#George orwell

[biblioflyer]

X-Men: Trust is Cheap When You Have a Trust Fund

Personal experiences can bestow a fundamentally sunny disposition about Mutant assimilation in Human society. They can also inspire the bleakest despair and a level of skepticism about unilateral disarmament.

Previously I discussed why X-Men as a setting is fundamentally pessimistic as a necessity according to the creative choices made. It is an essay in 5 parts:

1,2,3,4,5

This is a new series analyzing how experience and social status influences Mutant outlooks on the assimilation vs separatism/supremacy question.

It should not surprise us at all that the Morlocks and Magneto have very different opinions from Xavier about who should regulate their behavior and how. Once he’s confronted with how little protection his wealth affords him, even Sunspot becomes a convert to Magneto’s way of thinking.

When you’ve had a bad experience with someone claiming to be on your side and then contradicting literally every value you thought you shared, it makes a person calloused against appeals to a shared set of values or the innate goodness of humanity. 

For a real life example, George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” is a repudiation of the Soviet Union under Stalin, even though Orwell was no fan of extreme inequality and the violence used by elites to protect that inequality in market driven societies. Orwell was motivated to revisit the idea of whether the USSR was a true reflection of his values due to his personal sense of betrayal when the Soviet Union declined to intervene in the Spanish civil war against the Nazi allied regime.

We ought not to be surprised when impoverished visible Mutants find it difficult to imagine having a seat at the table when they can’t even get a seat at the table masquerading as Sapiens. 

Xavier’s access to power is always depicted as somewhat tenuous and his relationships with Presidents are transactional. Regardless of their personal feelings and long term visions, the leaders Charles interacts with are primarily focused on day to day crisis management. These leaders are ultimately accountable to the overwhelming majority of the population that does not have special abilities and those who are fearful of Mutants and those who are supportive of Mutants vote and contribute to political campaigns.

Xavier isn’t even visibly mutated. The tendency for Humans to perceive Morlocks as hideously disfigured denies them any comfort in mainstream society. Their very appearance reminds Humans that something has gone amiss in the gene pool and that something may not bode well for baselines in the long run.

Magneto’s experiences as a Sapien minority on the wrong side of the boot has made him deeply skeptical of power beyond his own. A Holocaust survivor, Magneto doesn’t need to imagine what the worst case scenario is for Human - Mutant relations.

Like Orwell, he is not easily swayed by appeals to common values or shared interest. For Magneto, trust is earned and the tests to earn it are not easy. As a consequence of his experiences, Magneto has adopted an attitude that only the people that are imminently facing the same type of threats can truly understand each other and be relied upon. 

To the extent that this is a fair and accurate sentiment, taken to an extreme it can be very isolating and leave one with few allies and even fewer people whose insights might be trusted when they contradict Magneto’s own instincts. This becomes a serious problem when Cortez worms his way into Magneto’s inner circle or Magneto rationalizes the fate of Mutants trapped on an Earth incapable of using modern technology as expediting evolution.

Yet, cynic that he is, life as an island is hard and even Magneto is not immune to the occasional savvy operator figuring out how to earn and abuse his trust, like Cortez.

Next up: Power level as privilege. What happens when a cranky Omega isn’t trapped in here with you, you are trapped with them….

[stormy-skyzzzzzz]

there is nothing more attractive than a man who reads.

[gremmlingamer]

[carcinogenical]

my work for 1984 group project. the theme of my section was surveillance

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Community Notes to the rescue.

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” ― George Orwell, 1984

[lascitasdelashoras]

George Orwell - 1984

[whereserpentswalk]

"We need to go back in time to show Gorge Orwell the state of the internet." "We need to go back in time to show Marx modern capitalism." Man up and go back in time to show Sigmund Freud Omegaverse.

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

Yes, leave politics out of all witing, it will just make the work dated. This is why no one reads or adapts Dickens, Wells, or Orwell these days. By like that nice Professor Tolkien, who never inserted any politics into his fantasy series influenced by his traumatic experience in the First World War and hatred of industrialism.

[mysharona1987]

[derangedrhythms]

I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me.

George Orwell, from 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'

[liriostigre]

George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism (1945)

[introverteddumbass]

[thehopefulquotes]

The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all round him. She had become a physical necessity.

George Orwell

[reality-detective]

[perfectquote]

The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all round him. She had become a physical necessity.

George Orwell