Orwellian times or nah?
Tags: Ideas, Orwellian, V For Vendetta, Covid 19, 2020

I just watched V for Vendetta for the thousandth time. I used to be so stirred up by it and I guess I like to periodically check if this feeling endures. What feeling you ask? Dejection that muddles my sense of comfort whenever I evaluate the state of the world.

Living in an age of surveillance where Robert, the robo vacuum cleaner could spy on you whilst ‘lifting up your crumbs and dusting off your pet hair’ speaks volumes about our technological inroads. Robert’s cousin, Roomba, has been well documented to do some ‘mole’ work from time to time, because apparently that is just an unavoidable reality of the internet of things, if you are not tech savvy.

If Siri and Cortana are your thing just remember they could allow their respective operating systems to listen in to what you say. Typing is after all so 2005(I don’t know why I just typed this), and summoning Alexa to do stuff is so much easier. Having strangers possibly collect data about the outline of your home while your consent is not forthcoming is a little unnerving, so much so, going off-grid is starting to shape up to be a more desirable option.

I like that the movie touched on themes similar to our pharmaceutical company paranoia which have led many to believe Bill Gates et al are probably going to profit from their philanthropy(or are already), what with everything that is going on with the corona virus. Conspiracy theories aside, is being outraged by profitable philanthropy that ludicrous?

To put it lightly, it is weird that the downtrodden are used as cappers for the rich. Economic despair garners ‘help’ that girdles the poor into an enclosure of neocolonialism so tight only a few will escape unscathed, and when they do they will sing songs of the wonders of meritocracy, and how the rest of society’s failure to make it is their fault.

Are we crazy to be weirded out by audacious wealth gaps, racism, homophobia, patriarchy and fascism?

My favorite scene in the movie is the part where Evey is tortured out of her fear and not because I think torture is great. In retrospect that scene idealised violence and made it seem like a key to overcoming fear(that I don’t like). I just thought it was great how someone’s toilet paper letter inspired her to unmask her convictions, and inspired her to decide to not be cowardly. The power of words and ideas, nothing new there of course, but still — never gets old.

My Christian friend says these are the end times. Sounds a tad too pessimistic for me, but are these Orwellian times? I don’t think so. As I typed this, I was not huddled in a cold bunker situated in a grey obviously totalitarian state(where ‘The Sacred War’ by the Alexandrov Red Army Choir plays on a continuous loop) and where the government is beguiled by brutalist architecture. This preceding imagery of course, being how The West wants the rest of us to imagine oppression, in order to for us to fear socialism, and to have us all feel safe underneath their drapes of depraved despotism.

I didn’t feel like clicking on ‘publish’ would condemn me to a life on the run, because this piece might upset ‘authorities’. It could also mean maybe those in power have evolved to create environments that feel so innocuous, ecosystems that can deal with dissenting voices quietly will be born. Or this could be a case of ignorance is bliss or me just believing I am not important enough or something to that effect.

The very idea that one group can can have absolute power over others indefinitely is to me the stuff of fairy-tales, and maybe worst of all why people give up on fighting for what is just.

I think my credo is shaped by my absolute refusal of any ideology that wants me to believe harmful social ills will pervade perpetually. I don’t think the human spirit at its core can be caged, at least not forever(I don’t even care that this is based on my own romanticised conjecture). This I think is the essence of the movie and why I think maybe we haven’t reached a dystopia-level type of entropy.