People of the Fog.
I don’t know how to describe George Orwell’s 1984 other than it is the gift that just keeps on giving. Just when you think you have a handle on it up pops something you might have missed before. Then when you look at where we are it makes perfect sense and you think aha just another box to tick off. Check!
Many folk claim they don’t like boxes just as they don’t like being made to color inside of the lines. They are the blur the lines types. Hang if they had their way there’d be no lines at all. This is because they have some weird sort of aversion to such things. Staying in their own lane is just not an option for them. Everything is not black and white it is nuanced as they like to say; so they mean like in shades of grey for the gray people.
Why is it they like to look for complexity where there is none; while they gloss over it where there is?
People who think this way hate being compartmentalized and they hate boundaries too. None of these are good things. Ever heard the saying good fences make good neighbors well it is true of the small and big things as well.
While they may think that they non- conforming they are really anything but. These are the People of the Fog who love to peer out at the world through a haze. Clarity is not their friend; but Confuse is. Their favorite thing to say about the big issues is ‘we don’t know.’ Their words not mine.
And when you don’t know there is an awful lot of leeway to just fill in the blanks.
These folk hate the idea of a national identity just as much as they hate a culture. Only they don’t say it like that. It is all about how it throws them out. Consider the words they use. Words like tribal, to other others, being exclusive and so on. It is all about those ‘uns who fall outside the box. Oh poor them! Just imagine how they feel. All left out and alone in their gray zone.
The thing is they hate all barriers so their aim to knock them down. They love the idea of diverse but hate any sort of difference. Bottom line everyone must think the same and embrace the same set of values. Now I ask you how conformist are they?
George Orwell captured the mood from the start. Everything in 1984 was grey; it had no color at all. Why even the spies wore grey shorts.
The Grays are on a mission to gray-ify the world and re-create it in their own image.
Do not let them.