Defects Of Memory

I try to remain upbeat. Truly I do, especially on Thanksgiving weekend. But...

That was recorded in the early Sixties. It was one of the biggest hits of its era. Reflect on that...and on this as well: at that time, a Hula Hoop^® was priced at $1.98.

---

    "I am taking trouble with you," O'Brien said, "Because you are worth trouble. You know perfectly well what is the matter with you. You have known it for years, though you have fought against the knowledge. You are mentally deranged. You suffer from a defective memory. You are unable to remember real events, and you persuade yourself that you remember other events that never happened. Fortunately, it is curable."

Do I really need to tell a Gentle Reader of Liberty's Torch where that came from?

The number of times I've had the following exchange:

FWP: You know, in 1960 you could buy a gallon of gas for three dimes...and you still can today.
Miscellaneous Other Person: Huh? Giddouddahere!
FWP: No, seriously, you can -- if they're silver dimes.
MOP: C'mon, that can't be right. (walks away)

...has grown beyond my ability to remember. Except for oldsters like myself, my conversational partners simply reject the information. It's recorded in many places, including government compilations such as the Historical Statistics of the United States. But most persons under the age of sixty are unwilling to accept it.

Few persons under that age are willing to believe that in those days:

• Pop stars performed fully clothed.
• Parents spanked their disobedient children.
• A pound of ground beef cost less than a dollar.
• A rifle as a Christmas present was nothing to stir controversy.
• Savings banks paid 3% on deposits and charged 6% on mortgages.
• Divorce and "single motherhood" were considered marks of personal failure.
• The Sunday morning talking-head shows were gentlemanly affairs with no shouting.
• The most vexing public problem in America, according to the airwaves, was littering.
• Murderers were more likely than not to serve their full sentences...and many were executed.
• A walk along the Bronx's Grand Concourse at ten P.M. was almost perfectly safe -- for a ten-year-old.
• Advertising of all sorts -- including ads for liquor and cigarettes -- routinely included the prices of the things advertised.
• Network TV stations aired "public service" pitches stating that "The family that prays together stays together," and encouraging Americans to "Go to the church of your choice."

I remember it all. All of it is verifiably true. (Oh, and there was no "knockout game," either.) But for how much longer?

---

    O'Brien smiled faintly. "You are no metaphysician, Winston. Until this moment you had never considered what is meant by existence. I will put it more precisely. Does the past exist concretely, in space? Is there somewhere or other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past is still happening?"
    "No"
    "Then where does the past exist, if at all?"
    "In records. It is written down.
    "In records. And--?"
    "In the mind. In human memories."
    "In memory. Very well, then. We, the Party, control all records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not?"
    "But how can you stop people remembering things?" cried Winston, again momentarily forgetting the dial. "It is involuntary. It is outside oneself. How can you control memory? You have not controlled mine!"
    O'Brien's manner grew stern again. He laid his hand on the dial.
    "On the contrary," he said, "you have not controlled it. That is what has brought you here."

The Omnipotent State demands unquestioning submission -- of body and mind. It is heresy to remember things the State does not wish remembered. It is blasphemy against Official Truth to speak of them. Though it has not yet begun to prosecute and punish for the thoughtcrimes that laid low Winston Smith, that day is unlikely to be far off. The foundations of "reality control" -- what Orwell's Newspeak termed doublethink -- are being poured as we speak, by our mass media and our government-run schools.

To remember an adverse datum even as much as one year old is no longer socially acceptable:

At one point during this time, there was a furor raised over the funding of school lunches. So, I looked into it carefully.

After delving into the actual numbers, I was horrified to learn that what I heard from all the big-name news outlets was factually incorrect. Every single one of them got it wrong.

So, I called the newsroom of the biggest and most respected news radio station in Chicago (where I was living.) Amazingly, they put me right through. The conversation went like this:

Me: Listen, I have a problem on this school lunch thing. The numbers you guys are using are wrong.

News writer: What do you mean?

Me: You’re reporting a seven percent cut in school lunch funding, but I checked the real numbers – they are going up three percent. The democrats are saying “seven percent cut,” because they want a ten percent increase. This talk about a cut is false: it’s actually an increase, and you guys have to know that.

News writer: Yeah, well… the democrats gave us stuff to use and the republicans didn’t.

I was horrified, but it was, at least, an honest answer. What shocked me most was the fact that they simply didn’t care. This was the flagship news station in Chicago – the one people went to when they wanted to be sure – and they simply didn’t care about accuracy.

The government-run schools have slighted actual history so completely that the typical high-school graduate when asked what founding American document includes "From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs," answers "the Declaration of Independence." He's read more about Harriet Tubman than about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson combined. He thinks the "party of slavery" was the Republican Party...and that Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat. He isn't aware that is the U.S. fought Japan in World War II...or who won.

Given all that, how could anyone expect young Mr. John Q. Public to believe that gasoline ever cost $0.30 per gallon -- or that there was so much of it available that gas station chains had to run giveaway programs and strange, raffle-like contests to compete with one another?

Our political class is perfectly happy with that.

---

I remember too much. As I wrote long ago:

I remember the milk truck, the bakery truck, the dry cleaner's truck, the sharpener truck, and the Charles Chips truck, all of which came to our door, and all of whose drivers were treated like old friends. In some cases, they were old friends.

I remember cap guns, and games of Cowboys and Indians, and huge snowball fights conducted with an innocent ferocity by pugilists from eight to eighty.

I remember thinking that the Palisades Interstate Parkway must surely be one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and that heaven itself could hardly exceed the delights of Palisades Amusement Park.

I remember my father, down on his luck and himself after my mother left him, spending much too much time in a local gin mill. I remember him cashing check after check at that saloon, and the owner, who knew those checks would bounce right over the Moon, accepting them anyway, putting them into his cash register and never saying a word. That saloon owner eventually got every penny my father owed him. I wonder if he'd known that he would.

I remember adults who had standards they weren't afraid to enforce without needing to invoke the authority of the law. I remember lawyers who tried to counsel their prospective clients not to sue. I remember journalists who could be trusted.

I remember loving America wholeheartedly and with no reservations. We were the good guys. I remember fearing nothing and no one, certainly not the government. I remember being confident that the world could only get better, now that the good guys were in charge.

I know I'm not supposed to remember all those things, especially not on Thanksgiving Day. I'm supposed to be grateful for the bounties bestowed on us by Our Leader and his lieutenants. I'm supposed to frown at anyone who voices criticism of His enlightened rule, and make a note not to have that seditionist at my table next year. And I'm supposed to accumulate paper dollars (or magnetic domains that represent them) as if they could really store value, and spurn the precious-metals cranks who shriek, as Milton Friedman once wrote, that "Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink, and make the combination worthless."

I wonder how long it will be before I face my personal Room 101.

    "Tell me," Winston said, "how soon will they shoot me?"
    "It might be a long time," said O'Brien. "You are a difficult case. But don't give up hope. Everything is cured sooner or later. In the end we shall shoot you."