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Everyday I get reminded of something I read in that great book. How about you?



Orwell’s 1984: Are We There Yet?
Sean Fitzpatrick

The second most terrifying thing about George Orwell’s 1984 is the supposition that it is possible to destroy humanity without destroying humankind. The first is how many aspects of our democratic nation resemble his dystopian nightmare.

George Orwell wrote 1984 in 1948 as a political satire of a totalitarian state and a denunciation of Stalinism. Orwell himself was a socialist, who fought for the republicans in the Spanish Civil War and was wounded by a sniper bullet to the throat. As the West became aware of the horrors of Stalin, Orwell became disillusioned.

1984 was Orwell’s resulting futuristic-cautionary tale of Winston Smith in a world of government domination defined by anxiety, hatred, and cruelty. The Party, whose head is reverently called Big Brother, presides over existence through omnipresent surveillance and mind control. Their subjugated citizens are programmed not only to accept if Big Brother says that 2 + 2 = 5, but also to believe it. Winston’s adventures begin as he slowly and fearfully steps out of the established traces, sensing the hypocrisy that surrounds and penetrates him, to search for truth. What he finds is pain.

1984-book-cover-picCommenting on 1984, Orwell wrote, “I do not believe that the kind of society I describe necessarily will arrive, but I believe that something resembling it could arrive.”

Has it?

Of course, the United States is not autocratic; but many of the disturbing elements of 1984 actually exist in American society. In some cases, what is happening in the U.S. is more draconian and invasive than anything Orwell conceived.

War is Peace
One of the Party pillars in 1984 is endless war on a global scale. The war, however, is a fabrication accepted and treated as fact. For, unreal as it is, it is not meaningless. World powers become enemies and allies interchangeably simply to keep the masses in perpetual fear, perpetual industry, and perpetual order. War provides outlet for unwanted emotions such as hate, patriotism, and discontent, keeping the structure of society intact and productive without raising the standard of living.

Where is the enemy—or the end—in our “war on terror?” The faceless foe and limitless objectives are productive of a widespread atmosphere of paranoia and restricted civilian liberties. In the wake of the sequestration military-spending cuts, it is also manifest that, to many, war means little more than a job.

Freedom is Slavery
The perpetual warfare in 1984 sacrifices individual freedom for collective freedom. By submitting entirely to the Party, people surrender their identity and the impulses that arise from having one, passively receiving everything. The principles of unfreedom and inequality are consciously perpetuated to stifle revolution and uprising, uniting all in a trance under the watchful eye of Big Brother.

True freedom is the unimpeded capacity to realize the human good. Freedom in America is generally defined as mere license, which enslaves when human inclinations stray from the good. This American fallacy defines liberty as getting what is wanted, and moreover, that the government is there to give it. Subservience through mindless entitlement for government handouts and bailouts is not freedom, but slavery.

Ignorance is Strength
Any transgression against the Party is a capital crime. The common habit, therefore, is invincible ignorance: the appearance of orthodoxy without knowing what orthodoxy entails. The Party’s world-view is impressed most successfully on people incapable of understanding it.

Has anyone read the Affordable Care Act? The plan appears to be to swallow it in blind lip-service to the ideologies of big government. This mentality is rendered common by a declining—if not fallen—education system. (Who can afford college anyway these days?) Rather than address the plague of ignorance, America seems more concerned with protecting the ignorant from profiling and unequal opportunity.

Telescreens
Practically every public and private place in Orwell’s fictional world is under surveillance through “telescreens,” that also broadcast announcements, news, and propaganda. They are the sleepless eyes monitoring every move, every word, every facial expression, and every involuntary reaction of every person in the effort to detect thoughtcrime. “Big Brother is watching you.”

Social media keeps close record of our “likes” and activities. Our telephone calls and browsing histories are accessible to apparently any NSA analyst, according to Mr. Snowden. Our social security numbers and zip codes are increasingly part of everyday transactions. Private lives are spied upon. Drones fly overhead. Cameras record invisibly. Data is collected. We, too, are being watched.

