1984 by George Orwell

Originally posted by flintorama
I would also like to mention Emohawk that to put Robert De'Niro's name at the start of the "starring list" over Jonathan Pryce is an ultimate tradgedy!
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I only did that because most people probably won't know who Jonathan Pryce is (he's the bad guy in Tomorrow Never Dies people). It's the same reason why the credits are like that on the cover of the movie too. Pryce certainly is very good in it. It's also one of DeNiro's best comic roles.
 
There aren´t enough positive adjectives to praise this classic. Sometimes scifi (or dystopia) truly hits the spot. When you survey today´s political athmospere and society in the western world you can see that those 3 doctrines of 1984 are reality.

1. WAR IS PEACE. Those preventive strikes on starving nations! Yeah, they truly help the people of the "3rd world" countries to appreciate us more. In this case 2+2=5.

2. IGNORANCE IS STRENGHT. It´s sad to notice that allthough we live in a world where information is easy to obtain, there is also more disinformation than ever. News and the other TV programmes show us "the truth" through a filter of their liking. They remind me of the Two Minute Hate in the book. News are becoming (and they all ready are) propaganda.

3. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. They say that we live in a free society. Right, we are monitored in every place. Cameras & bioindentifiers and things like that. And they say that those are for our protection. They seem Telescreening to me.

And what about those other terms in George´s book? For example the inner & outer party and the proles. Isn´t that reality in our world? The inner party is our "leaders", the outer party is their lakeys, and the proles are us! In the other hand it´s our fault, we have put them to their thrones.

But this is the world and you know what the world is like :(

Sorry, I don´t know where that purge came from, it´s just that I am possessed by this pathos every time there is a discussion going on about this book.

Prosper.
 
Originally posted by emohawk
You should see Terry Gilliam's Brazil if you haven't already.
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I think you should also see the more recent "Equilibrium" which isn't such a bad movie: I'd say it's based on the "1984" concept with many references to other sf classics (Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" and Huxley's "A brave new world" come to my mind). And - incredible - you can also enjoy that movie....... ;)
 
I'd have to respectfully disagree with you WelkinMachinist. The three doctrines you were referring to, while if put in the correct context in these times, are more thought provoking that truth telling in my opinion.
1. WAR IS PEACE. Peace would be when everyone could accept everyone else, and as long as war is happening, there is no chance of this.
2. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. Now, more than ever, I believe this to be the biggest fallacy. Educating oneself can arm them with the most powerful weapon: knowledge. If one knows enough about anything, they can figure out how it works and how to fix it. Being ignorant may allow one to not realize there is trouble in the world, but I would hardly call that strength.
I do however, absolutely agree with you about the whole media thing. That's just disgusting.
3. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. This one is a little bit harder to explain. Those who live in the US deffinetly live in a country with more freedom than certain other countries, but far from absolute freedom. Absolute freedom would allow anyone to do whatever they want. (Hopefully people wouldn't do harm to one another in this state, but in our current society we know this to be far from true). Slavery is being told what to do, how to do it, when to do it. One has no choices. The media, once again, comes into play here by telling us what they want us to hear, when we hear it, etc. So in essence we are slaves to the media. However, we are also just as free to make the choice as to how we get our information. And how much of it we accept as fact. So we do have that freedom.
I know I'm beggining to ramble here, but I really hope you can understand what I'm trying to say. If not I'll try to explain again better.

P.S. 1984 is a good book.
 
Quote:

I thought the part with the rats was terrifying.

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My feelings exactly!!! -- that's the one bit I remember, and I read the book over 15 years ago.

I also really liked Animal Farm by George Orwell. It was a great take on the Stalinist/fascist/totalitarianism stemming from innocent and well-meaning roots and then becoming sorely corrupted. Definitely worth a read.
 
Tried years ago to read 1984. Couldn't get past the first several pages. It was just to dull a read for me. Despite the good reviews here I still cannot see going back to it either.

Saw Brazil. Intresting movie, but very very very strange. Which seems to be typical of Terry Gilliam flickers.
 
Garibaldi: 1984 can at times drag, it is true, especially in parts where political theory are expounded. But it is certainly worth reading as the ideas and concepts Orwell put in there are seminal. It is truly one of the greatest SF books ever, and a brilliant take on what society could be.

Seeing as you're a Babylon 5 fan, there are innumerable nods to 1984, especially after teh establishment of the "Ministry of Peace" which is a name taken straight from 1984-- in fact so is the abbreviation (Minipax) if I'm not mistaken. The whole "Nightwatch" concept would be right at home in Orwell's dystopia. I'd say: give it another try and stick with it.
 
Wouldn't it be funny if George Orwell's book 1984 wasn't about politics?

If under the guise of politics the book was actually trying to get the reader to see something else in a different way? To discuss something that normally is rarely discussed?

