I picked up a copy of George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier at a used bookstore the other day. While 1984 and Animal Farm may be more widely known for their commentary on the future intrusiveness of government and the human condition, Wigan Pier is Orwell’s eye-witness account of the squalid conditions of Northern England in the 1930s and a critical view of socialism in England at the time. While I am still reading it and cannot comment fully, a passage from early in the book got me to thinking about a brief exchange on post I wrote about war photos being released for public consumption. In this excerpt, Orwell is speaking about a poor, filthy couple, the Brookers, who ran a bit of a boarding house:
But it is of no use saying that people like the Brookers are just disgusting and trying to put them out of mind. For they exist in tens and hundreds of thousands; they are one of the characteristic by-products of the modern world. You cannot disregard them if you accept the civilisation that produced them. For this is part at least of what industrialism has done for us. …[A]nd this is where it all led – to labyrinthine slums and dark black kitchens with sickly, ageing people creeping round and round them like blackbeetles.
It is a kind of duty to see and smell such places now and again, especially smell them, lest you forget that they exist; though perhaps it is better not to stay there too long.
In the war photo post, I asked if graphic but truthful photos of American soldiers injured/dying/dead on the battlefield should be shown to the American public. AnnaK said she wasn’t going to go out of her way to find them, but that yes, they should be shown, but in measured doses so to keep us aware of what is going on in the world. Orwell seems to think along the same lines as well. And if the goal is to keep such things as the reality of war or poverty merely on the radar of the general public, then I too agree that such things could be taken in small doses.
But I have to wonder if the point of exposing the American population to various harsh realities is merely to get them to remember. Or is the hope to get them to respond, to act is some way to such harsh realities? Is it to get them to feel once again?
I fear that small doses of reality over time, such as the picture of a disfigured, dying soldier or the account of living conditions in 1930s England, only serve to inoculate the population from taking any action. Consider the vaccines we all have received over the years. When was the last time you worried about Measles or Mumps, or Rubella? We don’t because we were inoculated. We were inoculated so we could go about our business without worrying about a nasty disease. The same is true for being made aware of the tragedies that go on around the world.
A case in point: even though the ban put in place back in 1991 was lifted finally, we do not see photos of flag-draped coffins coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. I recommend reading this piece by Byron York at The Washington Examiner. And this one from The Edmonton Sun’s Andrew Hanon.
- mike
No comments:
Post a Comment