Showing posts with label Orwell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Orwell. Show all posts

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Lost My Ideas, If Found Write Them on Paper

As Ms. Fletcher was lecturing the class about the importance of writing as a tool, one frightening thought came to my mind: The dangers of ideas on paper. Have we ever just sat back and taken a world view on writing? It is pure evil, a screwdriver that screws backwards.

"Ideas are dangerous, not people." The phrase should be changed to "writing is dangerous, not ideas". A perfect idea is ruined without proper declaration. Orwell was well aware of this in his "Politics and the English Language," using examples from doctors and scientists whose thoughts were lost in a jumble of confusion and sophistication. What is more prevalent, however, is how writing can morph ideas into forms that shroud the author's point of view. For example, the Bible, Koran, and The Communist Manifesto are books of immense importance to many people, though different interpretations of each have resulted in uproars of death over clarification. How a thought is expressed through writing, and writing alone, determines its reception , which determines its importance.

My question, then, is: Can an idea stay in its original form in writing? Yes, a medium changes the message, but is writing not the most basic medium that is able to stand through time?