Pamcake1
RZSS Graymalkin Wrangling
- Dec 11, 2019
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Dystopian Literature and Manuals & the secondary school syllabus circa mid-late 1970’s
Students; The Boomers Long Tail and 21st Century Bridge Generation.
Indoctrination by stealth bombers from a past generation.
When my generation went to school a lot of the syllabus reading material, written after the First WW or by those affected by WWII was selected by a generation that came out of the WWII and taught by a younger generation* that was directly affected by the Vietnam War. There were still some senior teachers that were affected by the WWII teaching at this time.
*This younger generation of teachers was parachuted on a fast track to both fill the need for the swelling student population and had often avoided being conscripted by availing themselves to a tertiary education and the legacy of getting a tertiary education paid for via Studentships for so many years of teaching.
Everywhere was War, thoughts of War, Distopian Thoughts of War, Atomic War was Still Possible.
Here's my limited list of influences....the books and also the films of the books.
Communication THE CONCH....pre-mobile phone coding.
Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 (Film 1963 Peter Brook)
The book never states the location of the unnamed island, although it is implied to be located somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The book begins with the boys' arrival on the island after their plane has been attacked after an atomic bomb is detonated.[11]
In the midst of a wartime evacuation, a British aeroplane crashes on or near an isolated island in a remote region of the Pacific Ocean. The only survivors are boys in their middle childhood or preadolescence. A fair-haired boy named Ralph and a fat boy nicknamed "Piggy" find a conch, which Ralph uses as a horn to convene the survivors to one area. Ralph immediately commands authority over the other boys using the conch, and is elected their "chief". He establishes three primary policies: to have fun, to survive, and to constantly maintain a smoke signal that could alert passing ships of their presence. Ralph joins a red-haired boy named Jack and a quiet boy named Simon in using Piggy's glasses to create a signal fire.
The semblance of order deteriorates as the majority of the boys turn idle and ignore Ralph's efforts towards improving life on the island. They develop paranoia around an imaginary monster they call the "beast", which they all come to believe exists on the island.
The setting is important for the novel's narrative progression. Because no adults have survived and remain with them, the boys need to be preadults who attempt to establish order among themselves to survive within their hostile environment.[12]
The setting also symbolizes the development of human civilization, society, and government, as the boys try to form a community with themselves and eventually elect a "chief" to lead them. It then goes on to examine aspects of war and chaos, as the setting itself is placed during a war that has begun before the boys arrive on the island. Ref; Wiki
Drug Education SOMA ever wonder where the red pill blue pill started.
Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932
Golding asked his wife, Ann, if it would "be a good idea if I wrote a book about children on an island, children who behave in the way children really would behave?"ly set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make a dystopian society which is challenged by the story's protagonist.
Huxley said that Brave New World was inspired by the utopian novels of H. G. Wells, including A Modern Utopia (1905), and as a parody[16] of Men Like Gods (1923) Ref; Wiki
History the Countdown to Future is Now.
1984 George Orwell 1949
"Thought Police, thoughtcrime, unperson, memory hole (oblivion), doublethink "
Science Fiction
Not on the syllabus but these two are critical as they informed and influenced the teachers let alone that Sci Fi exploded as a category at this time.
Dune Frank Herbert 1965
Dune is set in the distant future in a feudal interstellar society in which various noble houses control planetary fiefs. Ref; Wiki
Ecological Warrior Primer
Silent Spring Rachel Carson 1962
Silent Spring is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson.[1] Published on September 27, 1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting the industry's marketing claims unquestioningly. Ref; Wiki
Warrior Women Unite
The Female Eunuch Germaine Greer 1970
Not on the syllabus but very much affecting the discourse and teaching.
This book had a direct affect on GG's contemporaries as this was also the time that you had many women attending university and many ended up teaching rather than practising in their trained field because of economics and lack of opportunity.
(Germaine was at Queens College with my Mother at Melbourne University so the comment above is also anecdotally personal... tautology alert.)
Novels
Heart Of Darkness Joseph Conrad (Appocalypse Now 1979 Francis Ford Coppola.)
Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 (1962 Film Stanley Kubrick)
Catch 22 Joseph Heller 1961 (Film 1970 Mike Nichols)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest ken Kesey 1961 (Film 1975 Miloš" Forman) subject Military-industrial complex.
The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 (film 1974 Jack Clayton)
Sons & Lovers D.H. Lawrence & Women In Love 1920 (Film 1969 Ken Russell)
Manuals
circulation on the underground network
The Impotance Of Two Little Red Books
The little Red Book 1964-66 Eng translation Pub 1967
Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung
Widely read by the politicised.....Whitlam and left ideology were current and intellectual currency.
The other little Red Book
Not that one this one; Underground and banned from schools but circulating because of Women's Liberation and the ideals of 'free love' this was sex education in those days...self teaching...again stealth.
I didn't have any 'Sex Ed' at my school progressive schools had just started to educate on the subject, some high schools mentioned sex ed in a very limited way in 'biology' classes but most didn't and don't even ask what was being taught in Church or Private schools it was unmentionable.
If you were caught with this book in your possession you were expelled or if you were lucky suspended...it was dangerous goods.
The Little Red School Book Danish 1969
Translated to Eng. early 70’s
The book encourages young people to question societal norms and instructs them on how to do this. Out of 200 pages, it includes 20 pages on sex and 30 on drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. Other topics included adults as "paper tigers", the duties of teachers, discipline, examinations, intelligence, and different schools. Ref; Wiki
Students; The Boomers Long Tail and 21st Century Bridge Generation.