Doublethink
Party members in 1984 practice a mental contortion that assumes two contradictory premises simultaneously for the sake of exercising control over reality. This practice is called “doublethink,” and leaves no impression that reality has been violated. This mind control, or memory control, allows the Party to shape their world: “Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.”

Politicians often use forms of doublethink when they carefully and consciously lie. National Intelligence Director James Clapper, for instance, was asked at a Senate hearing last March whether the NSA collected information on millions of Americans. “No,” Clapper answered. “Not wittingly.” Following the NSA leak, Clapper insisted he did not lie, but responded in the “least untruthful manner.” We are too accustomed to mutable “truth”—the gospel according to Wikipedia. From conflicting Benghazi reports to misleading Trayvon photographs, the media regularly and unabashedly fabricates, falsifies, and manipulates according to the agenda du jour.

Newspeak
A prominent feature of progress in 1984 is the language “newspeak,” a stripped-down, impotent distortion of English. Orwell draws a connection between the success of the tyrannical government and the deterioration of language, as newspeak renders certain ideas literally unthinkable through reduction of vocabulary and grammar. Language control results in thought control.

We have our own variations of “newspeak” that limits what we think by limiting what we say. “Politically correct” language is speech that hedges thought. Technological autocorrect and autocomplete functions often dictate our phraseology. Emails and tweets promote stilted communication. And let us not forget text talk, which AFAICT, is not helping anything. WYSIWYG. As a language deteriorates, the grand and noble ideas it is capable of expressing are in danger of deteriorating also.

Although we are not citizens of Orwell’s world, there is a complacency in our civilization that is akin to Orwellian capitulation. The fears and confusions of a rapidly changing culture and its permeating devices are disorienting and discouraging. Affairs may not be as grisly as they were for Winston Smith, but we may not be far off. After all, can facecrime really be much different than hate-crime? Is it better for sex to be reduced to its practical purpose or its pleasure? Whether memory holes or paper shredders, a society resembling Orwell’s description may have arrived.

There is only so much we can do. When all are monitored, all are suspect.

“We are the dead. Our only true life is in the future. We shall take part in it as handfuls of dust and splinters of bone. But how far away that future may be, there is no knowing. It might be a thousand years. At present nothing is possible except to extend the area of sanity little by little.”

from http://www.crisismagazine.com/2013/orwells-1984-are-we-there-yet

What's really doubleplus chilling to imagine is, what if he had written a book where future generations hysterico-lazily cite a dystopian sci fi novel to attack whatever they deem ungood? Eerily accurate right?

Welcome to the modern world.


I love that book, having only read it a few years back and only reading it once. It's the kind of book that sticks with you though.


It made me into the sceptical uncaring man I am today.

Is the movie any good?

I have the movie but never watched it.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Is the movie any good?

Doubleplus good, I'd say. Though John Hurt does get nude, brrr.

Eh, I think Huxley called it better honestly.

[absurdly large picture resides within]

Fascinating article. In many ways, I agree with it. 1984 is terrifyingly prophetic, and just as relevant now as it was 50 years ago.

On a side note, anyone who hasn't read the book should. It really is an excellent and timeless work that is brilliant on so many levels.

 dementedwombat wrote:
Eh, I think Huxley called it better honestly.

[absurdly large picture resides within]

Spoiler:

I think both are correct, although Orwell on a more subtle level.

 dementedwombat wrote:
Eh, I think Huxley called it better honestly.

And the wombat wins the thread.

 welshhoppo wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
Eh, I think Huxley called it better honestly.

[absurdly large picture resides within]

Spoiler:

I think both are correct, although Orwell on a more subtle level.

Orwell was right because doublethink is reversible. There is a hidden truth in the lie.
For example the Ministry of Love works because it removes all other need for love.

