Poetry in Motion

"Then the helicopter planted a 20 kilo bomb in among them - terrific flash and the boat went all to matchwood. Then there was a wonderful shot of a child's arm going up, up, up, right up into the air. A helicopter with a camera in its nose must have followed it up, and there was a lot of applause from the Party seats."

- George Orwell; 1984

In the most recent issue of Harper's Magazine, May 2008, Wendell Berry (ecological economist and green philosopher) writes as follows:

To deal with the problems, which after all are inescapable, of living with limited intelligence in a limited world, I suggest that we may have to remove some of the emphasis we have lately placed on science and technology and have a new look at the arts.

Here's what the High Command thinks when they read stuff like that:

Oh really? Does a painting have a greater than 100:1 kill ratio? Explain to me the megatonnage and blast effects of a sonata. How does a poem compare to a Daisy Cutter in terms of compression wave? Is a sculpture as effective as napalm on a non-compliant civilian population?

Berry has forgotten or never known that despite all the civilian tech wonder we see, internet web, cell phones, and so on, the sine qua non of technology is military applications. That's the heart and soul of the game, and it will never be given up in favor of 'art', and will never be pried loose from the Inner Party's cold dead hands.