How quickly the precept 'All Animals Are Equal' is changed into 'All Animals Are Equal, but Some Are More Equal Than Others'. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was right to warn us that democracy is the hardest form of government to maintain Orwell knew that to the marrow of his bones, because he had seen it in action. I could see, too, how easily those who have toppled an oppressive power take on its trappings and habits. As Orwell taught, it isn't the labels - Christianity, Socialism, Islam, Democracy, Two Legs Bad, Four Legs Good, the works - that are definitive, but the acts done in their name. The pigs browbeat the others with ideology, then twist that ideology to suit their own purposes: their language games were evident to me even at that age. In the world of Animal Farm, most speechifying and public palaver is bullshit and instigated lying, and though many characters are good-hearted and mean well, they can be frightened into closing their eyes to what's really going on. The whole experience was deeply disturbing to me, but I am forever grateful to Orwell for alerting me early to the danger flags I've tried to watch out for since. I cried my eyes out when Boxer the horse had an accident and was carted off to be made into dog food, instead of being given the quiet corner of the pasture he'd been promised. Children have a keen sense of injustice, and this was the thing that upset me the most: the pigs were so unjust. The fate of the farm animals was so grim, the pigs so mean and mendacious and treacherous, the sheep so stupid. To say that I was horrified by this book is an understatement.

World of goo the third wheel