Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All

I reread this book recently for a book club. It surprised me with how modern it remains, and how today’s events completely changed my understanding of the story’s events.

The first time I read this short work was as an early teenager. I read it after 1984 so to this younger me, this book was almost a throw-away effort.

Many of Orwell’s ideas are more developed and applied in 1984. It’s a longer story in a more extensively created fictional world.

Compared to this, Animal Farm was laughably simple.

What I discovered during my rereading is that the simplified elements make this work more flexible.

Even though Orwell was commenting specifically on socialism-communism within the Soviet Union and on their influences on the West, my modern mindset allows me to apply the events of the book to a number of contemporary issues.

First, there is the issue of colonialism and foreign occupation. Is it more desirable to suffer under the rule of your own “kind” or to be better off under the rule of a foreign power?

Next, there is the question of whether capitalism and communism can function as a self-contained system. As both the US and China continue to adapt to economic realities, is a hard-line belief in either economic system a sane belief to have?

The book also asks: Where is the line between loyalty/patriotism and a justified questioning of the leaders?

The final issue I’ll mention here is whether or not we can ever completely rely on our elites? And what are the consequences of obedience?

At this moment in the United States, we are living a reality where the elites have been sequestered in Jones’s farmhouse for a long, long time. (In the book, the growing elites shut themselves inside the overthrown farmer’s home to plan their new society.) They’ve been doing things and handing down decisions that have affected us all.

Foremost in the news these days are the financial and governmental elites. They led, but we are paying the price of our unquestioning obedience.

In Animal Farm, the commentary paints both sides, the pigs and their followers, in a bad light.

But … we are also living a reality that Orwell couldn’t have incorporated into his work. There are so many voices today. So many ways to dissent.

In our world, the domination of those in control did not last. Within a few short years, majority opinions have switched in a variety of very important national policy issues. We’re listening to those questioning voices now.

And so, in my rereading of Animal Farm, I see the cracks in the pigs’ plan. I see the eventual downfall of their system. Orwell may have intended to present an inevitable ending with a dark future extended way beyond the last page, but I hit the last page optimistic that things were not going to stay the same. Change will be inevitable.

Benjamin may be right. The next regime, or the new version of the pigs’ rule, may not be any better, but it will be different.

Tags: Books, Governance // 3 Comments »