I just thought this was a helpful article from the Journal. Note: all of these are untrue.
Retirement Myths
1. $1 Million Will Be Enough
2. You'll Spend Less When You're Older (some expenses go down, others go up)
3. Older People Need More Bonds
4. Your Money Lasts Longer if You Move (states with no income tax make up for it with sales taxes)
5. Uncle Sam Has Got Your Back (retirees often need to supplement Medicare)
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Book Report: 1984
I read 1984 a few years ago, but a friend was shocked to learn that I didn't like it. So here is my review.
Let me start by saying that my review, coming so many years after the book was written, should be taken with a grain of salt. I can't speak to its originality, since I have experienced all that has come since. I can believe that it was original and ground-breaking, but I can't experience that.
So while I can't say first-hand what impact the book had, I can speak to is whether the book still holds up. And it doesn't. It's ideas might stay with us - like thought crime, newspeak, etc. While those concepts can still teach us, the story does not. And therefore the book no longer needs to be read.
The biggest problem is that as a dystopian novel, it doesn't show us anything particularly new or extra scary, nor does it enlighten us in any way. The only thing 1984 teaches us is how bad dictatorships are, which we know just by reading the news. To the extent that it tries to show us how much worse dictatorships can be with new technologies, it fails.
One of the ideas that Orwell seems most proud of is Newspeak, which is just a form of propaganda. But that doesn't seem any different than propaganda one would find in North Korea or Iran.
Thought crime and actually the level of control of the government is more total than you would find in modern dictatorships, but I would say only marginally so. Maybe the technology prevents you from even writing in a journal, but how much worse is that than other dictatorships which don't allow you to say what you think. Not being allowed to express yourself publicly is horrible; not being able to express yourself privately seems only marginally worse.
My point is that I never got the sense from the book that the author is presenting something significantly more horrible or unique than we see in our world. The world of 1984 isn't much scarier than what we see in North Korea, China, or Iran.
A dystopia is supposed to show a horrible and scary world - something unrecognizable from our own. But 1984 doesn't do that. It shows us a more futuristic version, marginally worse, of a dictatorship. If it isn't much worse than what we know exists, than what is Orwell's book teaching us? I would say not very much.
Let me start by saying that my review, coming so many years after the book was written, should be taken with a grain of salt. I can't speak to its originality, since I have experienced all that has come since. I can believe that it was original and ground-breaking, but I can't experience that.
So while I can't say first-hand what impact the book had, I can speak to is whether the book still holds up. And it doesn't. It's ideas might stay with us - like thought crime, newspeak, etc. While those concepts can still teach us, the story does not. And therefore the book no longer needs to be read.
The biggest problem is that as a dystopian novel, it doesn't show us anything particularly new or extra scary, nor does it enlighten us in any way. The only thing 1984 teaches us is how bad dictatorships are, which we know just by reading the news. To the extent that it tries to show us how much worse dictatorships can be with new technologies, it fails.
One of the ideas that Orwell seems most proud of is Newspeak, which is just a form of propaganda. But that doesn't seem any different than propaganda one would find in North Korea or Iran.
Thought crime and actually the level of control of the government is more total than you would find in modern dictatorships, but I would say only marginally so. Maybe the technology prevents you from even writing in a journal, but how much worse is that than other dictatorships which don't allow you to say what you think. Not being allowed to express yourself publicly is horrible; not being able to express yourself privately seems only marginally worse.
My point is that I never got the sense from the book that the author is presenting something significantly more horrible or unique than we see in our world. The world of 1984 isn't much scarier than what we see in North Korea, China, or Iran.
A dystopia is supposed to show a horrible and scary world - something unrecognizable from our own. But 1984 doesn't do that. It shows us a more futuristic version, marginally worse, of a dictatorship. If it isn't much worse than what we know exists, than what is Orwell's book teaching us? I would say not very much.
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