Another theme, important to Orwell in this book and 1984, is the malleability of the past and our responsibility to know as much as we can about it. The pigs change the "commandments" whenever they need to to justify their actions. Since the animals have "many" generations in the same time period that we have one, there aren't many original animals left who know what the commandments were, and the others seem willing to believe anything.
I think this theme is particuarly relevant in our world today. In our world, we are faced with a deluge of information from the internet, news programs, and publications. When politicans blame the past for present situations, when the site past events as precedents for current decisions, do we know tht they are correct? telling us the truth? willfullyl/accidentally slanting the facts for their purposes? The same is true for the news media? (I would suggest you read William Safire's "Scandalmongers" for an interesting study of the role of the media during the early days of our country --- you might be surprised how some things never change --- if he's telling us the turth :))
In 1984, the government has an entire department to invent the past to justify the future. I think we need to be careful that we don't have one too.
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