"Jones and his men suddenly found themselves being butted and kicked from all sides… They had never seen animals behave like this before, and this sudden uprising of creatures …frightened them almost out of their wits…A minute later all five of them were in full fight…with the animals pursuing them in triumph.", Animal Farm, by George Orwell.
Years in years out, "There was a deadly silence. Amazed, terrified, huddling together, the animals watched the long line of pigs (new leaders) march slowly round the yard".ibid
It was at this time that Mr. Jones' son, living in the next farm, was basking in the sun, reading the same writer's book, '1984': "The past was dead, the future was unimaginable… Today there were fear, hatred, and pain, but no dignity of emotion, no deep or complex sorrows… our chief job is inventing new words... Slavery is freedom or Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is Strength. War is Peace or vice versa."
Day and night the telescreens (TV) bruised your ears with statistics proving that people today had more food, more clothes, better houses, better recreations -- that they lived longer, worked shorter hours, were bigger, healthier, stronger, happier, more intelligent, better educated, than the people of fifty years ago. Not a word of it could ever be proved or disproved." loc.cit.
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact." loc.cit.
From the proletarians nothing is to be feared. Left to themselves, they will continue from generation to generation and from century to century, working, breeding, and dying, not only without any impulse to rebel, but without the power of grasping that the world could be other than it is…the level of popular education is actually declining. 'Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." loc.cit.
There are only four ways in which a ruling group can fall from power. Either it is conquered from without, or it governs so inefficiently that the masses are stirred to revolt, or it allows a strong and discontented Middle group to come into being, or it loses its own self-confidence and willingness to govern." loc.cit.
Jones junior, relaxing in a beach chair found himself watching some butterflies; the sun had already set and tides were rising. He remembered his college years studying 'systems behaviors', and Ian Stewart's famous quote, 'Does God Play Dice?' Now his wife called,
• Honey, ain't you coming to bed? It's getting too late. I feel sleepy.
• Coming, honey; why not, it's the only truth we can trust!
