God is in the Details
Saturday, August 9th, 2008“We shall abolish the orgasm.” That’s one of the goals of the Party in Orwell’s Ninteen Eighty-Four. “There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother.”
Of course, many have succeeded at abolishing the orgasm through various forms of genital mutilation. Hundreds of millions more - perhaps billions - suffer from tremendous guilt at thinking about, discussing or pursuing an orgasm. Many more are able to enjoy the sexual experience only under rare and unlikely to occur circumstances - all of this thanks to religion. God is the in details, you know, and when it comes to sex, and orgasms, and pleasure, there are a lot of details.
As long as humanity prefers a bad explanation over no answer at all, I have to side with the “religion will always be there” camp with which Orwell associated himself with.
There are many good reasons for discussing Orwell and his works anytime, but today there is additional one: Orwell’s initial entry in his diary celebrates its 70th anniversary this August 9th. It, along with the entries that followed, are being made available online starting today, each to be published at orwelldiaries.wordpress.com exactly 70 years after its conception.