Ever since I read George Orwell's Animal Farm, I've been handing it out to just about anyone I know who hasn't read it. Aside from its content, which is why I started recommending it to others, it’s also quite short and easily read, appealing qualities for non-readers or readers not used to fiction.
In terms of content, while there are various takeaways one could get from the book, I believe one of them should be an urgent encouragement to read and constantly educate oneself.
Let us review the events just enough to prove this point and not to spoil it on those who haven’t read it yet. In the beginning of the book, after the animals revolt, they take it on themselves to learn how to read. Some of them learn well and others find they cannot, no matter how hard they struggle. Those who master reading end up becoming the ruling class, whereas the various lesser abilities to read by the other animals determine how much they could be fooled and controlled. The other animals do not reach the level of the pigs, who are the only animals to master reading and writing in Animal Farm.
So those who can read fool those who cannot read. It is as if the author is warning us of the dangers of not learning by ourselves, as we end up being taken advantage of by those who know more. We often put our trust in those we think know more, and their interests may often come before ours. Think of religious clerics and secular intellectuals in our times who try to persuade people to blindly follow their causes, not always to the people’s benefit, but for some advantage that this intellectual class will benefit from.
Different media channels, each with their own agenda, present us with their own version of current events, how can one determine the truth, if that is at all possible? Orwell himself writes in his excellent essay, Notes on Nationalism: “Probably the truth is discoverable, but the facts will be so dishonestly set forth in almost any newspaper that the ordinary reader can be forgiven either for swallowing lies or for failing to form an opinion. The general uncertainty as to what is really happening makes it easier to cling to lunatic beliefs.”
The reading required here is not reading as leisure or as a hobby, it is a necessity if one does not want to be manipulated into an undesirable situation. Orwell writes in another essay: “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” What Orwell is writing of here specifically is seeing beyond our biases. Unlike propaganda and disinformation in general, these are internal problems that make us refuse to acknowledge unmistakable facts, or forget contradictory opinions we often hold. We may forget our own moral codes and laws simply by reversing a situation, by changing the sides involved in a conflict. For example, should we see a certain group of people we disapprove of for religious or political opinions being oppressed we find ourselves justifying it to the greatest extent, perhaps shifting all blame on the victims themselves, and should the situation be reversed we find ourselves appalled by the oppression and the justification that uses the same words we have used before. Try this as a thought experiment: replace the sides in any controversial event to see if your opinion of it stays the same.
Orwell recommends keeping a diary of one's opinions to keep track of these changes, reversals, and contradictions. I suppose in this day and age, many of us already record our opinions on the Internet, whether on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media websites.
Returning to Orwell’s Animal Farm, I’ve started asking readers to imagine if they had to be a character in the book, who would they choose? Then I would ask them which character they thought came closest to representing them in reality.
The obvious answer is that no one would wish to be a character in Animal Farm, and the only way out of that is through constant and rigorous self-education. If you haven’t read it, don’t take my word for it, go read it for yourself.
