God is in the Details
Arthur Brash | August 9, 2008 | 10:00“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.
Well here I am to salute this writer (one of many) who has sparked your interest, but about whom I admittedly (and ashamedly) know very little. It’s a serious lapse in my reading history, ‘Animal Farm’ being the only title of his that I’ve actually read through. I have much catching up to do…
As for the church’s involvement in its followers’ bedrooms, I don’t think it’s an explicitly sexual agenda most of the time, but is, as you hint, more about pleasure itself. The only pleasure one should derive should come from God or spirituality itself; all other so-called pleasures are ethereal and fleeting, and aren’t ‘genuine’ as they are earthly pleasures.
But for those of us who only believe in earthly things, well, seeking out earthly pleasures isn’t such an awful task. :)
“Coming up for Air” is on my reading list, but so far my only advantage over your depth of familiarity lies in the single novel afore mentioned.
From my understanding, Orwell was not a man of extensive education in the field of writing. This is one of my numerous appeals towards him, me being formally undereducated in the writing trade… what ever that means.
Of course, the appeal towards Orwell stretches many fronts, including that of positive influence long after death. As each of us stumbles through life best as we can, we tread on the toes of all that we come in contact with. In the process we leave a lot of things broken and damaged – our sole hope of evening the score is buried in the chance of leaving something positive that will outlive us. I cannot think of a better way to seek that end, but with a pen…