That it wasn't televisions spying on everyone but something else?
 
Gallowglass: your point being...? What do you think was spying on humans? Aliens?

I still think it works best from a political perspective; indeed, that is what Orwell has indicated it is meant to be. He was a lifelong anti-communist and targeted them in many of his books. For example, in Animal Farm he satirized their society while in 1984 he attacked it from a different perspective.

In this case, 2+2=4, not 5.
 
Whilst thinking about John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids elsewhere, I remembered this article (Look under the articles entitled - "We Are The Dead" THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS and NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR; and 'Remembrance of Things to Come? 1984 and Day of the Triffids Again')
which gives some interesting comparisons between Triffids and 1984. Must admit until I read the article I hadn't realised that there were such connections!

Thought you might be interested.

Hobbit
 
Originally posted by Shehzad
Gallowglass: your point being...? What do you think was spying on humans? Aliens?
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Sorry, that was my very clumsy way to encourage discussion, suggesting that 1984 wasn't just about governmental totalitarianism but other forms of totalitarianism that we just seem to accept as a part of our daily lives. Especially in society.

After all, isn't society as omnipresent as the spying televisions in 1984? Rumor and belief taking the place of facts? How often are we asked to believe that 2+2=5?

Talk shows that destroy the lives of families in the name of entertainment, tabloids with their lurid headlines and little else.

A career ruined by the suggestion not that something happened but that it's being covered up, irreguardless of the facts.
 
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Originally posted by Shehzad
I still think it works best from a political perspective; indeed, that is what Orwell has indicated it is meant to be. He was a lifelong anti-communist and targeted them in many of his books. For example, in Animal Farm he satirized their society while in 1984 he attacked it from a different perspective.
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The great thing about 1984 is that it doesn't just attack communism, it attacks capitalism as well. It basically a critique of society as he saw it in 1948. He saw the way that the west was reacting to the treat of communism, first with the fascist dictators in Europe. Then he percieved that the way that the democratic countries like American and Britain were reacting would lead them down the same path as Communism - totalitarianism. He saw civil liberty's being eroded and increased militerism in WWII and in the immediate cold war aftermath and saw no difference between it and communism. That's why the three superstates in 1984 aren't significantly different, they are all practically the same no matter what their original ideology was.

it's a very interesting point, because if you look at somewhere like war time Britain it was essentially communist. Electrions were pursponed the workforce was employed by the government and civil rights were practically non-existant, all for the 'greater good'.
 
Originally posted by Gallowglass


Sorry, that was my very clumsy way to encourage discussion, suggesting that 1984 wasn't just about governmental totalitarianism but other forms of totalitarianism that we just seem to accept as a part of our daily lives. Especially in society.
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I think that most of this post is matter of course to everyone, but I have nothing better to do, so I write this post anyway.

People seem to just notice the political totalitarianism of the book and ignore the rest. I think one of the main points in 1984 was the matter of choice that we still have, but perhaps in the near future dont´t.

I don´t know about the rest of the world, but here in Northern Europe the will to vote is rapidly decreasing. Only 60% of the people use this right. And when the election is over they moan why there is no change. And these kind of people are often youths or pensioners who have voted same double-standard and back stabbing MOP. They seem to trust our members of the parlament, while they are only interested in their own little affairs. We are giving away the chance to participate and affect to the development of our society, and a great danger lurks there.

I think that George O. is trying to say that it would be our own fault if a society similar to 1984 would ever see the daylight. Hindsight is useless when matter of choice is lost. We had the chance my brothers, we had the chance, but the pressure of the masses is too strong for the most of us to stand.

And the answer to Gallowglass´question. How often are we asked to believe that 2+2=5? Every f**king day. Empty promises everywhere and from everybody. News tell us how the War on Terrorism is making an huge effect and in the mean time new terrorist groups emerge.

I don´t think that Orwell had the foresight in Nostredamus caliber, 1984 is more like a psychodrama. But ironically our society is moving towards the totalitarian state.

I am totally lost with this post, so I´m try to press my point in one sentence: totalitarianism is just a frame of reference in 1984, the main theme is the people´s reluctance to act.

I think I have humilated myself enough for a one day, but opinions are like rectums, everybody got one.

WM
 
Excellent articles, Hobbit - thanks for the links.

Have to say I disagree with some of the opinions about Day of the triffids, in the first article though. May have to revive a 'Triffids' thread later :)

I will say here that 1984 and Brave New World are two of my most favorite books. I have written ''Fahrenheit 451'' in big letters on my pad....if anyone want to name anymore similar dystopian novels that'd be cool.

1984 says so many things to me. But just one thing now.......WAR IS PEACE, they say........(and this is the only one of their slogans that i feel is put into practice today)......but were they ever actually at war. The first time i read it i thought so. On rereading, I got the impression that it was all made up....there was no war at all - it was pure propaganda to keep the people's minds focussing outwards.

