1984 by George Orwell

Orwell was a social democrat, not a communist.

Also, "books are bad unless the protagonist wins" is a take so terrible I don't even want to unpack it.

Ah, I see. When you have someone in a book going "THE CAPITALISTS" like they're a disease it's hard to think otherwise.

One gets the impression that Orwell was leery of revolution, especially violent revolution, for just this reason, as history has given us any number of revolutions that began with high ideals and ended looking a great deal like what they wanted to replace. More than one observer of the early Soviet Union remarked that they'd just replaced their old bullies with new ones.

New worse ones, at that. Especially when you remember that the Soviets immediately undermined their "for the people" aspect by, when they lost the election for the new government, overthrew the current one and took over anyway.

Edited by theLibrarian on Sep 22nd 2022 at 9:09:19 AM

That's simplifying the point about social revolution that Diana was making to a grotesque extent. You can disagree with her without swinging the bat that far.

Feel a bit called out as an anarchist Christian. I keep leaving anarchism but keep ending right back onto it.

But getting back to 1984, I have some thoughts:

• My final word on Stalin is the fact that there's a certain level of the Tyson Zone in place that we have documentation of things utterly unbelievable and insane that are 100% true. So that a lot of misinformation about Stalin sounds more plausible because it makes him seem more rational and intelligent. Which is stupid with dictators and our primary issue with Putin in that people keep overestimating him.
• I actually fully believe the State Sec sent Julia to seduce Winston. Our protagonist never thinks of it but I actually believe the Party has a need to manufacture enemies of the states and we know that so much of it was engineered. I just believe Julia was entirely an agent of the state.
• I think we get a sense of what Orwell was thinking of many revolutionary movements with the fact Julia and Winston agree to throw acid in children's faces as well as other things to fight the power. He's saying that their extremism is just another way to defeat their ideals and crushing their moral righteousness is a great weapon of the Party.
• "Double think" is something I always felt was moronic but I swear I see it today in Qanon and other things where people swear RIDICULOUS things that they know are false but believe in the moment. Then go back to normal then believe them again.
• Brave New World is a much nicer dystopia on the surface because its a Bread and Circuses one but the fact is that humanity is being (crudely) genetically altered. Oceania will eventually fall because it has to and is already falling apart. Ford's children may last forever.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 25th 2022 at 12:36:44 PM

Let m reteriare my point here.

In a way Orwell popularity have because he also struck a nerve with the mood at the time, a mood that can be caraterize as a sort of death of inocent, the whole futuristic and kinda sorta utopian idea of "this will create a waaaay better sociaty" kinda weither away with the cold war as US and URRS play fast and lost with other people like and in cuba misile crisis near the whole world. Which is kinda hilarious for the same people who join to beak the nazis and them break the entire country for themselves. Is not surprising people see this as bleak.

Is with this I will said Orwell selling point is twofold: first of all he kinda imagine the "perfect totalitarism" base in what he saw, sure Diana is right in that it extrapolate a lot from writing stand point(as orwell himself said, the first order of any novel is survival). But in general was a waring of what it could be, while I can get the somewhat adquire taste of the ending and the whole "They don't want to see a story where rebellion is met with continued subjugation." but I will guess that is a they thing because the bleak ending is actually what it landed the whole deal.

Hell the backlash isnt definitive actually, the book have a sale surge after Kellaway come with the whole "alternative facts" stuff and is not surprising because trumpism does share a lot of similarities with the party.

I think Orwell's 1984 is effective for the fact that it does away with a lot of the lies that fascists tell themselves like "the trains run on time." A great deal of Western literature and even Eastern literature have a very large amount of The Extremist Was Right or Gray-and-Gray Morality baked into their handling of authoritarianism in fiction.

• Lex Luthor and Doctor Doom would make the world a paradise.
• The Evil Overlord may be awful but he's not racist or sexist.
• Evil Is One Big, Happy Family
• The bad guys are well intentioned extremists with legitimate points.
• The Galactic Empire had a lot of good points and was for law and order.

Orwell's Inner party is actually the most honest of its depiction of authoritarianism because it's so utterly one-dimensional, Evil Is Petty, inefficient, self-destructive, and corrupt.

It's a controversial book because it can be held up to any strong arm government and expose its lies.

the thesis of the book is mostly "After of what the soviet and nazi did, is there a way they could top that?".

Also another issue with the book is hard to pierce what claims are true and what it isnt, is there a brotherhood actually? Is julia really a member of the party? hell, are even oceania and other really that overpowerfull is just a tiny pot dystopia created by the party? we dont know because their incapability of knowing which serve the themes of state mandate solipism that run there.

The fact you can't trust Winston's Unreliable Narrator status because Winston doesn't know is a really effective part of the story but I do think a really interesting way of deconstructing 1984 and asking yourself what you believe about RL is whether you think O'Brien is completely full of shit or if the book is taking him at face value.

O'Brien may be fooling himself, Littlefinger style, that the Party has come up with anything particularly new with a self-serving government that makes no pretensions of being for the greater good.

It's also possible that O'Brien doesn't truly believe what he's saying but is using the Big Lie principle.

Well the point of double think is that Winston believes the propaganda simultaneously while knowing it is insane.

Which is what a lot of Q conspiracies theorists seem to feel like.