In real terms we are getting both, however we get Huxley by default and Orwell by design. There is a lot of 1984 in modern society. Huxleys Brave new World is not here, mostly because we lack the eugenics, partly because it is well meaning, which is a naive way to see realpolitik. Huxley's vision was Utopian, even the E grade semi-moron who runs the lifts is happy. We bypass and emulate that both with a degree of automation Huxley never envisioned, but we have also created a huge underclass of proles, and society controls them in a doctrinaire way.

Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning, to a large extent we have not listened.

I'd always considered Huxleys world to be not utopian at all'. How did you come by that view? I mean the whole population is drugged up to the eyeballs, to me that hardly seems utopian.

We haven't turned into the book as long as we can still ask the question "have we turned into the book yet".

 d-usa wrote:
We haven't turned into the book as long as we can still ask the question "have we turned into the book yet".

Let them have their fantasy.

That's eventually all attempts at Utopias. From the Lotus Eaters onward, any perfect society needs to smooth out the edges of roughness and brilliance to achieve and maintain equilibrium. Drugs are the modern route, tradition, discipline and magic were the ancient ones.

 dementedwombat wrote:
Eh, I think Huxley called it better honestly.

[absurdly large picture resides within]

Spoiler:

Huxley did a pretty good job himself as well, both authors had some hits and some misses, while both being way ahead of their time and eerily correct in many ways.

While I think Orwell got the method, and technology down a bit better, keeping things a bit more realistic in the end, though Huxley wrote a better *story* in my opinion in terms of entertainment value.

Once the state starts encouraging ten year olds to have sex games, has artificial reproduction, and gives me soma allowances, maybe Ill toss the crown to huxley, who knows what the future holds?

Both were right in general though that a concerted effort/will to control people, be it through media/drugs/conditioning/language/ect are what has defined our century probably the most.

Yep we have a mix of both Brave new world and 1984. It is shocking we have to do something, wait got some twitter messages and look at that cool post on facebook, back to my console!

 d-usa wrote:
We haven't turned into the book as long as we can still ask the question "have we turned into the book yet".

Pretty much this.

I love Nineteen Eighty-Four a lot, it's probably my second favorite book and I've read it a dozen or do times. However, it's no more prophetic than any other dystopian fiction book. Are there things in the book that "came true?" The case could be made for a few things that would be accurate to say about, but that is what the brain is conditioned to see. You can pick out a tiny number of "hits" in those pages while ignoring the overwhelming amount of "misses."

Just like a horoscope.

 d-usa wrote:
We haven't turned into the book as long as we can still ask the question "have we turned into the book yet".

/thread

I have the same issue with the dystopia scenario as I do with conspiracy theories about the government- in order for it to be plausible, you have to latch onto this idea that the powers that be are somehow competent enough to covertly pull strings on a national/global level and effect massive, society altering change. I think the history of Man flies in the face of that pretty hard.

No, I don't think we're at or nearing an Orwellian/Huxley society. To the contrary, we have never in human history been more free to decide what life-styles and values we want to have. People are less judgmental of others and dogmatic now then ever before. Racial equality is on the rise, gender equality is on the rise, LGBTQ or whatever is becoming more accepted, gender roles are fading, etc.

I also contest the idea that we're slaves to X, Y or Z. Are we really enslaved to our past-times anymore now then we were before? The way people look with skepticism on social networking, video games and TV is the same way people looked at playing sports or running around getting into trouble 30 years ago. My Dad dropped out of High School to play basketball with his friends for 7 hours a day, and back then old people would you give you gak about that. "You should be reading books, not playing games all day rabblerabble!" Now we're like "You should be outside playing in the sunshine, not cooped up in your room all day rabblerabble!". People have always been obsessed with ways to past the time and connect with others- technology has just changed the "new hotness" for how we go about doing that, and I don't think that's a result of carefully controlled social manipulation so much as it's just human nature.

The only system we're enslaved to is money, but even that, for all the problems we're having with the destruction of the middle class etc etc, is vastly improved compared to the human condition a century ago.

Why choose when you can have both.

http://bigbrother.channel5.com/

 welshhoppo wrote:
Welcome to the modern world.


