# 1984 and all that...... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 5, 2003, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-and-all-that/205695 "2003-10-05T10:25:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![The\_Great\_Unwashed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_great_unwashed/32/4791_2.png) [@The\_Great\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2003, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-and-all-that/205695/21 "2003-10-06T13:37:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by msmith537 \* > \*\*The Great Unwashed - Thanks. Now do you have anything substantial to add to this debate or are you just here to hock tinfoil hats? \*\* No way! The government _use_ those tin-foil hats to read our minds. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2003, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-and-all-that/205695/22 "2003-10-06T22:29:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by KoalaBear \* > \*\*Oh, _do_ expound on that topic for us, **RickJay**. Just this once. > > Every time the book is mentioned you make the same assertion – that the book’s 250+ pages are merely a set-up for the essay on political language at the back of the book – and every time I read that I ask you to explain how you arrived at that conclusion, at which point you either ignore the question or disappear from the thread altogether. > > We have a sculpture in Chicago known only as “[the Picasso](http://www.ci.chi.il.us/Landmarks/D/DaleyCenter4.html)” because no two people ever seem to agree what it’s a sculpture _of_. Is it a woman? A madonna perhaps? An Afghan dog? A lion? A baboon? An angel? Everybody interprets it differently even though we’re experiencing the same work of art. > > If you think _1984_ is less of an exposé of the mechanics of oligarchical collectivism than a case study in the psychology of language, tell us about it. Explain _why_ you perceive the Picasso to be a Baboon rather than telling us that’s exactly what it is. You might just spark an interesting discussion in the process. > > Now, with respect to the OP, I don’t get Big Brother willies from closed-circuit television cameras because individuals have a diminished expectation of privacy when they’re out in public. If one chooses to be naked when they’re at home that’s their business, but if they decided to do their grocery shopping that way it would cease to be a private activity. By the same token, if a CC security camera reduces the probability that someone will be assaulted or robbed in a public parking garage, it’s providing a safety benefit that outweighs its surveillance risk, so I don’t perceive it to be a threat to my civil liberties at all. > > What _does_ frighten me however is the the extent to which an ostensibly free people allow private employers to oppress them more savagely than their own government is capable of doing. Ask a European sometime if they’re accustomed to pissing in beakers at their employer’s demand, for example, or having their phone calls or computer keystrokes jealously monitored and recorded. > > I could go on, but the point is plain enough – Big Brother is superfluous in a society that has already handed its freedom to an oligarchical collective, e.g., the corporation. \*\* I couldn’t have said this better myself. ---
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-and-all-that/205695/23 "2003-10-07T18:09:44Z")
Well, if Orwell’s book is now our world, then there’s no hope at all, so all you folks who truly believe that might as well just find a cliff and get off. ---
**Author:** ![KoalaBear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47c2d/32.png) [@KoalaBear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KoalaBear)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-and-all-that/205695/24 "2003-10-07T18:51:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RickJay \* > **Of course art is subjective. I am not suggesting the book was ONLY about language. However, that was its primary thrust, yes.** I disagree, though that’s not to say that you’re wrong. Orwell’s writing was unvarnished to a fault – if _1984_ had been primarily about language, he wouldn’t have bothered to supplement the novel with an essay on the same subject. > [@](#): > > **I find it hard to believe it’s coincidence about all that stuff about language in his full-length novel.** It’s a remarkable book. But I think you’re confusing a marvelous supporting player as the star of the entire show. > [@](#): > > \*\*I think it obvious that Orwell goes to considerable lengths to detail the issue of _language,_ not of the structure of Ingsoc. Consider: > > Winston Smith’s job. - Orwell, not coincidentally, makes his main character an expert in the use of language to create Big Lies.\*\* Actually, Winston was (for lack of a better term) a “journalist.” His job was to rewrite articles that had already been published in the _Times_ to purge them of references that had become politically obsolete. Winston’s friend _Syme_ was the language expert. A philologist. He made one good speech about Newspeak, and then he was vaporized. Don’t you think Orwell would have kept him around a bit longer if his insights were critical to the plot? > [@](#): > > **Description of Newspeak. - Orwell goes into some length in the text to describe Newspeak - in fact, _he completely leaves the narrative flow of the text to do so._** He does this _several_ times. _The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism_ by Emmanuel Goldstein is an example of this, a book-within-a-book. By your own logic that would make its content far more central to the intention of the novel than Newspeak, would it not? > [@](#): > > \*\* You will note that Orwell does NOT, comparatively speaking, go into anywhere near that kind of detail on, say, telescreens, the Anti-Sex League, the way the economy works, or the ongoing war.\*\* In fact he does. The political (and particularly the economic) significance of the slogans _War is Peace_ and _Ignorance is Strength_ are extensively documented in Goldstein’s clandestine book. > [@](#): > > **He doesn’t leave the narrative to describe how the viewscreen system was set up.