Orwell- Bricks in the Wall

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About Orwell- Bricks in the Wall

Last year I started Lynched - www.flickr.com/groups/lynched/ - images that elicited similar responses to David Lynch's take on culture. That was somewhat representative of my my feelings about events both personal and collective at that particular time.

"Kafquesque" www.flickr.com/groups/kafka/ is an old familiiar theme for me, highly appreciated and I recommend the pool.

However, at this point I'd say Orwell was the visionarry who best takes aim at the most insidious weapon used by power seekers of all sorts, to control, manipulate, violate or otherwise abuse and torture. I quote from Wikipedia about his work:

I am particularly interested in the
"political implications of the use of language and image - [ by those who crave power to create fertile ground for totalitariansm and imperilism.] In the essay "Politics and the English Language", he decries the effects of cliche, bureaucratic euphemism, and academic jargon on literary styles, and ultimately on thought itself. Orwells concern over the power of language to shape reality is also reflected in his invention of Newspeak, the official language of the imaginary country of Oceania in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Newspeak is a variant of English in which vocabulary is strictly limited by government fiat. The goal is to make it increasingly difficult to express ideas that contradict the official line - with the final aim of making it impossible even to conceive such ideas. (cf. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis). A number of words and phrases that Orwell coined in Nineteen Eighty-Four have entered the standard vocabulary, such as "memory hole," "Big Brother," "Room 101," "doublethink," "thought police," "unperson", and "newspeak.""


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell#Orwell.27s_work
and thus we have Orwell. I\'d love maybe interact somehow with simarly themed groups. I know there\'ll be duplication.

Bricks in the Wall - If you know Pink Floyd, that\'s my reference. If you don\'t


If you haven\'t read/seen any Orwell please do, otherwise you couldn\'t know what to post.

About The Wall: in case you\'re not familiar a quote from

home.mchsi.com/~ttint/

Pink Floyd\'s the Wall is arguably one of the most intriguing and imaginative albums in the history of rock music. Since its release in 1979, and the subsequent movie of 1982, the Wall has become synonymous with, if not the very definition of, the term "concept album." A really explosive on record and visually explosive on the screen, the Wall traces the life of the fictional protagoinst, Pink Floyd, from his boyhood days in war-torn England to his self-imposed isolation as a world-renowned rock star, leading to a climax that is as questionably cathartic as it is destructive.

From the outset, Pinks life revolves around an abyss of loss and isolation. Born to a war-ravaged nation that takes his fathers life in the name of "duty," and an overprotective mother who lavishes equal measures of her love and phobias onto her son, Pink chooses to build a mental wall between himself and the rest of the world so that he can live in a constant, alienated equilibrium free from life's physical and emotional troubles. Every incident that causes Pink pain is yet another brick in his ever-growing wall: a fatherless childhood, a domineering mother, a country whose king signs his father\'s death certificate with a rubber stamp, the superficiality of stardom, an estranged marriage, even the very drugs he turns to in order to find release. As his wall nears completion, each brick fruther closing him off from the rest of the world, Pink spirals into a void of insanity, cementing in place the final brick in the wall. Yet the minute it is complete, Pink begins to realize the adverse effects of total mental isolation, helplessly watching as his fragmented psyche coalesces into the very dictatorial persona that antagonized the world during World War II, scarred his nation, killed his father, and thereby defiled his own life from birth. Culminating in a mental trial as theatrically rich as the greatest stage shows, the story ends with a message that is as enigmatic and circular as the rest of Pink\'s life. Whether it is ultimately viewed as a cynical story about the futility of life, or a hopeful journey of metaphorical death and rebirth, the Wall is certainly a musical milestone worthy of the title "art."

I am starting this group to call people's attention the issue of subtle propaganda. I'd hope you'd consider the theme carefully before you. Post. I'll try to pull particularly good examples as we go. Images would be cause (insidious slogans, words that can be captured and images and signs of their effects.)