I've been thinking a lot about Orwell's 1984 lately. With the patriot act, the elections, the rise of "infotainment" as news coverage, etc, it just makes sense to draw comparisons between this world and the one of the novel.
I took to labeling everything with the brand Victory from the book. During World War II sauerkraut was called liberty cabbage, and there are still those in this country who have replaced french fries with freedom fries, so it was amusing to me to call everything in the "international" aisle of the supermarket Victory Something: Victory Hummus, Victory Rice, Victory Soda, and I named this blog Victory Gin after Winston's preferred beverage.
Then, epiphany:
I grew up in a fundamentalist christian family. We went to church a minimum of 3 times a week, we only associated with church people, and went to a church school. Victory Christian School.
If there is any organization that relies on doublespeak and the thought police as much as Oceania's Ministry of Truth, it is absolutely the fundamentalist christian movement.
As students each day began with recitation of the pledge of allegiance, a pledge of allegiance to god, and prayer. There was a daily bible class, which essentially means that I went to church 6 days a week for about 8 years. I don't have any particularly bad memories during my time there, I'm just left with the feeling that I was robbed of a large part of my childhood and was kept from information that is necessary to live a normal, balanced life.
Oceania has not always been at war with Eurasia and God didn't create humans in a garden with a talking snake.
When I began thinking about writing this all down I did some quick research on the school curriculum, just as a refresher. Obviously I was not taught real science, given that it was a religious school, I got creation. Universe was done in 7 days, about 6,000 years ago. Dinosaurs? Don't focus on the dinosaurs, they went extinct naturally (after the flood and Noah's ark there wasn't enough oxygen in the atmosphere because most of the plant life had died, so the dinosaurs suffocated. done. no more explanation required. excellent.). History was also pretty much just the history of Christianity, with a heavy emphasis on good things happening to christian societies and bad things happening to everyone else. America was founded by Christians, communism fails because communists don't believe in god. The Spanish inquisition was bad, but only because they were catholic and not christian. Every time there was anything at all wrong in the middle east we got a refresher course in the end times (how a history class reconciled teaching me about the future I'll never know). Think of the last time there was no tension in the middle east. That is a lot of Armageddon talk.
What about math though? Surely math is safe!
2+2=4. Winston Smith's truest statement of freedom.
Checking the a bekka math curriculum, it turns out I am wrong. 2+2 still equals 4, but only because god says it does. Logic is a gift from god, and without god we would live in chaos...a world without math!!! For real. Without god, 2+2 might equal 4, but it might equal 17...it might equal porcupine for all we know. I left the christian school after 8th grade, and it turns out, 8th grade math is as high as it goes. Oh, they teach high school math classes, but stop at modern, human ideas like set theory, so basically no geometry, no calculus, hell, not even algebra 2! I'm sure they teach what they think is algebra 2 and geometry, but they leave out the stuff they don't like. Some states (California for sure) do not accept math scores from students transferring from a bekka schools into public schools because they are light years behind other students. Apparently, god only wants you to count on your fingers.
English, it turns out, is allowed. A bekka has decided that, in order to spread the holy word of god, students should be taught proper grammar. However, I do not know what the reading list for high school students looks like. If the curriculum prohibits any work that doesn't glorify god, or even if they only look at art through the prism of Christianity, I'd imagine it's a pretty limited list.
I took to labeling everything with the brand Victory from the book. During World War II sauerkraut was called liberty cabbage, and there are still those in this country who have replaced french fries with freedom fries, so it was amusing to me to call everything in the "international" aisle of the supermarket Victory Something: Victory Hummus, Victory Rice, Victory Soda, and I named this blog Victory Gin after Winston's preferred beverage.
Then, epiphany:
I grew up in a fundamentalist christian family. We went to church a minimum of 3 times a week, we only associated with church people, and went to a church school. Victory Christian School.
If there is any organization that relies on doublespeak and the thought police as much as Oceania's Ministry of Truth, it is absolutely the fundamentalist christian movement.
As students each day began with recitation of the pledge of allegiance, a pledge of allegiance to god, and prayer. There was a daily bible class, which essentially means that I went to church 6 days a week for about 8 years. I don't have any particularly bad memories during my time there, I'm just left with the feeling that I was robbed of a large part of my childhood and was kept from information that is necessary to live a normal, balanced life.
Oceania has not always been at war with Eurasia and God didn't create humans in a garden with a talking snake.
When I began thinking about writing this all down I did some quick research on the school curriculum, just as a refresher. Obviously I was not taught real science, given that it was a religious school, I got creation. Universe was done in 7 days, about 6,000 years ago. Dinosaurs? Don't focus on the dinosaurs, they went extinct naturally (after the flood and Noah's ark there wasn't enough oxygen in the atmosphere because most of the plant life had died, so the dinosaurs suffocated. done. no more explanation required. excellent.). History was also pretty much just the history of Christianity, with a heavy emphasis on good things happening to christian societies and bad things happening to everyone else. America was founded by Christians, communism fails because communists don't believe in god. The Spanish inquisition was bad, but only because they were catholic and not christian. Every time there was anything at all wrong in the middle east we got a refresher course in the end times (how a history class reconciled teaching me about the future I'll never know). Think of the last time there was no tension in the middle east. That is a lot of Armageddon talk.
What about math though? Surely math is safe!
2+2=4. Winston Smith's truest statement of freedom.
Checking the a bekka math curriculum, it turns out I am wrong. 2+2 still equals 4, but only because god says it does. Logic is a gift from god, and without god we would live in chaos...a world without math!!! For real. Without god, 2+2 might equal 4, but it might equal 17...it might equal porcupine for all we know. I left the christian school after 8th grade, and it turns out, 8th grade math is as high as it goes. Oh, they teach high school math classes, but stop at modern, human ideas like set theory, so basically no geometry, no calculus, hell, not even algebra 2! I'm sure they teach what they think is algebra 2 and geometry, but they leave out the stuff they don't like. Some states (California for sure) do not accept math scores from students transferring from a bekka schools into public schools because they are light years behind other students. Apparently, god only wants you to count on your fingers.
English, it turns out, is allowed. A bekka has decided that, in order to spread the holy word of god, students should be taught proper grammar. However, I do not know what the reading list for high school students looks like. If the curriculum prohibits any work that doesn't glorify god, or even if they only look at art through the prism of Christianity, I'd imagine it's a pretty limited list.
Luckily, I got out. My parents divorced, and the hypocritical christian influence of my mother left. I was allowed to attend public high school. I listened to every record I could get my hands on, read books that were previously kept from my hands. Basically, I had to catch up on the first thirteen years of my life. You know what came out before I was 13? THRILLER. Imagine not listening to Thriller until 1990. Pretty bleak. I caught up though.
I do not love Big Brother.
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