** Nor did he need to; it’s not like the novel was an indictment of television or something. I think the fixation people have with telescreens is a symptom that the politics of the book evaded them. > [@](#): > > **What does get explained in detail - and where Winston is, to the tiniest extent, an insider - is the Party’s use of language. _It’s language that defines Winston as different and makes his a sympathetic characters, even though he’s kind or a sap_; unlike (well, we think) many of his compatriots, Winston has OUR persective on the language of the Party, which is that it’s transparently false and contradictory.** Then what was the point of the half of the book devoted to Winston’s forbidden and ultimately tragic relationship with Julia? They (like we) suffered the delusion that the Party could force you to _say_ anything, but they can’t get into your mind and make you believe it; yet that’s exactly what happened to both of them. Orwell offered us hope like a fluffy little kitten and then threw it to the ground and crushed its skull in front of us. There was a _point_ to having done that, one that was worth a hundred pages to play out, and it had nothing to do with language. > [@](#): > > **You’ll note that Winston is defeated not by being killed or imprisoned, but by losing this ability to critically filter what the Party feeds him.** Winston didn’t lose that capacity, he surrendered it willingly: it was the only way he could cure himself of insanity. It’s a significant difference, like comparing chalk to cheese. > [@](#): > > **After all, with telescreens and an army they could have shot Winston around Page 90. They don’t; instead, in the end, he believes the ludicrous tales of military conquest. He loves Big Brother. What was Winston afraid of? Orwell says so:** (sic) _You tell me_. The moment he loved Big Brother, Winston was no longer afraid. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-and-all-that/205695/25 "2003-10-07T19:29:04Z")
Personally, I’ve always seen what BB did to WS as preparing him for a position of leadership. They did horrible things to him…to turn him into the sort of person who could do horrible things to others. It was BB…spawning… Trinopus ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-and-all-that/205695/26 "2003-10-07T20:05:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Trinopus \* > Personally, I’ve always seen what BB did to WS as preparing him for a position of leadership. They did horrible things to him…to turn him into the sort of person who could do horrible things to others. > \*\* I always wondered where the middle and senior leadership in 1984 came from. Were the OBrians of 1984 from a completely different class or was he just a Winston with a few more years of experience who demonstrated an ability to ignore the fact that most of their world was bullshit? Was there even a central leadership or was everyone just a cog in some big machine that essentialled directed itself? (I recall something about there not being an actual Big Brother). Winstons job is to edit the dictionary. OBrians job is to search for defective people. That guy sets ration levels, she fixes vid-screens, he does his daily 'Big Brother act. Everyone mindlessly droning along in some headless system because they’re afraid to do anything else or just don’t know any better somehow seems more sinister than if it were the scheme of some madman/madmen. I did feel that the whole idea of establishing control through language a little much. Especially the idea that dissention could be completely eliminated by removing the ability to articulate it. I used to have a dog. His vocabulary was fairly limited (bark, grrr, woof, etc). Yet somehow he managed to occassionally revolt against my commands or control measures. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-and-all-that/205695/27 "2003-10-07T21:30:38Z")
IMHO, the most important thing about Orwell is his hate for the Stalinists (and fascists). Why? Because he experienced first hand what they are about. The thing that seems to scare him is that there are ways to turn the populace into gullible, state loving subjects that will not have the abillity to form their own opinions. _This_ danger to freedom is what he tries to convey in ‘1984’ and ‘Animal Farm’ alike. That a small cadre of people can be able to play the masses, through clever use of the totally controlled media (propaganda and misinformation), scare tactics (of the enemy without and within), social pressure (be one with the group), manipulation of language , discouragement of thinking (work hard, leaders know best) and adoration of the leader. If you want, you can indeed see a lot of this at work in the US today. But it’s a far cry from actually being a totalitarian state. ---
**Author:** ![KoalaBear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47c2d/32.png) [@KoalaBear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KoalaBear)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2003, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-and-all-that/205695/28 "2003-10-09T07:32:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by msmith537 \* > **I always wondered where the middle and senior leadership in 1984 came from.** Admission to either branch of the Party was by examination at age 16, so a child of Outer Party parents could be allowed to rise in order to keep the ablest people at the top, and a child of Inner Party parents could be allowed to fall in order to exclude the weaklings. Only the proles were ineligible for Party membership (they were summarily eliminated if they got too ambitious) though the Party was prepared to recruit from that rank if it ever became necessary to do so. All human societies at all times in history have been divided into three groups of people: the high, the middle, and the low. The object of the high is to stay where they are. The object of the middle is to change places with the high. The object of the low (when they’re not so preoccupied meeting their basic survival requirements they can afford to have an object) is to abolish the class system altogether. Sooner or later the middle group, alone or by enlisting the low to their cause by dangling the carrot of equality in front of them, succeed in displacing the high. They immediately thrust the low back into their position of servitude and eventually a new middle group is formed from one or both of the other groups, and the cycle repeats itself again, and again, and again. In _1984_, the English Socialist Party – the classic middle group made up of teachers, professionals, tradesman and so forth – decided it’s going to let the pendulum of history swing once more (to install themselves in power) and then stop. Unlike the despotisms that preceded them, they knew what they were doing. They kept the low completely out of the picture and exercised absolute control over the middle by imposing a single uniform reality in which the Party is always right. > [@](#): > > **Were the OBrians of 1984 from a completely different class or was he just a Winston with a few more years of experience who demonstrated an ability to ignore the fact that most of their world was bullshit?