lose their imagination, their ability to remember, to analyze, to discern.
Each year the animals work harder as their lives grow more uncomfortable. "There were times when it seemed to the animals that they worked longer hours and fed no better than they had done in [Farmer] Jones's day." Yet each Sunday, Squealer (who is probably the equivalent of White House spokesman Robert Gibbs reads lists of production figures to the animals to prove they are better off than they were.
Reminds me a lot of Obama touting his great accomplishments, lying in the face of evidence that American enterprise has been perhaps irreparably harmed. Napoleon's evolution into a dictator who puts his need for power ahead of the common good mirrors our current situation too.
The remainder of the book is the story of one broken commitment after another as Napoleon and the pigs become more and more like men.
Though trade with enemies (man) has been forbidden, Napoleon breaks that barrier, only to be outwitted by the enemy, who never respects them (Reminds me of Obama bowing and scraping in the Mideast and South America).
The pigs get drunk, change the commandment and begin making beer - for themselves only. Meanwhile the animals work harder to support the pigs' lifestyle. Boxer works himself to death and is sold to the glue-factory.
Years pass and the farm does become prosperous, but the animals no longer dream of a better lot in life than they have.
"Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the farm itself any richer - except of course for the pigs and the dogs. Perhaps this was partly because there were so many pigs and so many dogs. There was, as Squealer was never tired of explaining, endless work in the supervision and organization of the farm. Much of this work was of a kind that the other animals were too ignorant to understand. For example, Squealer told them that the pigs had to expend enormous labors every day upon mysterious things called 'files,' 'reports,', 'minutes,' and memoranda.'. . . Neither pigs nor dogs produced anything by their own labor, and there were very many of them and their appetites were always good."As for the others, their life, so far as they knew, was as it had always been. They were generally hungry, they slept on straw, they drank from the pool, they labored in the fields; in winter they were troubled by the cold, and in the summer by flies."
The first paragraph is a portrait of a bloated bureaucratic government - such as our family fled in California in 2002 and what we are seeing on the uptick now everywhere. Do you know that even as the U. S. economy is shrinking, joblessness is rising, and workers are suffering cutbacks in pay and benefits, our government has become the fastest growing employer and government salaries are still on the rise?
Consider our jet setting politicians - and the imperious Nancy Pelosi who commandeers Air Force jets and wastes thousands of taxpayer dollars reserving them and canceling on a whim. Consider how these same self-indulgent politicians demanded that the heads of the auto dealers stop flying and start driving to Washington DC - to humiliate them and display their power before the citizenry. Consider Obama flying to Chicago to take his wife out to dinner, to Las Vegas after exhorting companies not to go to Vegas and to Hollywood even as California's economy is collapsing - not to help the states but to raise money for his own party.
In Part II of my analysis of Animal Farm, I wrote:
The pigs don't like the Raven because his stories of Sugarcandy Mountain might take the edge off the animals. The pigs' ideology is built and dependent on discontent. Totalitarianism and atheism go hand in hand. While people with religion may have ideals, their ideals are tempered with the practical understanding that we cannot build a perfect world here on earth. The Left uses issues like poverty, AIDS and global warming to build coalitions by promising to create a perfect world.
While this reflects the stage we are at now in Obama's deconstruction of our political heritage, it is instructive that in the later stages of the Pigs' Regime, Raven is once again welcome. This time it's because the pigs are no longer promising a perfect world to the other animals, so hope in an afterlife becomes beneficial to the ruling class - as religion is the opiate of the masses.
The pigs begin carrying whips. The commandment All Animals Are Equal is appended to read All Animals Are Equal But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others. The sheep are separated and brainwashed to become even more supportive of the government (like Obama-biased curricula in schools).
The pigs begin to sleep in beds, to walk on two legs, to party with humans. In the end they are indistinguishable.
Truly this is a parable for our times. The Left is idealistic, yes, but its major flaw is that the idealists consider themselves superior to the working class - the ones they claim to be trying to help. Add to this a strong streak of self-indulgence and ruthlessness and over time, you begin to see double standards galore and a strong animosity for the common man
Animal Farm ends with the pigs and men arguing. I'm not sure where O&Co will end. Perhaps in a conservative resurgence which rescued us from the Carter era with Reagan, whose economic strategies and trust in the common man truly turned the US around.
No matter how long it takes and no matter what extremes Obama goes to - he is now in the process of foisting a Cyber Czar on us - perhaps to begin the dismantling of conservative communication - it is important for us to not forget where we have come from and to be able to alert others to negative outcomes as the government takes over more and more of our country's private sector, trying to convince us it's for our own good.
I know it's been a while, but anyone else have some final thoughts on Animal Farm?
Next up, Les Miserables- which I started last night and could hardly put down. I love the bishop so much!
I will be posting some helps for reading later tonight (I hope).
Posted in Animal Farm book study, Books | Permalink
Comments
Love the way you inspire, Mommylife!
Nothing speaks louder than one who has been there
done that!
Posted by: Leslie Hanks | May 30, 2009 12:45 PM
Be sure to see the movie of NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR with John Hurt and Richard Burton. EXTREMELY faithful to the book.
Posted by: OrwellFan | May 30, 2009 10:16 PM
