I think Orwell's book was a parable about the perennial human condition, like Plato's cave: each generation has to wake up and see their chains anew. Orwell wrote about how the elites in any time rule the masses. And now we are waking up to our chains (people always waking up to this at various stages and degrees). And can we break the cycle? I don't know. Because I don't know, I think we need to try to get everyone to see this that we can. Its why I became a teacher, to try to aid in this. We all have to try something. Since we are not masters of the universe and knowers of all reality, it might be that those who say we cannot change this perennial human condition are wrong. Maybe we can. But it won't be through the tools and methods (the violence) of the elites. Because then we become the new elites, etc. I don't know if there is hope or not. Because I don't know, then, I hope.

the things you bring up are the things I constantly bang my head on. Are these eternal patterns of human behaviour? and if they are, what is the best response? It is epistemology, of all things, that gives me pause. Kant, I think, firmly demonstrated the limits to human knowledge, and no Hegel or Marx have ever gave me convincing arguments otherwise. So the best I can say is: these patterns have constantly recurred in human history without fail till now. but that a big one, that claim, and it does not cheer me up much. But as Jacques Ellul put it, it seems to give me a crack to tremble in, and sort of chink in the armor of seeming necessity. Room for a hope. It all comes down to how you want to live your individual life and how you view that, I suppose, as Plato found out long ago when he went to Syracuse and got involved in politics and it all didn't work out. What kind of person do I want to find myself to be when it comes time for me to die. Because all I will have in the moment of death is how I have lived.

I have long been a student of the Gulag Archipelego. I discoverd it thirty years ago and read and brooded on it. I still use parts of it in some of my classes (particulary the section called "The Ascent"). I commend unto you all his other works, the fiction: Cancer Ward, The First Circle, August 1914, and his short stories, such as "One day in the life of Ivan Denosivich". And don't miss his address at Harvard, where he chides Americans for judging their presidents by how well they manage the economy!!!

I teach a class that mostly consists of reading his book "The Technological Society." It is a class that makes the students groan and complain at the work, and I tell them: You want something simple, go study physics or chemistry. There are no algorithms here. This is real thinking about the human condition!

God, I love Jacques Ellul. There's another guy that good like him too: Ivan Illyich. I once met a student of his, a filmmaker who made a film called Koyaanisquatsi, that I sometimes use in that same class. There are good thinkers who can help us become self aware if we work at it.

thanks for video link.

http://tinyurl.com/2rvmuv

http://tinyurl.com/32bxdz

Foucault (1983) sums up the Ancient Greek concept of parrhesia as such:

"More precisely, parrhesia is a verbal activity in which a speaker expresses his personal relationship to truth, and risks his life because he recognizes truth-telling as a duty to improve or help other people (as well as himself). In parrhesia, the speaker uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of falsehood or silence, the risk of death instead of life and security, criticism instead of flattery, and moral duty instead of self-interest and moral apathy."

from omniscient Wiki oracle!

misspell cosmicc. Its a Kantian thing.

I hated high school and did very poorly there (though I always liked to read). Lucky my state college had open admissions: went there because I met a girl who said if I took classes we could see each other every day, so I signed up, and happened to fall in love with the freedom of learning what I wanted to at the university. (alas, the girl left me). ended up to my surprise getting a ph.d.My children, for good or ill--we argue about it sometimes, its the way I raised them--were mostly home schooled, with occasional visits to the public school asylum to give them a taste of the broader society. I detest our secondary school systems. They were a nightmare to me and have not done much for our society, I think. Just glad I found a path in some college classes that lit me up with learning. I tell my students I could give a damn if they graduate or not: what I care about is if they learn to think for themselves. That is what liberal arts, as they call them, is all about.

a draft with no deferments

Wouldn't that just light up everything real bright? Just the thought of it makes me smile. Hell, if they would do I would even cut off my beard and lose a few more pounds and pull out the old uniform and line up right behind dome of these talking tough folk: shucks, I'd even line up in front of them.

Wouldn't it clarify things so quickly? In an earlier post someone quoted one of these pundits, as they are called, as saying he just wanted to get Sadaam and teach him a lesson. Of course he knew HE would never have to.

a draft with no deferments

that would help them all prioritize.