I’d like to recommend a great book, it’s called “animal farm”.
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I’ve split your post into a new thread Annie as funnily enough the book is on my reading list!
Curious to hear if anyone has read it - what are your thoughts?
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Azz it’s relevant to what happens when there is a power vacuum after a revolution. Plus ca change and all that.
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I thought everybody had read it (along with 1984)!
Not his best books in my opinion.
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I think I’ve read most of his books.
Down and Out in Paris and London,Road to Wigan Pier and Coming up for Air are my favourites.
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Yes mine too, I would add Keep the Aspidistra Flying too
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Aha. Read a few of his books, albeit last century when I did. Not read Coming up for Air. That’ll be on my kindle pending list shortly. 
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I must admit to never having read beyond Animal Farm and 1984, focusing my energies on a wide variety of other good and bad fiction. I recognise some of the titles so must look them up, although it’s hard to find the time to read these days. I’m currently reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte (slowly) during train commutes when the wifi signal cuts out.
In terms of Animal Farm it’s a simple but powerful representation of human nature focused on the communist system following revolution.
If you remove one source of oppression another will take its place. Cake and circuses is how we function best. If there’s no cake then we have a big problem.
If you accept this is how civilisation works and accept the flaws and stop pretending we can ever have perfection, you can make progress through some form of collaboration and mutual understanding. As long as you have cake…
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Quite @AnnieS
Nature kinda dictates there’ll always be alphas who surround themselves by thugs.
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I loved Animal Farm … I just love the pigs in it. It does tend to stay with you as a thought provoking book … think I was a teenager when I first read it.
Like a few others have said I haven’t read any of his other books other than 1984 but it could be time to read them.
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I didn’t think he’d written it when you were a teenager 
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No, I know I’m right … my memory isn’t that bad for I know for a fact that the Guttenberg press has just been invented when I was a little squealer.
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Animal Farm was required reading in my high school (ages 16-17), which was the perfect age to introduce its layered concepts. It inspired us look at history and government in a whole new way.
Such interesting observations, Annie. While the book was first and foremost about communism, it was also a spot on metaphor for importance of a republic over pure democracy due to the flawed nature of man.
While the U.S. government was hammering out in the early 1780s, the framers published The Federalist Papers to convince the public that a republic over a pure democracy was critical. The problem with a pure democracy, James Madison argued in Federalist Paper 10, was that a pure democracy allowed an avenue for takeover by a flawed faction, similar to the one Orwell described 150 year later. Only the checks and stops of a republic with its separation and (state) representational powers could keep the public well- informed and armed against attempts at “cakes and circuses” chicanery.
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Mom I had to google exactly what a republic was. Despite my familiarity with the word, I have a dearth of knowledge when it comes to political models.
I associate the word most closely with a banana. I see the reason for this is because in Britain we have some sort of highly complicated compromise of a political structure. Can you be a republic if you have a constitutional monarchy? We have a house of elected representatives and a house of lords. It sort of sums up the way we do everything. Rather than create a new system that works, we stick together all that is in place with blu tack and give it another name. Somehow it all still works in its dysfunctional way.
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Or, you google it, @ AnnieS, and here it is in part.
And I quote from Google and AI; not MY explanation, as I don’t try to boost myself up. 
AI Overview
The statement @Supermom posted contains several historical inaccuracies and anachronisms
. The U.S. government was not being “hammered out” in the early 1780s, but rather the mid-1780s. The Federalist Papers were not published to prevent a “takeover by a flawed faction,” but instead to convince New Yorkers to ratify the new U.S. Constitution. The comparison to Orwell’s ideas is anachronistic, and the term “cakes and circuses” has roots in Ancient Rome, not 18th-century America.
- The phrase “cakes and circuses” was a term used by the ancient Roman poet Juvenal and has no relation to the founding of the U.S…
Rather easy to look up, Google works for everyone.
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@RightNow The work on the Articles of Confederation, which acted as the first constitution and laid the groundwork for the Constitution itself was drafted and enacted in late 1777. That core knowledge is taught in every high school and survey-level college and university history course.
The Federalist Papers were actually written to convince a gun-shy infant nation that the Articles of Confederation were wholly inadequate and that only a stronger federal government (and its powers of taxation, forming a defense, etc.) would save the fledgling nation. Under the Articles, the country was at grave risk of failing by the 1780s. Madison, Hamilton, and Jay were primarily campaigning for the mutual benefits of a strong federal government married with representational government lest the United States just devolve into “States.”
However, you are missing my point in this discussion, which is the framers’ concerns about the potential for a runaway government given the nature of the human condition, which Orwell so terrifyingly exemplified in Animal Farm. As Dex observed, at the heart of every decision in the design of the U.S. government was that even with the best of intentions, there is always a tyrant or as Dex noted, an alpha in the making, wringing his hands for control. Annie’s comments got me thinking about how Orwell so chillingly anthropomorphized the dangers of communism and and carried forward the Constitutional framers an early citizens’ most deep-seated fears.
Have you read Federalist Paper 10? Madison along with other framers, knew well that a republic could be the one obstacle preventing a runaway government (socialist, communist, autocracy, stratocracy, etc). Superb arguments.
Etymology is fascinating .
Referring again to the thread, “cakes and circuses” Annie used this interesting metaphor, which we both understand to represent the appeasement of the masses. It is a well-understood warning and an unfortunately too-well-used weapon.
Good to hear from you!
(Edited for types, there are probably more!)
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I have learned a new word today! I’m trying to remember the word I usually use to describe the same thing. It might be “personification”. But I can see anthropomorphism is more appropriate in the case of Animal Farm. I guess it would also apply in the story of the three little pigs. Whereas personification is a figurative application. Here endeth today’s lesson!
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Haha, yes, I get it with the banana! Likewise, every aspect of our government has been a compromise. It mostly works well her too, except voters ever exclaim their disdain for Congress while ever electing the same people back to office (no term limits). It’s a labor of love, but it feels more like labor than love these days.
I confess limited understanding of the workings of your constitutional monarchy, except that it can’t technically be a republic because, by definition, your head of government is not directly elected and you maintain a monarch that is neither representationally nor directly elected - despite his or her powers being limited to Crown Consent.
While you all have a monarch as head of state and a prime minister as head of government, the U.S. head of state and head of government exist in the single role of the President. While the President is directly elected, and often has no experience in the legislative branch (our Congress, your Parliament) as far as I know, your Prime Minister comes from Parliament.
Every qualified citizen has the power to run for the presidency. I like that notion a lot because at the end of the day we are the government. A good number of Presidents have had no prior experience in government, particularly Congress.
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I love this attached lesson, Annie. You gave me “cakes and circuses” which I had always read as “bread and circuses,” so thanks for that!
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I must admit I thought that Animal Farm, 1984, Catch 22 and the Lord of the Rings trilogy had been read by everybody of our generation by the time they were 25(ish).
There was also a period when Gunter Grass’ The Tin Drum, Kurt Vonnegut’s SlaughterHouse Five and Luke Rheinhart’s The Diceman had been read by everyone and anyone.
Perhaps it was just me and my circle but I thought it much wider than that.
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