In 1949, George Orwell published a chilling book describing a totalitarian dictatorship in England in 1984. When the year 1984 came and went and again, when communism crumbled five years later, most commentators assumed that the totalitarianism George Orwell had feared had been avoided.
True, much of what the novel depicted has an eerie resonance today: lotteries as distractions for the masses, video screens in every room and the debasement of language. Perhaps the most striking feature of 1984 that seems to be coming true is the division of the world into three blocks:Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia.
But these correct prophecies seem insignificant when one considers the recent triumphs of electoral democracy, the demise of totalitarian regimes and the absence of repressive terror, the apparent dominant theme of the novel and the one that most frightened readers.
On second thought, however, Orwell's ''error'' appears far less clear. The truly dominant feature of 1984 was not political terror, but the destruction of all human spirit, the reduction of those tempted to resist to happy admirers of the system and the elimination of any notion of truth from history.
The terror, after all, applied to only a very small class. The top 5 percent, called the inner party, lived a life of privilege. The bottom 80 per cent, the proles, were neglected and deprived of social services, but not usually terrorized. It was the outer party, made up of professionals and functionaries, that was subject to police terror, deprivation and brainwashing.
The growing disparity of wealth in our society means that both Orwell's picture of a privileged 5 per cent and an excluded 80 per cent apply. The slow decline of the public system of education and health care is a symptom of the rapid growth of the class of the excluded. The major difference between the political structure of 1984 and the society which is developing today is the means of ensuring the loyalty of the middle 15 per cent.
It appears that our society has found it easier to buy them than to terrorize them, to tolerate a minimal degree of dissent, and to exclude those who cannot be contained with ridicule and the threat of destruction of careers.
Clearly it would be preposterous to try to establish a moral equivalence between modern Western democracy and 1984. However, the consequences for independence of thought and of spirit are remarkably similar. Orwell was influenced by his experience of totalitarianism, communist and fascist. However, that totalitarianism was like an early, inefficient automobile compared with the later, more sophisticated models.
Armies of informers were needed because the technological means of obtaining and storing vast amounts of information were not available. Crude propaganda was used in the absence of the more subtle, scientific ways of influencing choices. The repression of non-conformism had to be fierce, because it was clearly possible not to be caught and to resist the dictators with success.
We can only shudder at the thought of what Adolph Hitler or Josef Stalin could have done with modern technology. However, we can also see that a degree of control at least equal to theirs can now be effected without massive resort to expensive squealers and violent repression, which is cumbersome and which usually provokes as much resistance as it destroys.
Moreover, the heavy-handed propaganda used by Joseph Goebbels and Stalin was a failure. Most Germans, for instance, had no illusions about who was winning the war after 1942, in spite of the histrionics of the state broadcasting system.
Yet modern Americans, have a shorter life expectancy than other Westerners, live among shocking poverty far rarer in Canada and in Europe, have very little security and almost no access to politics or to justice but are thoroughly convinced that they live in the best country and are shocked by evidence to the contrary. Clearly, subtler, more nuanced propaganda is far more effective than the shrill kind used 60 years ago.
It is, of course, true that modern society tolerates expression that attacks it fundamentally. This article, for instance, is unlikely to have negative repercussions for its author. Yet, it's also true that publications that carry such articles cater to a high-brow market and have little effect on the majority. Moreover, one of the disturbing tendencies of recent years is the concentration of media power in the hands of the wealthy and the reduction of funds for public broadcasting.
The danger of a single, one-sided view is constantly present. This danger is exacerbated by the decline in the knowledge of history. In 1984. history was falsified and revised to suit current views. While nothing as systematic as this occurs today, history in our time is also adapted and sanitized to suit current political agendas. More important, past events are being presented as a progression moving toward our enlightened epoch.
Popular history, as depicted in the movies Braveheart and Gladiator, is seasoned with anachronisms. Romans and medieval Scots sound like modern Americans. Americans are taught a version of history in which they alone won World War II.
Other aspects of history are also undergoing ideological revision, In fact, our attitude toward history mirrors that of the former communist world which also portrayed the past as an inexorable march towards its goals. One crucial distinction exists between our time and 1984. The totalitarian regime was run by Big Brother and its rules were ruthlessly enforced by state authorities. O'Brian, the ''inner-party'' security chief, told the hero Winston Smith that the system could not be overthrown and that it was a ''boot in the face of mankind forever.''
Yet a centralized dictatorship is always a target for uprising, and the most unconvincing of Orwells' theses was the invincibility of the system. Sooner or later, the outer party or, more likely, the proles would overturn it. Our system, suffocating though it is, does not involve much centralized enforcement.
We have elements of 1984 without Big Brother. Many governments, certainly those of Canada, France, Scandinavia and Germany are sincerely striving to limit the threats to civil liberties. Unfortunately, most of the threats are technological, independent of government and are often wielded by private bodies for profit. It is not easy to find a target like Big Brother, which could be attacked to obtain change.
