When I was at Cornell as a grad student one of my professors, a marxizing
regional planner had all of the students in his theory seminar read Orwell's
"politics and the English language." He also refused to read dissertations
longer than 200 pages. If your's was longer he'd just stop at page 200 --
well, Strunk and White were Cornellians I think.
Paul H. Dillon
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Cole <mcole who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Friday, October 15, 1999 10:37 AM
Subject: Hey! Agreeement!
>
>Paul and Phil and Mary and......
>
>Sorry if my cryptic note about 1984 and Brave New World sewed confusion.
>I was bragging on my deparmtnet for having the good sense to juxtapose
>those books and on myself for choosing to be in this department. Shame
>on me for hubris and lousy email communicative strategy.
>
>Phil-- An epiphany for me was reading the first sentence in the Appendix
>to 1984 and realizing the significance of the fact that it was written
>in the past tense, presupposing the non-existence of the world that
>ends as if it would last forever. Reading Orwell's "Politics and the
English
>language" in this context is often helpful to students who firmly believe
>newspeak isa possible language and do not realize that it is true that
>control over the present provides control over the past which provides
>control over the future.
>
>I happen to be teaching exactly that text at this time.
>mike
>