英検1級の最後の長文問題に慣れる

英検1級は半ばこじつけですが、英検1級の長文問題がなかなか厄介なのはいろいろな立場、意見が紹介されることで、論点の整理がしづらくなることでしょうか。

今、世間を騒がせている米国NSAの諜報活動で、オーゥエルの『1984』がベストセラーになっているそうですが、その風潮を批判的に捉えたニューズウィークの記事がありました。

Sorry, It’s not 1984
Why we’re not living in Orwell’s dystopia.

Words checked = [1198]
Words in Oxford 3000™ = [73%]

確かに今週のニューヨーカーもBig Brother is watching you.がモチーフでUncle Sam is listening.のイラストでした。



The idea that Orwell’s super weapon applies to Obama’s America is ubiquitous and bipartisan. Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who likely wouldn’t know Winston Smith from Winston Churchill, told an audience that “now more than ever it just seems so Orwellian” in Washington, D.C. On the cover of its latest issue, The New Yorker depicts Uncle Sam peering into American bedrooms; the artist told the magazine that “George Orwell’s ghost is shaking his head saying, ‘I told you so.’” Al Jazeera asked if “Obama [is] going beyond Orwellian,” which, a reader of 1984 might note, would necessitate the establishment of a Khmer Rouge–like state in America.

挿入写真のキャプションにAre we a nation of Winton Smiths?とありますが、Winton Smithsは１９８４の主人公です。ウィキペディアは項目をたててくれています

（ウィキペディア）
Winston Smith is a fictional character and the protagonist of George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The character was employed by Orwell as an everyman in the setting of the novel, a "central eye ... [the reader] can readily identify with"



このエッセイのタイトルからもこの作者の立場は明らかですが、エッセイの中では以下のように書いています。1984の本を買えるような国は1984に描かれた国ではないということです。

The rule here is simple: If you are invoking 1984 in a country in which 1984 is available for purchase and can be freely deployed as a rhetorical device, you likely don’t understand the point of 1984.

1984の国は監視するだけでなく言語統制もしいているのだから、現代は北朝鮮みたいな国を指しているのだと言います。

Indeed, 1984 is a book not only about surveillance but also the full-spectrum dominance of Stalinist totalitarianism, from the government-directed corruption of language (“WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”) to absolute control of information and historical inquiry. Such states exist, like the truly Orwellian slave state of North Korea, where all apartments are fitted with radios offering a single government station and no off switch, but they bear little resemblance to contemporary America.

このような騒動で1984を引き合いにだすことは、オーウェルの1984の無理解ではないかと疑念をていしています。

But Orwell’s complexity evaporates in the political struggle for ownership of his soul; his work endlessly adduced in service of various liberal, libertarian, and conservative causes. The promiscuous use of 1984 comparisons, Kremlinologist Robert Conquest once noted, demonstrated an ignorance of both Orwell’s intentions and worldview: “To apply Orwell’s highly specific totalitarian terror-falsification concepts to assorted Western notions is to dilute, indeed to stultify, Orwell’s point ... Above all, this sort of thing distorts Orwell’s view of the totalist terror state as something distinct and different from our own imperfect societies—indeed, something to be resisted at all costs.”


まあ、オーウェルの1984での本当のメッセージというよりも、Big Brother is watching you.がキャッチーだから使っているだけかもしれませんね。「本当は…」というパターンって結構ありますから。。。