In fact, the system appears to work by itself, under its own laws. One of the most disturbing features of the system inherent in our information technology is the ease of keeping records. Citizens can't easily expunge their sexual escapades, carelessly expressed opinions and minor offences. In an economic system that worships competition, someone is always ready to use the records against those who have strayed from the norm.
As a result, citizens become conformist, cautious and unimaginative. Because the system works under independent technological and economic laws, no major changes can be brought about through political action and people have lost interest in parties, ideologies and elections. The political process simply becomes a way to distribute patronage among rival groups.
Moreover, history has shown that technology and its uses cannot be stopped whether for good or bad reasons. Thus, even more than 1984, the new system of repressing independent thought could prove ''a boot in the face of mankind forever.''
What is to be done? Optimism would be foolhardy, given the uncontrollable nature of technology. Nevertheless certain measures could slow or even reverse the trend towards Orwellianism. Firstly, both our society and 1984 are grounded in economic inequality and in disparity between the means of the small elite and the majority. Both also pay lip service to a populist ideology of equality. Promoting measures to decrease the gap between rich and poor, whether inside each country or internationally, will remove the interest that some might have in preserving their privileges and thus weaken their economic basis for a restrictive society.
Secondly, the promotion of public, high-quality, humanistic education will bring about historical awareness and verbal expressiveness and will hinder the standardization that is setting in. It is more important to teach history and literature early and thoroughly than to concentrate on employment skills that each person will learn in time in any event.
Third, although, as Orwell showed, the state can threaten civil liberties, private interests are even more dangerous and harder to control. The return to political awareness, to voter participation and to a belief that politics matter would be a first step in opposing the new 1984. It is therefore essential that the democratic state not further abdicate its role, and that we resist siren calls for smaller, less obtrusive government.
We should remember that the 1984 state provided few services other than the security network. Social justice is usually an inherent part of freedom. The government's role as a major actor in society, far from creating a risk of totalitarianism, is rather a guarantee of freedom.
The law has also a major role to play in preserving freedom. In view of the danger presented by records in an age of information technology, ways must be found to attenuate and even erase records of' criminal convictions and to prevent the use of personal data or past histories against individuals. This goes against the recent tendencies which have been remarkably unforgiving. It is time to reconsider this trend.
However, the most important resistance to 1984 is that of each citizen in his own life. The repudiation of conformism, of the rampant complacency, of the fear of offending, and of political correctness and a skeptical attitude toward the received truth of our times will go a long way in distancing us from 1984.
Ultimately, 1984 is a society that negates the ideals of freedom of thought, personal independence and conscience. These are precisely the values each of us must adopt.
Julius Grey is law professor at McGill University
@mrjyn
July 21, 2011
juliusgrey
DOGMEAT “P22 announces new font” plus 10 more
Posted: 20 Jul 2011 10:42 PM PDT
| Links, news & contacts > News archive > Full news story P22 announces new font Buffalo, NY - 17 June 2011 Announcing P22 Casual Script Pro- a new font designed by Richard Kegler for the International House of Fonts (IHOF) Collection P22 Casual Script Pro is a flexible OpenType font based on mid-20th Century hand drawn advertising lettering scripts. As an alternate to thicker casual script styles, this free-flowing thin brush style is evocative of vintage product advertisements and packaging lettering and is highly suitable for a retro flavor. The Pro font includes over 500 glyphs with at least 2 of all upper and lower case characters with OpenType scripting and ligatures for a more natural and random effect. There is also a unique feature not found in other script fonts: Small Caps! While it may seem unnatural for a script font to have small caps, these work well as an authentic variation of brush script lettering for advertising. Also included in the Pro version is a full Central European character set, swash characters and more. The Pro font package includes one Pro OpenType font and 3 single, basic OpenType fonts- Regular, Alternate and Small Caps, for use with applications that do not support OpenType features. Now through June 30th, the Pro package is available at introductory pricing. http://www.p22.com/ihof/casualscript.html ----------------------------- Fax: -----------------------------
article posted 17 June 2011. | via microsoft.com
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MoMA | 23 New Digital Fonts in MoMA Collection Posted: 20 Jul 2011 08:56 PM PDT
via moma.org
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Georgia & Verdana - typefaces for the screen Posted: 20 Jul 2011 07:57 PM PDT
via will-harris.com
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Here is this week's summary for your Facebook Pages Posted: 20 Jul 2011 06:49 PM PDT
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Stereo Total - Miau miau (i love the guitar player if it's a girl) Posted: 20 Jul 2011 03:09 PM PDT | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Two Points and Five Letters | Pidgin Magazine Posted: 20 Jul 2011 02:59 PM PDT
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Posted: 20 Jul 2011 10:53 AM PDT
Gregor MendelPeople have known for centuries that children resemble their parents. In the middle of the 19th century, however, an obscure monk discovered something remarkable: One could mathematically predict which traits parents would hand down to their offspring. This discovery revolutionized agriculture. It lent credence to some fairly sickening plans for weeding out "undesirables" in the human population. It also shed light on the process of evolution.
