Factory Language on Earth Day

For almost six years, I have been preoccupied with industrialism and how it dictates the subtext of our lives: the houses we build, the clothes we wear, the food we grow and eat, how we educate ourselves and even how we speak and think.

In Politics and the English Language, Orwell translates part of Ecclesiastes into dead modern language. The original:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

becomes

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

Awful, isn't it? It is so scientific, but tells us nothing. He continues:

The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness . . . Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style.

Think about the natural world, in all its rich diversity. The average human can name a thousand brands (e.g. Tide) and less than ten trees. Why are so many people talking about nothing, and taking so many syllables to do it?

The destruction of habitat, the meaningless quest for more 'stuff,' the standardization and mechanization of everything - we are becoming lifeless and orthodox, unused to seeing, thinking and experiencing things for ourselves.

I realize this all seems pretty bleak, but it is if you stop and think about it. Even flowers no longer attract as many bees because the air is too full of pollutants.

When everyone lives in one of four identical boxes and all meals and thoughts have been standardized, will we rest on our laurels and revel in a job well done?