Probably instances of I've Come Too Far. They know it's bullshit but they're in too deep and don't want to accept that it's all for nothing.

I mean, O´brien is high in the totem poll of the party so it seen clear he have to dominate doublethink better than others, what is intersting is that he seen to anticipate Winstons thoughs and rebuke them over, I do belive the party no longer belive anything because once they get dominion over people they kinda can shred that idea.

In a way the party got what they wanted and anything else can die.

So double think is like cognitive dissonance?

Is moral myopia on crack.

https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/

He goes to said he use nationalism as short hand and many other movement often fall into the same mindset: comunism, zionism, christianity, comunism, whatever.

In short, doublethink is mostly the act of self deception because the party have absorb every way of identification it demands all their citizens to place two diferent strains of thoughs at the same time, O,Brien is expert in this in that he prech the need of the party to exist while also saying that the party dosent have anything else but the need to stay in power.

I'm side eyeing Orwell's definition of patriotism as "devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life", as a contrast with nationalism, which is terrible.

I say that because my impression is that various nationalist or anti-colonial - often called independence - movements (i.e. Irish, Greek Zionist, Indian, Bosnian, etc.) are referred to as nationalist, because their goal was to gain a nation - since someone else (sometimes Britain) was occupying the land area at the time.

Of course, proponents of those movements would (also) use the term patriotism, but as I understand it, the term "nationalism" is used to describe their aims because they did not currently have a "particular place and a particular way of life".

Am I off-base in thinking that (former colonial administrator) Orwell's definition means that all independence movements in British colonies are inherently bad?

Tl; dr, there's a reason why they call themselves the Scottish National Party.

Edited by Hodor2 on Oct 3rd 2022 at 11:47:11 AM

'Tribalism" also gets tossed in there these days, used as a short hand for "dedication to one's own ethnicity and/or cultural or personal affinity group" (almost exclusively used with negative connotation).

I think you should see the article because orwell make clear what is taking about:

In short is using Nationalism as shorthand for what can be call tribalist loyalty, is more about sinking one identity on one tribe and engaging in weird competitive dickwaving against other, it can happen to any identity, specially when people try to use this identity as the "real one"(You must be Muslim/Christian/Maga to be a true X for example).

This one clarify further about nationalist thinking, said one can hold nationalist feeling by good faith without "Nationalistic" ideas, it also said this behavor can happen off and on even about inteligent people and we can even succumb to it at moments.

Even tribalism isnt accurate because as he said, we can often transferee that loyalty to other group with ease, I have seen that with many latinos that support Russia.

Some people use patriotism as devoted to a national ideology and nationalism as devotion to the nation period.

But truth be told it's "one is a positive, one is a negative" generally.

Thinking about it some more, I'd say that in general, being a nationalist is neutral-to-positive when one's group is fighting for a homeland (YMMV depending on the circumstances) but generally a bad thing when one already has a homeland - And that's when the implication comes in about having hostility towards other groups within/outside of the nation.

So to clarify my earlier post, it's the difference between the SNP and the BNP.

Of course, as Orwell knew/recognized, what one calls one's party doesn't always reflect reality, for better or worse. Like for example, the Indian People's Party (BJP) is considerably scarier than the Indian National Congress.

Today with most nation have clear define border(with some exception of course) the idea of nationalism seen kinda sorta silly at best and downright dangerous at worst, which is probably why Orwell use the world to comunicate this idea that them mutated into doublethink.

you can said the reason you can be a nationalistic without being "Nationalistic" is how much your thinking is actually ground in reallity. When you fight to liberate your nation of a invader our of your country, things get....muddle a little bit after that.

Granted the issue even patrotism can become "Nationalistic", someone answer me in a tweet that Orban was patrotic because he did the best for the country, which was frankly question begging.

No, he was a sympathizer toward Trotskyism and anarchism, *then* a social democrat, *then* becoming more conservative to the point where he was willing to aid the British government's anti-communist actions after WWII.

I never once said that or advocated it, I was literally talking about the political themes of the book and how the pessimism Orwell promotes has a very negative impact that I not only disagree with on a fundamental level, but also plays a part in just why a lot of critics have had backlash against him and his two major works.

Yes, fucking THANK YOU. My point is that Orwell's work has a use to audiences who reject social revolution and social change because of their pessimism and Orwell's growing conservatism at the time. Like it or not, that *was* a part of Orwell's political journey and, while one can praise or analyze the positive aspects of his works, there *is* that negative side that, frankly, explains why 1984 is the go-to word for dystopia by conservative morons. It's not as simple as trying to claim Orwell as some left-wing icon.

Edited by Diana1969 on Oct 22nd 2022 at 8:45:28 PM

"there *is* that negative side that, frankly, explains why 1984 is the go-to word for dystopia by conservative morons."

the issue is I dont think orwell on conservatism is the reason is the go dystopia for conservative but rather is how much it based on soviet union(with artistic license and all that) and its the fear of many liberals: a world were a men is subject to the whim of a insane and petty goverment who look all scary and downright omnipotent in almost every face of is life. Is the most scary example of goverment overeach in the same way cyberpunk is the more horrifying example of uber corporativism.

So of course it draw a lot of conservative because it articulates their fears pretty too well for some. the issue is whatever what things orwell is dated and what is not.