Thursday, April 23, 2020

1984?

Stay Home...Stay Alive
Flatten the Curve
Social Distancing

They continue, signs on every road, sayings on every sign.

Then I re-read Orwell:

The Ministry of Truth—Minitrue, in Newspeak—was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, three hundred meters into the air. From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party: 
 
WAR IS PEACE 
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.


What curve are we to flatten, does anyone know. Do the people telling us know, is the curve based on data, is the data true. If I stay at home, will I live, for how long. What if I am dying of cancer, will staying at home cure me?

Slogans now abound, they tell people all sorts of things. Is there a real Ministry of Truth preparing these slogans. Do they understand what the words mean? Perhaps a Poll, yes a poll to test the public.

But as Orwell begins:

IT WAS A BRIGHT cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

Will it ever strike thirteen again?