B. Mc. The more the students understand the more they see school as Big Brother.
Am I biting the hand that feeds me? A.C. At a time of rapid social change when institutions are out of phase with everyday observations, then it all seems like Big Brother. Also, consider that all people 30 or so and under have been raised on a steady diet of lies from all sides: especially the advertising/fashion world. Their childhood of TV is now seen to be nothing but puffery and untruths. The effect must be like a religious person who suddenly sees that it was all about nothing. The wall of distrust must be enormous. -----Original Message----- From: Brian McAndrews [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, March 01, 2002 9:16 AM To: Brad McCormick, Ed.D. Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Whistleblowers (was Re: The real frightener (was RE: TaxHavens) At 7:30 AM -0500 2002/03/01, Brad McCormick, Ed.D. wrote: >Yes, we do live in a democracy, don't we? That we have "superiors" >is a fact to be dealt with by the psychic defense of "splitting" by >which an external observer would be able to see that we hold two >contradictory views at the same time but are able not to be >aware of, or consequently, consciously troubled by it. Hi Brad, Orwell called this doublethink: One of the more profound realizations on the part of Eric Blair, who wrote under the pen name George Orwell, is first illustrated in this passage of his landmark dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -- if all records told the same tale -- then the lie passed into history and became truth. "Who controls the past," ran the Party slogan, "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. "Reality control," they called it: in Newspeak, "doublethink." S His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word "doublethink" involved the use of doublethink. ----------------------------------------- If you wish more visit: http://www.promethea.org/Misc_Compositions/Doublethink.html Imagine exploring this novel with Gr. 12 students as well as watching the films El Norte and Michael Moore's 'Roger and Me'. The more the students understand the more they see school as Big Brother. Am I biting the hand that feeds me? Take care, Brian McAndrews -- ************************************************** * Brian McAndrews, Practicum Coordinator * * Faculty of Education, Queen's University * * Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6 * * FAX:(613) 533-6596 Phone (613) 533-6000x74937* * e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * "Education is not the filling of a pail, * * but the lighting of a fire. * * W.B.Yeats * * * **************************************************
