Essays by George Orwell Page: 1030

Still slogging through Orwell and other than the occasional chuckle at his self-contradiction I’m still not a fan. A few points. He writes repeatedly about the need for efficiency in building homes to avoid drudgery and unnecessary waste; then he writes an entire essay about how every home should have a coal-fire despite it’s dirtiness, inefficiency, and laboriousness, because having the family gather around it in the evening is socially desirable. He comments on Edward Lear’s nonsense verses and I just read them. And he did write one great essay in 1945 called “Politics and the English Language” which was and is an entirely necessary indictment of lazy language use. He and David Foster Wallace would have bonded over it.
Reading a comment today over on Nancy Wilson’s blog made me think about the necessary tension between reading, childcare and housework. Now I’m not one of those militant homemaking, housework is a woman’s highest calling, kind of conservative Christian females. There are plenty of blogs out there advocating housekeeping as an art, sanctuary of the home, and nesting as a vocation but this isn’t one of them. Certainly a clean, well organized home with tasty home-cooked food on the table is a marvelous thing and I think an achievable thing but when it comes down to a dilemma like, fold laundry or finish reading my book we’re likely to be picking our clean clothes out of the dryer for the week. Now I’m in a bit of a unique situation because I’ve a large reading project to finish this year but it’s a position I believe more of us should be in. When you are in the years of caring for small children very often learning falls by the wayside and unless you had an unusually vigorous schooling it is a loss you cannot well afford. Of course I’m not recommending leaving rotting garbage under the sink or wearing dirty underwear but a lot of your life ought to be sacrificed to furthering your education and gourmet meals are not the most important part of a woman’s life.
Of course reading or writing doesn’t come before the needs of the babies. Today Luc was crying and laying on the floor and Alex went over to him and made cooing sounds while trying to give Luc his pacifier. As Alex is only one, his motor control wasn’t quite good enough to succeed but the compassion demonstrated - he seemed genuinely sad for Luc - certainly is good enough. I can’t wait to tell them about each other. How Alex would try to comfort Luc and how Luc would light up when Alex leaned over him. They do have their selfish moments but in their own feeble, infantile way I think they love each other already.
My sister had to take her truck in for some repairs. I’m sure every female reader will instinctively appreciate the stress this occasioned. There was some (necessary) work that the shop did without notifying her or obtaining her permission (big no-no). When she came in to pick up her truck they charged her for this work. She called me, angry and frustrated to vent about the unfairness and stress of it and naturally I got royally pissed at the big mean mechanics who bullied her. I called to let them know that they had behaved dishonorably, manipulating and extorting money from a young woman and while they were reluctant to acknowledge this they did agree to reverse the work and the charges and they offered her an apology. We will now be making this simple repair ourselves for one-tenth the price. Moral of the story? When you are in a position of superior knowledge you have a deep and abiding obligation to use that knowledge for the benefit of those who are weaker. We live in a mildly degenerate age where the obligations of honesty and chivalry (here defined as service to those who are weaker than you) are routinely disregarded. Everyone, to some extent is in a position to use others and therefore has to be on guard against selfish dishonesty. But especially mechanics, tech-experts, doctors, lawyers, are all under peculiar restraints given your special knowledge. You MUST be honest, be clear, and be charitable. It is a moral obligation.