Born to a farming family in 1822, Gregor Mendel had no aptitude for agriculture, despite how much his research would affect the field later. He lived in Moravia (what is today the Czech Republic), in a society that preserved remnants of feudalism. Farmers were compelled to labor a few days every week for local landowners, getting only four days a week to farm their own land. As a youth, Mendel frequently took to his sickbed for weeks — even months — at a time, apparently not much looking forward to his future. His luck changed when a teacher recognized his sharp mind. Mendel eventually enrolled at Olomuc University, but finances interrupted his studies. Though he probably never felt a strong spiritual calling, he joined the Augustinian order, thereby escaping his financial worries. The monastery provided an environment that encouraged learning and experimentation, and here Mendel stayed for the rest of his life. He fulfilled various duties as an Augustinian, including visiting the sick. When his superiors saw how much those visits troubled him, he was relieved of that responsibility. He taught science for years, but because he never passed the requisite exams for a teacher's certificate, he always had to work as a substitute. He proved best suited to science. Before turning his attention to peas, where he would make his most important discoveries, Mendel bred mice, but the local bishop apparently preferred that Mendel find a more genteel area of study. Peas proved practical; they were cheap, took up little space and produced offspring quickly. So for years, Mendel carefully tended his pea plants, meticulously counting and classifying their offspring. No one knows exactly how many pea plants Mendel grew, but in the 1930s, one historian calculated that he may have grown more than 5,000 plants in 1859, and more than 6,000 in 1860. "We can also suspect that pea soup made a tiresomely frequent appearance on the menu of the monastery of St. Thomas," modern historian Peter Atkins has observed. While Mendel worked, controversy raged around Darwin and Wallace's newly published theory of natural selection, but Mendel didn't participate. Instead he hammered out the mathematical principles of inheritance. Darwin, like many of his contemporaries, believed that parents' traits were mixed to middle ground in their offspring. Mendel astutely studied simple either/or characteristics such as purple or white flowers, and discovered that they are passed to offspring intact, although at different rates (often a 3:1 ratio). He also made the clever deductions that some traits can reappear generations later, after seeming to disappear, and that different characteristics are inherited independently of each other. Contrary to popular opinion, Mendel didn't discover genes, much less "dominant" and "recessive" genes. Instead, he used these terms to describe the appearance of a character, or what we now consider gene expression. After years of working with peas, Mendel moved on to other crops to verify his findings. In 1866, he published his results: "Experiments on plant hybrids" in the transactions of the Natural History Society of Brünn. Although Mendel ordered 40 reprints of his paper, the whereabouts of only a handful are now known. Darwin was reportedly on the recipient list and, so the story went, didn't even cut the pages (necessary in those days to open papers) to read Mendel's work — an assertion that has been disputed. Only one scientist ever bothered to respond to Mendel's paper, and he responded with what would ultimately prove to be unfortunate advice, at least when viewed through the prism of later discoveries. Karl (or Carl) von Nägeli, of the University of Munich, had previously experimented with hawkweed, a plant that follows an obscure asexual reproductive method. Mendel started experimenting with hawkweed, and began to question his findings from studying peas. He finally gave up all experimentation when he became abbot of the monastery, though he continued to dabble in ornamental horticulture. Mendel's main interest in studying genetics may have been simply to better understand hybridization (an interest Nägeli would have shared), rather than develop a general theory. Yet it's naive to think that he was just a humble monk who never hoped for fame. In fact, he did hope for recognition, but the only recognition he enjoyed during his lifetime was as a local meteorologist. Although he was said to remark, not long before his death, "My time will come," it's hard to know whether he really believed his own words. He died in 1884 never knowing how much his findings would change history. Mendel's work was cited in a few papers in the late 19th century, but it wasn't until the dawning of the 20th, motivated in part by a priority dispute about publication, that other scientists took note of the 19th-century experimenter. After Mendel died, his original manuscript, "Experiments on Plant Hybridization," alternated between celebrity and obscurity perhaps even more than his theory. Around 1911, a teacher fished the paper out of a wastebasket in the Brünn Natural History Society's library. After being returned to the society's files, the manuscript spent time in the briefcase of a German botany professor. The paper went missing altogether under Soviet occupation, then turned up decades later in the possession a later-generation Augustinian monk and descendant of one of Mendel's sisters. Other Mendel descendants were overjoyed to take possession of the paper — until the same Augustinian monk allegedly learned that he'd be evicted from the cloister if he didn't hand the manuscript over to his fellow monks. A New York Times article in 2010 reported that the ministry of science in Baden-Württemberg was also involved in the dispute. Dynastic and monastic tensions notwithstanding, Mendel might have been mollified that his manuscript was finally prized. For more information:
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