Deep Life Reflections: Friday Five
Issue 36 - Silence
Hello and welcome to my weekly email newsletter, Deep Life Reflections: Friday Five, where I share five things I’m enjoying, thinking about, and find interesting. I hope you enjoy issue 36 and feel free to share your own reflections.
Here’s my Friday Five this week.
1. What I’m Reading
Animal Farm. By George Orwell.
George Orwell, born Eric Arthur Blair, wrote some of the best literary criticism, fiction, and political journalism of the twentieth century. Committed to freedom and a fierce opponent of oppression, suffering, and injustice, Orwell wrote with great intelligence, simplicity, and wit on subjects like anti-fascism and anti-authoritarianism. Among his most famous critiques of these ideologies are 1984 and Animal Farm.
Published in 1945, in the wake of the second world war and the rise of the Soviet Union, Animal Farm is a satire on totalitarianism and the corruption of power. Orwell uses animals on a farm to tell the history of the Russian Revolution and the rise of Soviet Communism. By using farmyard animals—pigs, sheep, horses, cows, ducks—Orwell can tell his fable in a way everyone can understand, even if they don’t know the historical details.
In his essay, ‘Why I Write’, Orwell wrote that Animal Farm was the first book in which he tried, with full consciousness, “to fuse political and artistic purpose into one whole.” His aim wasn’t just to oppose, but to challenge any entity—political, ideological, or military—that sought to control human beings unjustly. The establishment was uneasy about such a book—three British and nearly twenty American publishers rejected it.
A central theme of the novel is the abuse of language as a key instrument in the abuse of power. Regimes, embodied by the autocratic pigs, perversely distort language to gain, retain, and justify power, keeping the other animals in the dark. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the famous line, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Also important is the novel’s message that power corrupts. The final scene, where the pigs are now on a level footing with the previously despised human farmers, demonstrates that power inevitably has the same effect on anyone who wields it.
Orwell’s fable is a powerful warning to society: be alert and question power; hold leaders and governments accountable; think for oneself. Society hasn't always heeded this warning.
2. What I’m Watching
The Lives of Others. Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.
The Lives of Others is a film you can’t get out of your head. It’s a masterful debut by the German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. The film, set in East Berlin in 1984, follows a surveillance operation on George Dreyman, a brilliant playwright suspected of disloyalty to the state. Dreyman lives with his girlfriend, the famous actress Christa-Maria Sieland. Overseeing the operation is the meticulous Stasi (secret police) captain Gerd Wiesler, who becomes increasingly absorbed by their lives, mirroring our own growing intrigue with his.
Ulrich Mühe is superb as Wiesler. It’s a self-contained performance, stripped bare; eyes that prowl the faces of his countrymen (and women) searching for any signs of independent thinking—perhaps the worst crime someone can commit in such a regime. Wiesler embodies the soullessness and moral bankruptcy of the regime he represents, which strips all colour and life from those it comes into contact with. This world behind the Iron Curtain is all ugly concrete, whispers, and greys. The film’s authenticity comes in part from the real Stasi equipment borrowed from museums and collectors, even the machine used to steam-open up to 600 letters per hour. It’s a world where any kind of talk can be fatal.
Dreyman seems to have everything that Wiesler doesn’t: charm, success, a wide social circle, and a loving relationship. As Wiesler begins the 24/7 monitoring of Dreyman’s wiretapped apartment, we watch him watch. Silently. Day after day. Night after night. His face is a mask, trained to show no emotion, and it’s a performance of phenomenal subtlety. Wiesler begins to internalise their lives, which is easy because he has no life of his own—no partner, no hobby, no distraction from his single-minded work. Is he resentful, envious, admiring, or even just curious about their lives? We’re never sure. But we get pulled deeper into these fascinating human stories. Eventually, Wiesler arrives at a choice. And for those who haven’t seen the film, I won’t spoil it.
The Lives of Others won an Oscar in 2007 for the Best Foreign Language Film. Like Orwell’s Animal Farm, its themes remain relevant today. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the implosion of regimes like East Germany. In their fear of disloyalty, they sowed its seeds. When the Wall finally fell, it wasn’t with a bang, but with the whispers of those who had been silenced for too long by the few.
A note on Ulrich Mühe: He lived in East Germany as a stage actor during the era depicted in the film. Mühe once read his personal Stasi file and learned that some of his fellow actors had been (involuntary) informants to spy on him. When asked how he prepared for his role as a Stasi officer, Mühe simply replied, “I remembered”.
3. What I’m Contemplating
I’ve been thinking about true independent thinking this week. The writer Kevin Kelly suggests that you’re only thinking independently if your views on certain topics can’t be easily predicted.
Take political affiliations, for example. If you support a particular political party and endorse a policy that's representative of that party, there's a good chance that your stances on other policies can be predicted. Such predictability might indicate that part of your thinking is governed not by personal scrutiny, but by group allegiance. This isn’t uncommon because most people prefer to be comfortable than right. Our group, or tribe, provide comfort and belonging; this is part of our evolutionary wiring, making it hard to challenge the collective stance. But to truly think independently, we need to be more self-aware and introspective.
A good test is to identify people with whom you agree with on some topics, but disagree with on others. And even better if you can engage in a respectful discourse that enables greater understanding, allowing you to develop your thinking and position. Agreeing with everything someone says, and conversely, disagreeing with everything someone else says, might be the voice of group identity, and not your own individual, questioning mind.
The scientific community often exemplifies the spirit of independent thinking. Many scientists understand that their current beliefs rely on the present data and evidence. They embrace the fluidity of knowledge, prepared for new discoveries that could reshape their understanding. It's a mindset we can all apply.
4. A Quote to note
“Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.”
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer and dissident.
5. A Question for you
Have you experienced a situation recently where you could have applied more independent thinking?
This week’s featured image is a wall mural I captured in Gori, Georgia, the birthplace of Joseph Stalin. Created by the Georgian artist Gagosh, the mural sits on the side of a building scarred with bullet holes from the 2008 Russia-Georgia war. I’ll be sharing more of my Georgia photography on my website soon following my recent trip to the country.
Sharing and Helpful Links
Want to share this issue of Deep Life Reflections via text, social media, or email? Just copy and paste this link:
https://www.deeplifejourney.com/deep-life-reflections/october-27-2023
And if you have a friend, family member, or colleague who you think would also enjoy Deep Life Reflections, simply copy, paste and send them this subscription link:
https://www.deeplifejourney.com/subscribe
Don’t forget to check out my website, Deep Life Journey, for full content on my Pillars, Perspectives & Photography.
And you can read all previous issues of Deep Life Reflections here.
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend.
James