This is a book that was required reading in high school because we were still concerned about the USSR at that time. And there is really not much reason to rehash Orwell's take on Soviet socialism.

What is interesting to me is how relevant this book still seems to be in that the narrative can be overlayed on almost any society. Specifically, this reading made me think of A Canticle for Liebowitz and the idea that history repeats itself especially if we don't pay attention and make sure to educate new generations on past historical mistakes. ( )

Any coincidence...Animal Farm reads too much like human politics. As it should. A true human tale about human characters and systems narrated and acted by players from the Animal Kingdom. ( )

An allegorical story depicting the deterioration of an egalitarian ideal society. In this story it was the pig's superior intelligence that fed their egos which led to a collapse into a stratified society of haves and have nots. The story was quite obvious with few nuances. ( )

Any book with a “wise and benevolent” pig almost has to be worth reading. They’re just as smart as dogs, people.

Although I guess the pigs are the villains in the end, or whatever, but…. I mean, sometimes people’s dogs could probably bite and attack people, but we don’t cut up dogs and eat them, right.

But yeah—I think that this is a political fable, basically. Although there are certainly political aspects to the old fairy stories~ I became interested in politics again after reading something that Crowley wrote in his tarot book~ and certainly political conditions were never perfect, or else I suppose there wouldn’t really be anything you could say about them: or at least it wouldn’t be material for a story, I guess. But yeah, this book is definitely more focused on politics in the narrow sense than many myth-type stories, right. I’m not quite sure if I should literally incorporate into mythology etc. this book and the business fables I have (a genre not always done well, but with a LOT of potential—the average manager thinks his job is WAY too much about “exclusively Knowing Things”, right—and not about people, right; they’ll be throwing a party, or something, and the managers will all be sitting together, practicing negative thinking about technical problems…. It’s like, bro…. You know, it’s like: the good aspect is, they’re not ruining my brand, the one I haven’t invented yet, right…. But it’s like, holy shit, these are the people setting an example, right….), and whether business fables and political fables should go together into some higher-level category, or something…. I don’t know….

…. Yeah, I know this isn’t like the classic Marxist interpretation of this book, or whatever but: fuck animal agriculture, right, especially the way we do it. I’m not even sure how prevalent factory farming was in the 40s; he’s probably not even describing a factory farm, you know. It’s like the more wealth we get, the less generous we become, the fewer karmically beneficial actions we take. That’s fake wealth. That’s bullshit, right…. Man is out of balance. He scorns Nature, you know.

…. Again: mine is not the classic Marxist take, because I’m not a Marxist, or a classic anything, right. Even most people born in Aquarius season don’t have green eyes, but I do. But yeah: I’m not suggesting the sort of guilt, re-purposed Christian guilt/idealism, that you’d find in say, Tolstoy’s “Resurrection” book. (And really, you find that attitude not only among the dead, but perhaps an indirect blow works best, sometimes.) In that book, Count Leo is like promoting guilt that there are a few small towns in Russia where the various snow/ice creatures can’t live, right; it’s literally like, I don’t know, it’s just guilt. And it’s the same God Without A Shadow: Nature as the God Without A Shadow, instead of, or in addition to, Christ—but very much Christ Called Nature, and guilt over living in human society itself, instead of/or in addition to, guilt over teenage sex, right. The way Tolstoy thinks about nature just doesn’t hold up to the slightest scrutiny without being filtered through guilt/idealism: nature is “green and grey”, as the pagan song runs; it’s not the God Without A Shadow. There is no good without evil. Even if in some spiritual realm unlike anyplace with humans there is good without evil, there is the serious limitation that animals and humans and body-beings cannot live there: not to mention the terrible evil done in the name of this “No Shadow of Turning” character, right. (The Book of James has some true ideas, but it certainly isn’t without its own shadow, any more than the books of Paul are.) George is much more in tune with reality, (and maybe that’s what morality is, right): most of the animals (or, if you like, the “animals”) are either mentally lazy or dishonest, you know. And again: why not? Do wild animals never disrupt the environment, and would they care if they could understand? WE don’t care, do ~we~, lol! Do domesticated animals never…. I mean, have you never seen a dysfunctional pet, right? There’s a degree of difference between the abuse of animal intelligence and the abuse of human intelligence, but they can still feel fear, for example, and have all sorts of problematic behavior. It really takes a lot of faith in guilt to decide it’s All Humanity’s Fault, right…. However, the point is, if WE are as honest and clever as we portray ourselves to be—and even fucking Rocky Balboa thinks he ain’t no stinking animal, to say nothing of proud & prejudiced Shakespeareans in the Global Empire of Little England, you know—then why are we such a plague to nature, to animal welfare and environmental health, right?…. Questions worth asking my friends: questions worth asking!

