There’s something about authors from the 1930s, 40s, and 50s that scream out to us here in the middle of 2022.
George Orwell (1984 and Animal Farm), Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) and William Golding (Lord of the Flies) have all, to varying degrees, warned of One World Government, Communism, social (and sometimes, genetic) engineering, authoritarianism, groupthink, cancel culture, and what is truly prophetic, their warnings of what we call woke-ism.
I’d think it’d be safe to say that all three of these English authors collectively cautioned us of what the world would look like if we allowed a totalitarian dictatorship to control our lives.
Well, it’s time the English-speaking world should take note of Czechoslovakian novelist Milan Kundera’s 1967 work, The Joke.
Taking place in post-World War II Czechoslovakia, Ludvik Jahn, a handsome, fun and popular college student who takes pride not only in the Moscow-controlled government in Prague, but also of his own membership in the nation’s Communist Party.
As it turns out, a classmate wrote him a letter in which she penned, “optimistic young people filled through and through with the healthy spirit” of Karl Marx.
But silly Ludvik. In response, he jokingly wrote;
“Optimism is the opium of mankind! A healthy spirit stinks of stupidity! Long live Trotsky!”
Big mistake, Luddie.
The government catches wind of Ludvik’s little joke, then forces his classmate to testify against him at a farcical show trial. Any of this sounding familiar?
Anyhow, Ludvik is kicked-out of both college and the Party, where he quickly finds himself being ordered into a penal battalion, eventually assigned to a labor camp where he toils in a government-run mine.
Now, our hero does bounce back to a certain degree after time, but nonetheless… his life has still been trashed.
Regardless of how bright, talented or full of potential Ludvik was, he should have never made that joke.
Again, does any of this sound familiar?
