Very interesting piece, thanks! Elements of this story seem Fukuyama adjacent, as well - perhaps the lack of *necessary, overarching* struggle in our (now ending) post-historical interregnum removes some of the tension that helps produce good art, and makes for a larger share of lazy consumers that have no interest in struggling with richer, nuanced material.
Huxley’s distributed bottom up dystopic forces remain essential to compliment Orwell’s top down authoritarian vision. Both exist in concert.
damn how did I forget to mention Huxley
Immediate thought is that this is why Huxley's Brave New World is scarier and more disturbing (and in the end more relevant) than 1984.
oh someone already said this lol
it's a good point!
Nice piece. The possibility of “mechanical” fiction also surfaces in 1984, IIRC. Extra credit for using a piece by de Chirico. Thanks.
you are the third person to mention the painting, I didn't think he was that beloved
He was great; deploying classical imagery to convey modern alienation more powerfully than a lot of modernists ..
Very interesting piece, thanks! Elements of this story seem Fukuyama adjacent, as well - perhaps the lack of *necessary, overarching* struggle in our (now ending) post-historical interregnum removes some of the tension that helps produce good art, and makes for a larger share of lazy consumers that have no interest in struggling with richer, nuanced material.
Wow! What got me at first was the deChirico's (leading image's) resemblance to the Rider/Waite/Smith 1909 Tarot deck.
So then in 1946 when Orwell uses a Ford auto metaphor... is he remembering Ol' Hank's fascist publications from early Twenties?
And when Orwell denigrates pulp plot writing kits with loose cards, is he considering the Tarot from decades earlier?
(Just some random thoughts.)