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VIEWPOINT

Heros and Villians

What is a Hero? What is a Villain?

In the movies and books any more it's hard to tell the difference. The most violent and filled with hate is often the one we are supposed to root for.

When I was growing up, it was very clear who was whom.

Not any more.

But it's not movie heros that I am thinking about in this article. It's the real-life heros and villains, many who are portrayed in our history books. Well, that isn't exactly true either, it's in your history books; the ones who are studying history now.

History is being re-evaluated, rewritten, re-everything.

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I was just watching The Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, and 1984 by George Orwell. The first was written in 1932, and the second in 1949. Of course neither have quite come true, as yet. But the world is certainly headed in the direction that they depict.

There were three similarities that caught my attention. The first was blatant, that is the government's discouraging, even outlawing, family and the family unit that it entails. And the second was a breakdown of community by the citizenry in general. One book used drugs and artificial stimulation similar to video games of today, and the other used poverty and a constant reality of war. And the third is ritualistic behavior, that is, don't think -- just do and believe what you are told.

Sound familiar? I know what you're thinking. And you might very well say that, but I couldn't possibly.

No, what I was thinking about was Rome, Greece, Babylon, and the other great nations of the past.

I was thinking of Japan under Hirohito, Russia, and Germany. Can you imagine Germany under Hitler without war? Without his SS? Allowing freedom of expression? Family harmony? Children taught by their parents and not by the State?

Such are controls those governments used.

Another method used was to say that there are many gods, or that there is no God, or that the King is God, or a god. Now all these methods are being utilized in one form or another, with an addition, and that is that man came from bugs, and has become gods.

It's rather fascinating how writers have captured their future so accurately, and human nature so realistically. The latter case I am thinking of Animal Farm by Orwell, and Lord of the Flies by William Golding.

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