Indoctrination by stealth bombers from a past generation.
When my generation went to school a lot of the syllabus reading material, written after the First WW or by those affected by WWII was selected by a generation that came out of the WWII and taught by a younger generation* that was directly affected by the Vietnam War. There were still some senior teachers that were affected by the WWII teaching at this time.
*This younger generation of teachers was parachuted on a fast track to both fill the need for the swelling student population and had often avoided being conscripted by availing themselves to a tertiary education and the legacy of getting a tertiary education paid for via Studentships for so many years of teaching.
Everywhere was War, thoughts of War, Distopian Thoughts of War, Atomic War was Still Possible.
Here's my limited list of influences....the books and also the films of the books.
Communication THE CONCH....pre-mobile phone coding.
Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 (Film 1963 Peter Brook)
The book never states the location of the unnamed island, although it is implied to be located somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The book begins with the boys' arrival on the island after their plane has been attacked after an atomic bomb is detonated.[11]
In the midst of a wartime evacuation, a British aeroplane crashes on or near an isolated island in a remote region of the Pacific Ocean. The only survivors are boys in their middle childhood or preadolescence. A fair-haired boy named Ralph and a fat boy nicknamed "Piggy" find a conch, which Ralph uses as a horn to convene the survivors to one area. Ralph immediately commands authority over the other boys using the conch, and is elected their "chief". He establishes three primary policies: to have fun, to survive, and to constantly maintain a smoke signal that could alert passing ships of their presence. Ralph joins a red-haired boy named Jack and a quiet boy named Simon in using Piggy's glasses to create a signal fire.
The semblance of order deteriorates as the majority of the boys turn idle and ignore Ralph's efforts towards improving life on the island. They develop paranoia around an imaginary monster they call the "beast", which they all come to believe exists on the island.
The setting is important for the novel's narrative progression. Because no adults have survived and remain with them, the boys need to be preadults who attempt to establish order among themselves to survive within their hostile environment.[12]
The setting also symbolizes the development of human civilization, society, and government, as the boys try to form a community with themselves and eventually elect a "chief" to lead them. It then goes on to examine aspects of war and chaos, as the setting itself is placed during a war that has begun before the boys arrive on the island. Ref; Wiki
Drug Education SOMA ever wonder where the red pill blue pill started.
Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932
Golding asked his wife, Ann, if it would "be a good idea if I wrote a book about children on an island, children who behave in the way children really would behave?"ly set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make a dystopian society which is challenged by the story's protagonist.
Huxley said that Brave New World was inspired by the utopian novels of H. G. Wells, including A Modern Utopia (1905), and as a parody[16] of Men Like Gods (1923) Ref; Wiki
History the Countdown to Future is Now.
1984 George Orwell 1949
"Thought Police, thoughtcrime, unperson, memory hole (oblivion), doublethink "
Science Fiction
Not on the syllabus but these two are critical as they informed and influenced the teachers let alone that Sci Fi exploded as a category at this time.
Dune Frank Herbert 1965
Dune is set in the distant future in a feudal interstellar society in which various noble houses control planetary fiefs. Ref; Wiki
Ecological Warrior Primer
Silent Spring Rachel Carson 1962
Silent Spring is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson.[1] Published on September 27, 1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting the industry's marketing claims unquestioningly. Ref; Wiki
Warrior Women Unite
The Female Eunuch Germaine Greer 1970
Not on the syllabus but very much affecting the discourse and teaching.
This book had a direct affect on GG's contemporaries as this was also the time that you had many women attending university and many ended up teaching rather than practising in their trained field because of economics and lack of opportunity.
(Germaine was at Queens College with my Mother at Melbourne University so the comment above is also anecdotally personal... tautology alert.)
Novels
Heart Of Darkness Joseph Conrad (Appocalypse Now 1979 Francis Ford Coppola.)
Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 (1962 Film Stanley Kubrick)
Catch 22 Joseph Heller 1961 (Film 1970 Mike Nichols)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest ken Kesey 1961 (Film 1975 Miloš" Forman) subject Military-industrial complex.
The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 (film 1974 Jack Clayton)
Sons & Lovers D.H. Lawrence & Women In Love 1920 (Film 1969 Ken Russell)
Manuals
circulation on the underground network
The Impotance Of Two Little Red Books
The little Red Book 1964-66 Eng translation Pub 1967
Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung
Widely read by the politicised.....Whitlam and left ideology were current and intellectual currency.
The other little Red Book
Not that one this one; Underground and banned from schools but circulating because of Women's Liberation and the ideals of 'free love' this was sex education in those days...self teaching...again stealth.
I didn't have any 'Sex Ed' at my school progressive schools had just started to educate on the subject, some high schools mentioned sex ed in a very limited way in 'biology' classes but most didn't and don't even ask what was being taught in Church or Private schools it was unmentionable.
If you were caught with this book in your possession you were expelled or if you were lucky suspended...it was dangerous goods.
The Little Red School Book Danish 1969
Translated to Eng. early 70’s
The book encourages young people to question societal norms and instructs them on how to do this. Out of 200 pages, it includes 20 pages on sex and 30 on drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. Other topics included adults as "paper tigers", the duties of teachers, discipline, examinations, intelligence, and different schools. Ref; Wiki
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