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ANIMAL FARM EPILOGUE
After George Orwell wrote Animal Farm (1945), Martin Knox wrote Animal Farm 2 (2021), The books satirize political and economic conditions, in a revolutionary setting from 1917 to about 2023, as one continuous narrative, paralleling historical events.
After the revolution had deposed the farmer, The animals were subjected to the oppressive control of a totalitarian regime. It had a pig dictator, a shambolic and arbitrary ideology and fearful animal masses.
A ruling class of pigs runs the farm corruptly in order to live luxuriously, keeping the other animals in penury. At the end of Orwell’s book, the animals are in a hopeless situation.
The sequel by Knox considers a microcosm of their predicament, magnified in a Cold War confrontation on Caruba Island, under pig rule. The Social Republic, which is a pig superpower and a Democratic Union of free nations, manoeuvre for geopolitical control of World energy supplies.
The animals learn climate science and question the pigs’ closure of their coal mine, the only income they have. The pigs use energy supply restrictions to make the workers superfluous and prolong their totalitarian rule.
To divert attention from internal hardship and dissent, the pigs enjoin the animals to invade a neighbouring territory, but they revolt again and oust the pigs. The animals get democratic rule at last.
Animal Farm is a story in which ordinary animals achieve, against the odds, liberation by reasoning, science and bravery. They learn to counter the misinformation of leaders, listening to each other and to elders. The setting is both familiar and dystopian. The books show the fallacy of totalitarian rule. The animals could operate Animal Farm much better. Pig rule is not needed. The animals succeed, in a story both uplifting and humorous.
Animal Farm 2 is available on Amazon. For reviews see: martinknox.com
ARE YOU STOICAL ABOUT RESTRICTIONS?
Seneca (d.65 AD) a Roman stoic philosopher had answers for these questions:
Do you have to obey?
When a dog is tied to a cart, if it wants to follow, it is pulled and follows, making its spontaneous act coincide with necessity. But if the dog does not follow, it will be compelled in any case.
Do you obey graciously?
It is not possible that any evil can befall a good man, unperturbed and serene he turns to meet every sally, all adversity he regards as exercise, a test, not punishment. Adversity is exercise. It matters not what you bear, but how you bear it.
Is your hurt and suffering imaginary?
We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.
A stoical population would be relatively compliant to govern, compared with those holding libertarian beliefs, such as Ayn Rand’s. Seneca’s approach would be less anxiety-inducing, until government becomes oppressive and totalitarian.
My writing on Covid 19 and Government is at https://martinknox.com