I love that book, having only read it a few years back and only reading it once. It's the kind of book that sticks with you though.


It made me into the sceptical uncaring man I am today.

You should also read 'animal farm' if you haven't already. Same author, definitely a must-read.

 Torga_DW wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
Welcome to the modern world.


I love that book, having only read it a few years back and only reading it once. It's the kind of book that sticks with you though.


It made me into the sceptical uncaring man I am today.

You should also read 'animal farm' if you haven't already. Same author, definitely a must-read.

Already have, I love the part where Napoleon comes up with the rebellion single handedly despite the protests of the capitalist pig Snowball.

Much as I like to scream, "It's Happening!!!!," the fact that you ask that question on an open forum means that we're basically not.

This is more like the age of COINTELPRO, not quite 1984.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Well, COINTELPRO2.0, anyway.

Some of column "A" and some of column "B".

Huxley for pharmaceuticals and distraction by entertainment; Orwell for propaganda and surveillance.

I think Huxley is winning the day over all.

I read both 1984 and Brave New World and they scared me. The most scary part of the books is that our governments are probably also reading it and getting boners of it.
So in the future, there will be a Brave New 1984!

The sequel was better.

1984 is a great book, because Orwell had an a particularly keen insight in to how tyranny works. Many of his contemporaries were better writers (certainly of fiction) but few were able to move outside of the view of the liberal democracy they were born in to. For this reason they were never able to understand Hitler or Stalin like Orwell did.

The writer of the OP’s piece doesn’t much understand Orwell or 1984, and I think it’s because has very little understanding of what actual tyranny really is. Voluntarily using social media that tracks your actions in an effort to profit off of you is not actually anything at all like mandatory government surveillance. The war on terror might be poorly defined, but to claim it is the same as orchestrated war designed to destroy surplus production is bonkers. Trying to claim that politicians lying (as if there was ever a time when they didn’t) is the same as the orchestrated oppression of doublethink is inane.

I think anyone who’s tempted to think anything in our society is ‘just like 1984’ really needs to re-read 1984, read Orwell’s essays, and read a few books on Stalinist Russia, just to get some perspective.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bullockist wrote:
I'd always considered Huxleys world to be not utopian at all'. How did you come by that view? I mean the whole population is drugged up to the eyeballs, to me that hardly seems utopian.

Huxley's work was a parody of earlier utopian novels, in which technology fixed everything.

Of course, Orwell wasn't writing a prediction either, just like Animal Farm wasn't a manual for farm management. 1984 was an exploration of what the world would look like if the forces of totalitarian communism achieved their political goals.

 d-usa wrote:
We haven't turned into the book as long as we can still ask the question "have we turned into the book yet".

This is a nice answer, but actually flawed.

The best way for totalitarianism to proliferate is if the populace are unaware of the control methods. We are a lot closer to 1984 than most people think, how close that actually means is not easy to ascertain. The relevance is that people are less free than they believe they are, and many of the losses of freedom are through draconian policy slowly implemented.
It also helps that the 'big brother' in question is not clearly identifiable. Our big brother may be the global banking infrastructure controlling via debt, national government controlling through fiat, some religions esp radical Islam, or the progressive concensus. when you add all four together you get a nasty mix up of control, you don't have 1984 with four separate big brothers, but it wont mean the average prole is any less fathed.

Also, if I may add in another point, people like to discuss totalitarian governments and thought control, but in that regard I'm far more terrified of Google than I will ever be of any government. There's a couple reasons for this, but it mainly comes down to the fact that: 1, they're a private company, so they have a motivaiton to actually be efficient and do something. 2: public opinion of them is largely "they can do no wrong" (as opposed to "the government", who can do no right). 3: all the information Google has about you was given completely voluntarily and legally with your explicit permission (it's in the EULA and the ToS. What, you didn't read those? Too bad for you, you're now a voluntary organ donor for Google CEOs to be collected "at convenience"!)

I keep trying to tell people Google wants to take over the world but no one listens damnit!