# 1984........again **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 15, 2007, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-again/396049 "2007-03-15T16:11:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Not\_A\_Tame\_Lion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e36b37/32.png) [@Not\_A\_Tame\_Lion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Not_A_Tame_Lion)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2007, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-again/396049/41 "2007-03-16T01:06:48Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] Where tyranny runs into problems with human nature is primarily self interest; we are not made to be someone else’s disposable tools. We are not hive creatures, designed to sacrifice ourselves for the group without limit. [/QUOTE] I’m struck by this comment, because I have long thought that the problem with corporations is that they are not human organizational models, but _insect_ organizational models. CEOs are queens, and all through the hierarchy you have various specialized workers, down to the common drones at the bottom rungs of the ladder. And as in the hive, only the queens are valued as individuals; the workers and drones are individually expendable. These days, corporations seem to be getting the better of the individual in so many ways. Given increasing corporate power in our society, we may not be hive creatures yet, but the trends say we’re getting there. If _1984_ seems unlikely, that may just be a temporary thing. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2007, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-again/396049/42 "2007-03-16T01:23:08Z")
The majority of propaganda and indoctrination in **1984** was aimed at the Outer Party, the apparatchiks necessary to keep the system running. They were required to demonstrate unceasing unthinking loyalty to the Party at all times, and ignoring reality and common sense were part of that. The Proles were largely beneath notice; they were expected only to work and to keep their mouths shut. They probably regarded Party propaganda in much the same way that Iron Curtain factory workers did during the postwar era: they mumbled under the breaths and ignored it as much as possible. Hell, the last thing Big Brother wanted from the Proles was political conciousness. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2007, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-again/396049/43 "2007-03-16T04:43:44Z")
I haven’t seen any mention of one of Ingsoc’s main underpinnings, _doublethink_ (aka “reality control”). To a Party member with a properly functioning, disciplined mind — in other words, unlike Winston’s — there is no inconsistency because reality has not changed. Another important concept (from Orwell’s “A Newspeak Dictionary”) **crimestop** – Orwell’s definition: “The faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. In short . . . protective stupidity.” So any “evidence” which suggests that reality has changed is discarded before it comes to the conscious mind’s attention. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2007, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-again/396049/44 "2007-03-16T06:31:25Z")
[QUOTE=Justin\_Bailey] I love 1984 and a lot of other dystopian stories (Farhenheit 451, V For Vendetta, A Clockwork Orange, etc), but this is clearly where the stories break from reality. People **wouldn’t** just roll over and take what the Party gives them. Especially today with the rise of the Internet. Everybody is connected everywhere and you just can’t shut down society like that. [/QUOTE] There was no Internet in 1984, or in “1984,” so that’s simply not a relevant criticism. ---
**Author:** ![Grey\_area](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Grey\_area](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey_area)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2007, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-again/396049/45 "2007-03-16T07:18:31Z")
As **Giles** already mentioned, North Korea is a chilling example of power unchecked. Judging from interviews, the average North Korean has a startlingly distorted view of history and world politics. When the government controls all media and you’ve grown up in this environment from birth, how are you able to distinguish propaganda from truth? And if you do question it, well then you’re just asking for trouble. 1984 is a work of fiction and I don’t think Orwell meant certain things to be taken literally… ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2007, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-again/396049/46 "2007-03-16T08:03:39Z")
Something else, Newspeak. Supposing the Party succeeded in brainwashing its members into using this. This would mean that there were then 2 languages, that of the proles and that of the party members. Communication between the 2 would have been well nigh impossible, which means that the proles, who were expected to work as **Lumpy** says, would have been almost unable to understand the orders/instructions given to them by Newspeak “overlords” ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2007, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-again/396049/47 "2007-03-16T08:43:04Z")
I didn’t get that impression. The proles might be limited to Newspeak’s “A Vocabulary” (and possibly some C, for proles employed in low-level technical jobs), while the political compound B vocabulary words like _duckspeak_ and _oldthinker_ will be used only in Party circles. Communication between the two will be limited but not impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2007, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-again/396049/48 "2007-03-16T08:56:56Z")
[QUOTE=Giles] I don’t think that Orwell believed that the world would be like the book 1984 in the year 1984. Like Animal Farm, the book 1984 was a moral fable: a warning about how bad things could get if certain trends continued. However, if people read and understood the moral fable, then things would hopefully turn out differently. [/QUOTE] Yup yup. He didn’t “believe it would happen”; Animal Farm stems directly from his dismay at seeing life in the Republican (Communist, Socialist, Anarchist) side of the Spanish Civil War. In a way, Animal Farm is “what would happen if people like the Spanish anarchists got in charge” and 1984 the Communist version of the same. He came bright eyed and bushy tailed, to fight for the cause of liberty, democracy and potato omelette for all, and almost got murdered by his own side. There is a recent thread on “ask the ex-cuban communist”. I heartily recommend it to everybody here who hasn’t read it. You don’t need to convince people that we’ve always been at war with Eurasia… you just need to convince them that saying otherwise will be Bad For Their Health. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2007, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-again/396049/49 "2007-03-16T09:46:15Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] I didn’t get that impression. The proles might be limited to Newspeak’s “A Vocabulary” (and possibly some C, for proles employed in low-level technical jobs), while the political compound B vocabulary words like _duckspeak_ and _oldthinker_ will be used only in Party circles. Communication between the two will be limited but not impossible. [/QUOTE] Well even if communication was limited, as you suggest, then this itself would further hinder the production of whatever the party wanted…mostly munitions of course. I’m sorry but I cannot subscribe to 2 languages being at all practical in this instance ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2007, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-again/396049/50 "2007-03-16T10:18:52Z")
**Nava** I’ve just read through the “ask the ex-Cuban Communist thread”. Fascinating ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2007, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-again/396049/51 "2007-03-16T20:24:39Z")
[QUOTE=chowder] Well even if communication was limited, as you suggest, then this itself would further hinder the production of whatever the party wanted…mostly munitions of course. I’m sorry but I cannot subscribe to 2 languages being at all practical in this instance [/QUOTE] I’m not claiming there would be two languages. Orwell’s A, B and C vocabularies are just subsets of the same language, which is for the most part a subset of standard English. You’re right that production would fail eventually, though. There’s one significant passage as I recall saying that it can take up to ten year to have a broken window repaired. I figure over time, the infrastructure of Oceania will crumble and since independent and competent thinkers are routinely vaporized, there won’t be anybody around to fix it. The telescreen network alone, I figure, needs an army of electrical engineers to maintain. Eventually, some Party official who doesn’t understand electrical engineering will conclude that if he can’t understand it, it must be crimethink, and the profession will be purged. If Oceania existed in a vacuum, this wouldn’t be a problem; the tech level could slide back to the pre-Renaissance and still limp along, but there are two rival states. I think the one that will eventually conquer Earth will be the one that collapses the slowest and is able to invade the others without resistance. Of course, it’ll eventually collapse as well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-again/396049.md?page=2)