Which one is Orwellian?

[patrice]

10. Facts always are what they are or they would not be facts. They can, however, be viewed from

Last edited Sun Feb 10, 2013, 02:01 AM - Edit history (1)

a variety of perspectives/angles, none of which negate one another if the means by which those angles are defined, rational empiricism in this case, is shared. All of the angles add up to a more complete truth than any individual perspective does.

I'm not against imagining better, my questions are about how to get there. It's not just going to materialize out of nothing. It has to evolve out of what is, reality. If we make something up completely as a pretty fairy story (like some people say religion does), if we start with something that is not a reality, and try to get to something better from something that isn't real in the first place; or if we actively reject some of the dimensions/perspectives of what is happening; or if we try, but make an authentic error that results in a mistake that leaves a significant aspect/dimension out of the problem of "How do we get from the reality where we are to a reality that is 'better existence'" . . . any of that could make the likelihood of getting to "a better existence" less probable. That would be particularly damaging to those making the effort, so we have responsibilities to get it as close to valid as we can, that is, ALL of the empirical dimensions/aspects of truth that we can identify, so we can use what is happening as best we can to actually support the processes that evolve into a "better existence". Does this not suggest that they, collaborative empirical analysis and imagining a better existence ARE dependent upon one another?

BTW, I like what Orwell has to say about all of this. I just think it gets abused by oversimplification. If we wish to resist that which is "Orwellian" the best place is to begin each of us with ourselves and I am suggesting in this post that identifying Big Brother could begin with whatever the Big Brother dimension is in ourselves. Ignorance is not strength. To use Orwell's motif, there is not one finger, there are four, and "being ignorant" of the other 3 does not mean that they are not there. Those other empirical dimensions/perspectives/angles of the truth are not necessarily evil and one's own are not, exclusively, the only good, especially when one doesn't admit how limited, how biased, one's own perspective can be. This is what I think is being done about PO. It appears that this whole thing has become more about getting the evil Obama, rather than to authentically try to understand how all of this came to be what it is (again in Orwell's story, not 1 finger, not 3, not 5, or 20, but 4 fingers), what the truths are that add up to this moment and then also the different possible things that authentic recognition of this situation COULD lead to, how probable each of those possibilities is and what we best ought to do about all of that.

And if you haven't picked up on it yet, everything I just wrote goes as much for me as I think it does for anyone else, because I know that, though I know what I know, I do not OWN the whole truth. I think it is a grave risk of error for anyone to assume that, e.g. the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, so all of us need the courage to risk respect for DIFFERENT perspectives on this problem and none of that means anyone has to give up one's own truths, just consider how your truths relate to others', as more or less valid dimensions of the same thing, and value that instead of rejecting it out of hand for reasons that are not entirely honest or are at least not as honest as they could be.