…. And yeah: make no mistake, liberal Christian radicalism/Marxism and Tolstoy or whatever, IS bullshit, as it basically consists of the thesis that life is better when you combine what I guess we could call “Boring Guilt”, right—

“You shouldn’t have had sex!!!”
(Camus or some fucker) (waves hands dismissively) Boring!…. (goes for drink) Even sex is boring—guilt about sex, (shakes head with contempt)

with Interesting Guilt, right—

“Maybe you should never have been born at all! You can at least try Never To Be Happy, at least!!!”
(Camus) (swishing the alcohol around in his mouth like mouthwash, then swallows, puts drink down) Now THAT is Interesting. What’s your name, young man? Are you a philosopher?

~Right?

…. It’s funny how it’s almost easier to tell the story without a “Lenin” character, you know. Lenin was such a stupid opportunist, you know—it’s a pleasure to read the story without him. It’s almost easier to like “Stalin” better, you know—I suppose someone has to be evil, and given that, I suppose that someone has to do it to the hilt, and wreck the ruin, you know. But it all could have been better if Russia had developed into a country capable of supporting more leaders and less crazy people and half-starved zombies and scary people before the Revolution happened and everybody started killing everybody else, and that decisive—if less dramatic, operatic—evil happened because of Lenin; however, it DIDN’T really happen because of Lenin, you know—it happened because of the war. It happened because of that February Revolution guy, what was his name? (checks) Kerensky. It’s almost like manslaughter, you know—the manslaughter of a country. You didn’t mean to do it, and it wasn’t murder, but it was like culpable, irresponsible stupidity, you know. And I hate to wish evil on anyone, but isn’t that terrible: Kerensky lived to 89. All those people died because he couldn’t think straight after he chose to take the top job, and he fucking made it to New York while everyone else had to die.

It’s such a great treatment George gives, because no one can—and no one does—accuse him of Sugarcandy Mountain thinking, (and religion certainly can be escapism, even if it’s not the only thing that can be, right), but he spares you the pain unnecessary to the essential understanding of the idiot mistakes people made, you know. Although he was probably an unhappy man—he didn’t make it to fifty, and even in his day most men made it past sixty, you know…. But who can blame him; sometimes seeing the world for what it is, at least in the world of fact, drives people crazy. And he suffered, but I don’t think he made others suffer his own suffering, you know. Sacrifice is a vain thing—people should live—but it was a hard time, and he did his honest best, right.

…. I haven’t got there yet, but I remember it’s like, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”: “There are rules, which everybody has to follow, and I’ll follow them too, if I want”, basically, and I remember our teachers would get so frustrated at us, like, trying to figure out how it made sense, right; (although I suppose I was idly wondering about video game stats while this was going on, lol—I was…. Well, that’s a story, right): but it’s like, ~nobody, teaches you~ what propaganda is, really, because you’re not allowed to think for yourself: you’re allowed to fit in with the teachers, and try to anticipate what they want to hear, you know. I do realize it’s hard because the average person at any age is racist, or else doesn’t like hard thinking-work, or both, but—I mean, people have no agency, and especially not in a school; they’re almost as bad as churches, so what do you expect, right? I mean, most of the Shakespeare stories are alright, especially given the c. 1600 context, but it’s like, take the sonnets/poems, right: the man is like, I give you my shield, which should be over you, fair non-slave Lilly, and I give you my dick, to watch over you, and I give you your silence: you are mine~ I mean, whatever the fuck it is, it’s pretty bad, right; and you’re supposed to just figure out what the teacher likes about it, right—the hell with what you think; and if you think he’s bad, fine: but you’ll talk like him, not like yourself. You are problematic. You are objectionable. Or take “The Politics of Reality”, which starts off relatively illuminative and well-written, and tells you some things about men and women that are true, but which grows progressively more—I mean, it’s passé to call atheists religious, but it becomes about as sensible near the end as taking a Tolkien novel to your British history class, right: I mean it’s like, bad…. It’s like: gay men are objectionable; they do not know True Queerness like Every True Woman, you know…. And it’s like, you don’t tell the daughter of the king she’s having a bad hair day, right: it’s like…. It’s like, You are problematic; you are objectionable; but don’t worry: we have the classics, right. We have the classics because your life does not matter…. And the hell with what you think! Help me decide what I think! (N.b. And again, some old books are alright; there have always been some people who knew truth. But the system is bunk, and the system is in the schools, you know.) And then the little monsters have the chutzpah to ~get offended~ that the kids can’t Recognize Propaganda, and then proceed to fucking punish ~the children~, you know; it’s like…. Well, first of all, why is school about determining who is worthy and who is not, and not helping people actually learn, and why do people have to give their opinion even though their opinion ~must NEVER matter~, and about things they never chose to learn about right?