(Oh and, is Brave New World really dystopia? I tend to think of that as somewhere unpleasant/that people are unhappy. Most people seem fairly happy there. On another note, I reckon I could write a decent essay comparing Brave New World with The Matrix.......tempting. I may have to try that.)
 
Yah. I got that too.

They are definitely shooting missiles at their own people. That's why only proles ever get hit by the bombs. Pop. control.
 
More dystopia for the wicked

Sammie, you should definetly check WE by Eugen Zamyatin. A stunning piece of Russian literature. I found the text little bit diffucult at first; Eugen was an mathematician and that affected to his writing style. It´s written few decades earlier than 1984 and old George must have taken lots of influence from him.

WM
 
I would argue that that the West (not sure about the rest of the world) is shifting into a hybrid world predicted respectively in 1984 and Brave New World. For the ignorant, semi-illiterate masses (the proles in 1984 language) being educated in bog-standard comprehensives and high schools are mindless drones enslaved to sex, consumerism and the cult of the celebrity and the ideological organs of mass media.

These people, numbering over fifty per cent of the American population can’t think, analyse or project their personal experiences to the abstract and the broader international world (I got that figure through the poll showing that 50% of the US public think Saddam did 9/11). In Britain, currently it is about thirty per cent of the public but among the young it numbers over half with a total lack of knowledge of interest in culture, literature, current affairs, history or politics. These drones will never vote, read a book, watch a documentary, go to a museum, library or art gallery, travel for knowledge but purely live for animal sex.

These people aren’t citizens but consumers, enslaved to the designer label and the multinational corporations of global capitalism: Sony, McDonalds and Nike and so on. The future (and reality in America now) government in this hybrid world won’t need the obtuse terrifying power of the oppressive organs of the State to control the masses (like in the Soviet Union) but rather through cultural enslavement through capitalism. That is why Orwell feared capitalism.

America leads the future and it is in the homeland of liberty and republican values that this 21st century political economy is emerging. Already President Bush, who intuitively understands how to manipulate these non-thinking masses, has shredded the Bill of Rights, (Patriot Act/Patriot Act II), brought in a domestic secret police (Homeland Security) which is currently building up a huge list of all opponents to the Bush regime. They are destroying the remnants of the social safety net (Medicare and Social Security) while the mass media (most notably the hugely successful Fox News owned by Rupert Murdock) is dominated by corporate interests and panders to the lowest common denominator.

The Bush Administration has systemically subverted even the ballot box, the opportunity for citizens to overthrow an unpopular regime in a democratic society. The electronic voting machine (where Republican donors own the software companies) is the emblem for the future, where the last refuge for the educated, thinking and liberal man is destroyed, where Orwells slogan FREEDOM IS SLAVERY is most potent.

Of course, every society will adapt in different ways, the citizen will continue to dominate over the consumer, and America’s extreme reality has already led to a backlash by millions of people who intuitively fear Dubya. That is what George Orwells message inspires hope, since there will always be people who will resist the 1984/Brave New World paradigm shift and turn in into a compassionate, humane and progressive vision for humanity. The European Union will hopefully turn into a glorious City on the Hill, a beacon of civilising European enlightenment against the barbarism enveloping our world.
 
You have good points Thomas, but don´t lay all your hope on EU. It shall be and already is a beacon, a beacon to the total capitalism. New United States on European soil.

WM
 
I think that it's probably wise to read Orwell's Homage to Catalonia immediately after (or possibly before) 1984.

GO’s experiences during the Spanish Civil War underpin all of his railings against totalitarianism.

It's also a damn fine book, arguably his best.
 
Thomas I also think you make some interesting points, but I think your analysis is simplistic.

I don't think there is a 50% or 30% of the population that are just 'consumers' I think everyone is a consumer to a certain extent and everyone reacts emotional and animalistically in various situations, very few people react on a purley rational level to outside stimuli.

Everybody is a 'Prole' to a certain extent, but I don't think there is anyone who actually "can't think" there are certainly people who don't think.

And some of you analysis is just obviously wrong. 'Bog standard comprehensives' are really not the pits of ignorance and stupidity you say they are, there are some ignorant stupid who go to them but that's not the same thing at all.

And saying that the EU is some kind "beacon of civilising European enlightenment" is just plain absurd, the EU (or the EEC)was founded and still very much is a capitalist trade bloc. You talk to an African farmer trying to sell his goods into the European market when competing against the CAP and ask him what he thinks of the this 'European enlightenment'. Lets not forget the far right resurgence, 10% of French people did vote for an openly Fascist presidentially candidate.

There are so many examples of the EU being just as hypocrytical, ignorant and just plain nasty as the US that it's not worth going into them, so don't spout crap like that (I'm sorry, but that EU was crap).
 
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