The “Love Is The Drug” print was inspired by the Roxy Music song of the same name filtered through Orwell’s concept of Doublethink and my personal belief that people are often seduced by anger and power. Doublethink is a word coined by George Orwell in his novel 1984 that describes the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts. In the novel 1984 the Ministry of Love is actually concerned with hate, fear, and war. The Ministry of Love enforces loyalty and love of Big Brother through fear, a repressive apparatus, and brainwashing. The Ministry of Love, like the other ministries, is paradoxically named, since it is largely responsible for the practice and infliction of misery, fear, suffering, and torture. Fear is used to instill love of Big Brother. Orwell describes Doublethink as:

The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them… To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.

To add another dimension from my personal perspective, I think that people are drawn to conflict. In other words, decoding the Orwellian definition of “Love Is The Drug” would yield “Hate Is The Drug” or “War Is The Drug”. I named one of my art shows a few years ago “The Duality of Humanity” based on the human tendency to be both very kind and very cruel, even within the same person, not just different types of people. Ironically, the people seduced by anger and power are often those who feel fearful, powerless, and unloved. In my opinion, compassion and generosity are strength, not anger and power. In the U.S. our love for war(that phrase works conceptually here) means that the military is a massive industry sucking needed tax funds away from schools and infrastructure. I think we need to rethink where we put our love. I wrote extensively about the military industrial complex when I released “Imperial Glory” print. You can see what I wrote HERE

Thanks for caring.

-Shepard

SOLD OUT

18 x 24 inch screen print. Signed and numbered edition of 400. $45

Release date: 8/14/12 at two random times during the day (PST). Limit 1 per person/household.

Orders will start shipping on 8/17/12.

18 x 24 inch screen print. Signed and numbered edition of 200. $45.

Release date: 8/14/12 at two random times during the day (PST). Limit 1 per person/household. Orders will start shipping on 8/17/12.