History Fridge / NineteenEightyFour

** Then there is the UsefulNotes/CulturalRevolution, which saw a Chinese dictator trash his own nation's history and culture to condition the population to be unquestioningly obedient to him. The damage was so through, Taiwan has a greater collection of Chinese artifacts than all of China.

* The '84 film's StrangeSalute of crossing the arms overhead at the wrists isn't a sign of defiance; it's a sign of ''submission'', as in how a prisoner would be tied up to be executed. The Party has taken a pose of capitulation and turned it into a national symbol under the guise of national pride, and their citizens have embraced it completely.

[[AC:FridgeLogic]]
* One particularly famous example: Oceania is dominated by the Americas, with the British Isles being little more than a convenient AirstripOne for attacking Eurasia. So why would the Oceanians base their whole society on "Ingsoc" -- English Socialism?
** This of course leads to all sorts of [[WMG/NineteenEightyFour Wild Mass Guessing]] about the true extent of Oceania...
** Maybe it has a different name in every country of Oceania? "Libertysoc" in the [[UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates US]], "Neomateship" in UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}, "Modern Bolivarianism" in South America, etc.
*** [[WordOfGod Orwell himself]] suggested that, in America, it would have been called something like "Americanism". Which, depending on where you're coming from, is either HilariousInHindsight or HarsherInHindsight.
** Or it could be a reference to the Anglosphere (considering that the full implementation of Newspeak will eliminate the concept of Ingsoc -- the name itself implies a definition in comparison to something else -- we can expect generic references to 'the Party' to prevail over time).
** Or perhaps since the author was [[UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} British]], he assumed that Britain had dominated the Americas, not the other way around.
*** Except the in-universe explanation was that it was, in fact, the other way around.
** It could even be that Ingsoc is the equivalent of something like the DDR to the USSR. The USSR run the show but the DDR has its own puppet government. Ingsoc could be the puppet government/party of whatever the American party is.
* In the extreme symmetry between the three identical countries, somehow Oceania always allies with either Eurasia or Eastasia. We never see a point when it would be alone, with Eurasia allying Eastasia. It surely would be a burden for their respective Ministries of Truth to switch between "having an ally" and "having no ally." There is one solution to that problem though: A fourth country (Africa?) with which Oceania never interacts; When Oceania is allied with Eurasia, Eastasia is allied with the fourth country. That way symmetry is retained.
** Or the wars are completely imaginary and are pure propaganda. We only have The Party's word that the war is even happening in the first place. For all we know, there is no war and The Party is manipulating the people. Even Goldstein acknowledged that the Party is manipulating the people through the wars, so they would have reason to make them up. This would also explain why the bombs seem to only fall in prole neighborhoods. The Party is bombing its own country but ensures no loyal members are harmed.
*** This would also help to keep the economy stagnant and unchanging. Given the majority of production is put into "the war", as production goes up there are more bombs to direct back onto the country, thus lowering production back down.
** Another possibility is that, since the wars are to maintain the balance of power (and thus the two weaker countries ally against the strongest), the three countries are not quite symmetrical - if Oceania is clearly weaker than the other two, than it would always ally against the second strongest against the strongest. This would make sense if the population distribution of the world was similar to what it is today, in which Oceania would have significantly fewer people than Eastasia and probably fewer than Eurasia as well, depending on how much of the Middle East Eurasia controls.
* The Party's strategy hinges on the idea that an eternal war will force the citizens to accept any deprivation. However, in the real world, the Soviets came to power because the peasants could not tolerate the Tsar's wars anymore, and were willing to accept anything - even defeat - to return to peace. As a result, one of Lenin's first acts in office was to cede territories containing over a third of the Russian empire's population to Germany. And Orwell was surely aware of this - 1984 was based on the Soviet Union. [[NotSoOmniscientAfterAll Maybe the party's strategy isn't as foolproof as it seems...]]
** You are overstating Russian antiwar sentiment - it was more a question of the redirection of hostility from external to internal enemies (the people who defected from the eastern front were quite happy to fight the Russian Civil War after WWI was over). And one of the virtues of fighting a phony war instead of a real one (whether Oceania's wars were entirely or just partially phony) is that the government can tailor its militarism to its interest in maintaining power, rather than finding itself overreaching into warfare which undermines itself (as happened to WWI Russia). And the history of Russia suggests that even if The Party's strategy for dominance is less than foolproof, this is just another example of a false hope spot, because the fall of one dictatorship is merely prelude to the rise of another one. Even the fall of the Soviet Union, one of the most improbable bright spots of human history, was just a prelude for Putin's authoritarianism.
* Besides the possibility of the Newspeak Appendix being written at a time after the fall of INGSOC, the near-invasion of Oceania in the last chapter may be the closest thing to an implied distant happy ending: "It was not merely a question of losing Central Africa; for the first time in the whole war, the territory of Oceania itself was menaced." This may mean the ruling party of Eurasia has grown tired of the endless stalemate game and is trying to change the status quo of the war, and while this would of course lead to mass carnage, if the war could change then other changes to the world would also be on the table.
** In fact, Orwell may have intended this passage to give the reader a glimmer of hope for the fall of INGSOC, only to have that hope crushed while the POV character ironically regards it as a happy ending.
** This is, of course, assuming the whole broadcast wasn't completely made up. It's entirely possible that the core territory of Oceania is "menaced for the first time" every few weeks to keep the population anxious and jingoistic.
* If The Book was actually written by O'Brien, how'd he get it printed? Is there a printing press somewhere staffed with Proles wondering why The Party is paying them to mass produce Goldenstein's Lies?
** It’s described as looking like a ''samizdat'' publication, meaning it wasn’t professionally printed like normal books are. O’Brien probably operated the press by himself.
* If The Party is willing to go so far as to have a policy against ''sex'' in case people come to like it more than Big Brother, then why do they allow ''beer?''
** Easy--they can monitor and control the quality of beer they create, while sex is considerably harder to do that with. It's easy to make a beer people hate, it's considerably harder to force people to have bad sex. Best to just ban it completely.

** It’s described as looking like a ''samizdat'' publication. O’Brien probably operated the press by himself.

* The wickedness of Ingsoc means any [[Literature/TheLastBattle Emeth Tarkaan]] {{Exp|y}}ies are identified as children. What [[WouldHurtAChild horrors does Miniluv inflict]] on any who refuse to be corrupted?

*** ''1984'' is a cautionary tale. It was written specifically so that we ''would'' realize if we were headed in that direction, [[ScrewDestiny and hopefully change course before before we reached that conclusion.]]