** One presumes he passed the exam with flying colors. He knew the truth and believed the lies simultaneously – that’s the essence of doublethink, or “reality control,” which Winston was not capable of until he eventually became sane. > [@](#): > > **Was there even a central leadership or was everyone just a cog in some big machine that essentialled directed itself? (I recall something about there not being an actual Big Brother).** The Party was the master of Oceania. Big Brother was the embodiment of the Party. The Party existed and will continue to exist forever, therefore Big Brother existed and will continue to exist forever. > [@](#): > > \*\*Winstons job is to edit the dictionary. OBrians job is to search for defective people. That guy sets ration levels, she fixes vid-screens, he does his daily 'Big Brother act. Everyone mindlessly droning along in some headless system because they’re afraid to do anything else or just don’t know any better somehow seems more sinister than if it were the scheme of some madman/madmen. \*\* Actually, Winston’s job was to rewrite the newspaper in such a way that whatever the Party predicted would happen became a documentary fact. O’Brien’s regular job was Inner Party bureacrat – rehabilitating thought criminals was apparently a leisure activity. But he only invested so much time in Winston because he admired the way Winston’s mind worked: “It resembles my own,” he said, “except that [Winston] happen[s] to be insane.” > [@](#): > > **I did feel that the whole idea of establishing control through language a little much. Especially the idea that dissention could be completely eliminated by removing the ability to articulate it.** It’s a part of the larger objective of eliminating the risk that the middle class will ever be capable of revolt. ---
**Author:** ![cbm77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@cbm77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cbm77)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2003, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-and-all-that/205695/29 "2003-10-09T08:46:34Z")
Everytime I recall the end of the book it reminds me of how the polygraph is used in (at least) the USA. Government agencies, state and local agencies, employment agencies, sometimes use the false science of the polygraph to deduce truth from individuals. [Here is a link devoted to abolishing polygraph “technology”.](http://antipolygraph.org/) How is this different from being beaten by a rubber hose or burned at the stake by those who wish to persecute, abolish, punish, or regect an individual(s) words, thoughts, actions, or intentions even if that word, thought, action, or intention is gold…or not… In the constitution I’m not sure that it states that anyone has freedom of thought. There is freedom of speech, freedom from fear, freedom to choose ect. What impresses (and disturbs) me the most about the book is the idea of thought crime. Apparently, thought is a crime all over the world, even more now than ever before. Everyone is guilty of a thought crime…And the polygraph is a tool used by BB to make thought crime a reality for innocent and guilty individuals. ---
**Author:** ![cbm77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@cbm77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cbm77)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2003, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-and-all-that/205695/30 "2003-10-09T08:52:26Z")
Oh yeah…Would Jesus be found guilty of thought crime in the new world order? 😛 I apologies I just couldn’t resist… ---
**Author:** ![cbm77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@cbm77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cbm77)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2003, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-and-all-that/205695/31 "2003-10-09T10:43:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spogga \* > > We don’t have viewscreens in our homes for the authorities to keep a close watch on us but we have the internet, consider this, if your govt. or mine thought that any of us were engaging in activities contrary to the wellbeing of the country they would seize your PC and discover quite easily which sites you’d visited and to whom you had sent and received e-mails from. > Your PC is the viewscreen. And this paranoia comes from what? There has been HEAVY drive encryption software out there for years, available for download. For example Autoclave. And if an individual is looking at material that is so haneouse they prolly will be “clocked but not caught” right away. Such as illegal porn…Porn makes up way over 50% of all material (from what I understand) on the web. Repeated offenders are caught and served that surf unacceptable web sites sometimes. And e-mail cache, I imagine someone would have to be under real scrutiny to have their e-mail scanned. Unless the NSA has time to scan every e-mail ever sent while they fly over head, I doubt we are all being “watched as suspects”. I really don’t buy this analogy Spooga, sorry. However I agree that this is a really spooky and groovy concept baby. ← look at me I’m Austin Powers 😃 I really don’t know what laws pertain to privacy infringement of computer use, but I do know that Carl Sagan wrote, “Demon Haunted World”. Perhaps reading that will be some comfort to the 1984 paranoia. Pretty interesting huh? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1984-and-all-that/205695.md?page=1)