But yeah, don’t worry, it all happened over there in Russia, right! (laughs) And I mean, Russia is a place for fucking white zombies, you know, it’s like…. I mean, there are talented Russians, you just have to get them out of Russia, right: it’s as close to Africa as you can get without white people coming and torching all the original people and then leaving them a pile of soot, right…. It’s not quite like the Society of the Sea Empires (Western Europe) or the Empire of 500 Nations (USA—native nations), right, but, then…. I mean, I don’t predict an epic war movie plot happening probably, the way people do because that’s the only movie they like, right. But on a low-level sort of way, like a war of attrition level of madness happening in the collective mind, right, and occasionally it’s noticeable and other times maybe it isn’t, depending on where you live, right, and what you look like (and who/how you love, right)—I mean, it happens all the time, really.

…. ~His two sayings were, Napoleon is always right; and: I will work harder.

When I was mentally ill—you know, it’s funny; schizophrenia can have this, like, destabilizing effect on your political opinions, right: I figured out that Stalin was like a chauvinist patriot for his country: AND he was a communist! I was like, This is it! We have a winner! We can all agree with each other now! We can be chauvies, AND, commies: together, forever! 🌈

Although the sorta normative mental illness, is where you look at the dumb loyalist from the enemy country, you know, who would be a crass chauvie if he weren’t so dumb and honest, you know: and you’re just supposed to bare your teeth and growl about attack dogs, right.

And yeah: the colonial education system is surprised, (yet bored/dismissive) of how the result of telling people to be loyal/work harder is a bunch of disillusioned commies with nasty things to say about almost everyone, right. How could they have seen that coming? How could anyone figure that out, right?…. Maybe if it were for a question about getting a motor to run 5% faster than the competition, so that they could advertise it as 10% better, right. Or poking holes in peoples arguments with calculators, right. There’s so much that we’re good at. There’s so much opportunity (as long as you either lie to the customer or become a journalist who predicts the end of the world, every, single, day—right). If people can’t handle it—punish them. (tea)

(bloodied proles) (muttering threats) (etc) (…. Etc….)

…. And yeah: two people both wrong aren’t always both equally wrong or whatever: but some people literally think that just because they aren’t Literally Clinical so that they don’t think that racists should have to follow traffic laws or whatever it is that Trump thinks about himself, right, that they can just compare—I mean, this time the caricature is pretty close to the truth, right; but whatever—with the most fantasy-land propaganda delusion of what the hard left is Always right: you know, I just want flowers and games and ice cream for the children, and really, it’s those damn far-right-centrists who committed what ought to be a capital offense in disagreeing with me, and—and—And I’m just good, and they’re just bad; I refuse to see my shadow, and that’s makes me Good. Like, it makes me Commie Jesus: Just, Good; Never-bad.

~Well, I suppose you’re Never Bad, in Never Never Land, bitch. 🙄

You know: it’s not encouraging when people have these bullshit non-starter opinions like, I’m God and you’re shit; and they’re like, not even the villains of the story, right. 😹

…. ~”They said that Snowball had come to them in a dream….”

God, it was like the witch trials, you know…. It’s like the Reign of the Persecutor-God, you know; and the enemy of the Persecutor-God is the devil, right….

