On Staying Above the Fray

I've taught George Orwell's Animal Farm to freshmen for the past several years. If you haven't read it recently, it deserves a re-read. As an allegory for the Russian Revolution and Stalin's rise, the story is unflinching in showing how those in power, repeating lies and hoarding resources, bring the masses into submission.

There is complicity enough to go around (the church, the press, the enablers, the "allies") as the pigs in power benefit from the other animals' loss of freedoms. 

But the character I've been thinking about today is Benjamin, the donkey.

Benjamin is an aloof, crotchety beast. He can read, a sign of his intelligence, but he doesn't use this trait as leadership or speak out against what he clearly sees unfolding. Instead, he says "Donkeys live a long time. You've never seen a dead donkey." His cynicism holds him above the fray, where he seems unfazed by the crumbling hope of prosperity for all.

Until. 

Until the climax of the book, when Benjamin's best friend Boxer, the hardest working plowhorse on the farm, is sold to the knacker. As the rendering truck rumbles down the road, Benjamin roars to life, chasing after the knacker and shouting to the other animals: "Fools! Fools! Do you not see what is written on the side of that van?" (It says "Horse Slaughterer and Glue Boiler," although the pigs had told the animals it was an ambulance taking Boxer to the hospital.)

Benjamin's belated spur to action cannot save Boxer. While he rails against the "dumb brutes" who failed to realize what was happening, he himself is not without blame. His failure to speak out, to act, or to use his years of wisdom to speak against tyranny makes him a silent accomplice to the fall of Animal Farm.

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Whew. I didn't mean to rehash the whole book. But I understand Benjamin. He wants to stay above the fray. He wants to ignore the pettiness of politics. To keep his hooves clean, so to speak.

Over the past months and years, I've seen good-hearted people hover above the squalor of political squabbling. Who can blame them? Paying attention is exhausting. And expressing an opinion in this current climate veritably invites a vitriolic response. I myself have deleted social media posts after finding myself on the receiving end of incredibly hateful insults ("Menopause got that ghoul good" one man said when I posted in support of women's reproductive healthcare. It was almost funny, but mostly just cruel, especially if you know menopause "got me" during my breast cancer treatments at age 45.)

So I understand Benjamin's desire to stay quiet. Stay cynical. Stay aloof. It's easier that way.

Until it isn't.

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison

From Nobelprize.org