12.16.2003
Arkansas State columnist 'amends Orwellian mistake'
An Arkansas State columnist, like Orwell, examines a quote he used two years ago, and pulls out a new Orwell quote:
"You have to realize that," he writes, "for those of us who reside in Red Sox Nation, first, there are the Red Sox, and then, like an afterthought, there are all the accouterments of what you poor benighted souls who are not privileged to live in Red Sox Nation shortsightedly call the universe: governments, wars, taxes, private property, famine, deadly viruses, reality TV, Britney, Dubya, and black holes..."
"When I look through my collection of pamphlets -- Conservative, Communist, Catholic, Trotskyist, Pacifist, Anarchist or what-have-you -- it seems to me that almost all of them have the same mental atmosphere, though the points of emphasis vary. Nobody is searching for the truth, everybody is putting forward a 'case' with complete disregard for fairness or accuracy, and the most plainly obvious facts can be ignored by those who don't want to see them. The same propaganda tricks are to be found almost everywhere ....A Daily Iowan columnists asks (don't everybody cringe now): Who gives Saddam? How about the Sox, instead?
"The important thing is to discover which individuals are honest and which are not, and the usual blanket accusation merely makes this more difficult. The atmosphere of hatred in which controversy is conducted blinds people to considerations of this kind. To admit that an opponent might be both honest and intelligent is felt to be intolerable. It is more immediately satisfying to shout that he is a fool or a scoundrel, or both, than to find out what he is really like."
"You have to realize that," he writes, "for those of us who reside in Red Sox Nation, first, there are the Red Sox, and then, like an afterthought, there are all the accouterments of what you poor benighted souls who are not privileged to live in Red Sox Nation shortsightedly call the universe: governments, wars, taxes, private property, famine, deadly viruses, reality TV, Britney, Dubya, and black holes..."
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