…. Yeah: thinking about it, it’s WILD how like a church it is, right…. I was angry with the church today, as I guess I always have been in my life, even in my Christian years, right; I’m not sure I can describe it, right; I’m not afraid: I feel kinda satisfied now, a little tired…. But yeah: sheep, dogs, and pigs: the parts of the Body of Christ, right…. And can the sheep say to the dog, Because you have made me a sheep, I am not part of the Body? No, but he can say, ‘Jesus faith good; Goddess faith bad’—or ‘Jew faith bad’, and so on….

Like, the average Christian isn’t expected to have any nuance in their views, right. Including the liberal Christian: they just are supposed to come up when the conservative sheep start bleating, ‘Right Jesus good; Left Jesus bad’, with, ‘Left Jesus good; Right Jesus bad’…. I mean, if you’re a pig, you can say shit: you can say, That one; kill that one, right…. But I mean, if they don’t accept you as a pig, watch them light into you when you have an argument with nuance, right…. Or in a liberal church, just by some Jesus magic, they’ll ensure you never get a chance to say it, right….

And yeah: how Clover reacts to communism being a failure is Exactly how the “good Christian” reacts to Christianity being a failure, right…. It’s like, I’m not sure I can describe the disgusting passivity of the “good Christian”, right. Not sure I can do justice to its fucking…. pathetic tag-along nature, right. And try to find a church where people aren’t like that, right. It’s worse than local government, almost. Like, does anyone think you go to fucking local government for creativity and openness to change? Or, church, right…. Sheep, dogs, pigs.

And yeah: it’s weird being angry at the church, because it’s like, the enemy that won’t show his face, right. It’s like spy shit, you know…. Can you imagine someone actually fucking writing a novel about what church is Really like, either in adventure or romance format?…. People can stop showing up, (sometimes because they know that their parents don’t want them to fucking show up and act like they belong, right: you come back when you’re married with children, maybe…. As long as you raise that kid the way I raised you….), but are you free to talk about what it’s like, or what it does to you? Are you free to talk about the doors you have to pretend aren’t there, the spaces in your mind you can’t go, because…. Are you even aware of what you’re afraid of, right? Can you even describe it? If you were to have that feeling, would you be able to let your body experience it, right?…. Most people can’t, right. And mostly, they’re kinda smug about that disability, you know. It’s weird.

…. And yeah, it could also be about academia. (Not, perhaps, in George’s own day: I don’t know.) It’s kinda what the militant Black feminist could say about bookish “white” feminism, you know. And it’s true: I’m not quite as invested in betrayal-theory and all that, as a belligerent rebel Eight, you know…. But sometimes, there is something to it, you know: not that I will probably read very much of the Black-feminist-proudly-gores-white-feminist literature, right. But say: I was reading “Psychoanalysis and Feminism”, right—and it’s a perfectly worthy topic, and, the introduction from the 2000 edition is perfectly curious, if a bit snobbish, right—but then you begin the main text, and it’s like, by opting out of the belligerent madness rebellion, she has simply, at that early date of 1974 or whenever, continued on with the old chauviness, which Freud certainly had, even if, you know—the answer isn’t simply to put a bullet through his brain, as though it all starts and ends with him, right…. But I mean, she just puts in like the first five fucking pages the worst anti-woman things that Freud ever said, and just, ~~~adopts his manner~~~, you know, and warns you about getting upset, instead of being like the chess-match-played-to-classical-music-in-the-Old-Little-England, manner, you know….

Certainly the academy CAN be a bit like this story, right.

And just the last part especially of the last chapter—it’s like, I don’t suppose I have the knowledge or whatever to decide what I think of socialism…. And the ODD thing, given the context here of the two system coming together as like the Thrasymachus Alliance, you know…. And yet, there Are good things in Both the public interest and the private interest—or however you want to phrase it: and the two SHOULD come together…. Not that there is one answer for all countries or circumstances, or that we can properly imagine it yet, right…. But yeah, what a wonderful thing to read something so HONEST, you know: after all that frankness about the party line and that bullshit, to have it be revealed at the end that he was a socialist after all; that for him, it meant democracy, you know.

All that we can know for sure, is that the socialist cause would be much truer to its ideals, if the socialists themselves, were as Honest as this, right: which, in the general ruin of humanity’s mental-moral condition, they generally are not, of course, either as rulers or rebels, you know.

(shrugs)

Brilliant ( )