You Wake up in Oceania, It's 1984 And You're Winston Smith

[BAYLOR]

You have all of Winston's skill sets as well as your own . In This scenario you have capacity to change the script and the outcome of events in the story. What would you do that Winstson Smith might not do. Can you successfully pit your wits and will against the seemingly all knowing all powerful and state of Oceania and Bg Brother and come out a winner ?

 

[The Judge]

I see you've started this in GBD, BAYLOR, but the way I'm reading your post, this is not so much a discussion of the book and what WS could have done and more a game in which members can play being WS, which I'd have said was more fitted for SFF Lounge. Before I moved it over there, though, I thought I'd better check whether I was missing the point.

 

[BAYLOR]

I see you've started this in GBD, BAYLOR, but the way I'm reading your post, this is not so much a discussion of the book and what WS could have done and more a game in which members can play being WS, which I'd have said was more fitted for SFF Lounge. Before I moved it over there, though, I thought I'd better check whether I was missing the point.

Winston Smith put his thoughts about Big brother in his diary and put a peace of tape over the book, so that he would know if the thought police or an agent of the state had read it . Thought one point that he could somehow outrun the state apparatus but knew at a deeper level that he couldn't. O Brien the party member and Winston's boss, seem concerned with Winston's welfare and even Winston seems taken in by him. Winston's job at the Ministry of Truth was to make sure that the past always conformed problem also stemmed not only from this but from seeing a peace information with regard to who Ocean was allied with and war with. He made the mistake of thinking about it and the lies that he was and his fellow wokers fabricated at the behest of the state.

Now finding yourself in that situation would you have written down your feelings with regrd to the state? What would you do at the Ministry of Truth ? How would you have handled O' Brien?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Sounds like my worst nightmare come true.

 

[BAYLOR]

Sounds like my worst nightmare come true.

But knowing the situation , do you think Winston Smith's fate was inevitable given his circumstances?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

It's a very long time since I read it. Seriously long ago. I'd have to read it again.

 

[BAYLOR]

It's a very long time since I read it. Seriously long ago. I'd have to read it again.

I read it in College, some years ago and I saw the film with John Hurt and Richard Burton. It stayed with me all these years. Oceania is nightmare and very likely so are the other two superstate Eurasia and East Asia Locked in an eternal war of shifting alliances.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Or they want you to believe there are three powers at war.
Slightly more cheerful:
80 Minute Hour Brian Aldiss
Homeworld (part of trilogy) Harry Harrison

Both had aspects that sort of reminded me of 1984. I liked best the Harry Harrison Trilogy .

 

[BAYLOR]

Or they want you to believe there are three powers at war.
Slightly more cheerful:
80 Minute Hour Brian Aldiss
Homeworld (part of trilogy) Harry Harrison

Both had aspects that sort of reminded me of 1984. I liked best the Harry Harrison Trilogy .

The Hidden World by Stanton Coblenz written 1935 under the title The Caverns below. Two men exploring deep underground encounter two waring super civilization WU and ZU . Both civilizations have super advanced technology and have been waging a war for decades. The populace on both side a cheerfully follow their respective governments to produces sons ads munition and wage glorious war upon each other. This book covers such ideas as media manipulation . The people living there don't think about. anything other then obey their government Thoughtlessness is the cardinal virtue on both sides. The war and artificial shortages powers both government. It's quite a book.

 

[paranoid marvin]

There is so much from 1984 that has already come to pass. People conditioned to believing what they told being true. The population glued to the tv/monitor. Language being abbreviated and shortened. People kept in a perpetual state of fear. A constant and invasive level of surveillance.

And that's just for starters. The only thing Orwell got wrong was that he was about 20 years too short in his predictions.

As for the question of what I would do if I were Winston, but know what he didn't. I'd keep my head down and get on woth my job; there was never any hope, just an illusion before it was cruelly stamped out.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

But 1984 wasn't really about the future. It was really warning about Communism gone bad then! Stalin was re-writing history and un-personing people, even replacing photos with edited versions etc. Elisabeth I invented the police State, almost all mail was intercepted. Winston Churchill had the idea BEFORE WWI of intercepting all telegraphs and Radio and sending copies of anything interesting (Lord of Admiralty or some such then). In 1914 this was added to Room 40 and combined with MI. Orwell had been a Russian Looking Socialist. But the Communists executing other Socialists that didn't follow the Moscow party line in the Spanish Civil war 'cured' him. Hence Animal Farm (1945) and 1984 (1949). His account of the Spanish Civil War earned him a heckling from his UK Socialist fellow travellers, Homage to Catalonia (1938) (there was a sort of drama on R4 lately based on it). The indirect allegory and supposed Futuristic routes were the the result of realising a direct approach wouldn't work.

GCHG and NSA is nothing new, nor is re-writing history! Some of it:
http://theconversation.com/cable-sn...-how-the-wwi-information-battle-was-won-30175
also
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/nov/20/book-review-the-zimmermann-telegram/?page=all

Room 101, though is rumoured to be a bit of a dig at the BBC, as he did broadcast and there WAS a Room 101 in BH were he had to sit through boring meetings!
There was an Avengers episode were people were tortured with worst nightmare by artificial means.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I think that 1984 was a warning about a future that would come to pass if we weren't careful about how we were going. There were certainly indications in Orwell's day, but not the complete picture. Personally I think that Orwell looked at the way things were then and just logically progressed them almost half a century into the future. The thing about 1984 is that not only did the people realise they were being controlled, they thanked their leaders for what they did; sound familiar?

"Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

 

[BAYLOR]

I think that 1984 was a warning about a future that would come to pass if we weren't careful about how we were going. There were certainly indications in Orwell's day, but not the complete picture. Personally I think that Orwell looked at the way things were then and just logically progressed them almost half a century into the future. The thing about 1984 is that not only did the people realise they were being controlled, they thanked their leaders for what they did; sound familiar?

"Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Because they kept having the lie about how bad things were before big brother and how good things are with big brother pounded into their heads. Coffee,food and the basic quality of life have been getting steadily worse in Oceania since big brother . When you combine that with the state terror apparatus people will only say nice things . Then at the end of O Brien basically acknowledges that things have been made intentionally worse by design so to deepen control of the populace and prevent the very notion of Rebellion.

The Problem is Party head O Brian is a a deluded idiot and a madman. He thinks that Oceania can hold together indefinitely. It can't ,Winston Smith said as much while he was being tortured and he was right. As to O Brien's probable fate beyond the story, sooner or later he'll get denounced ,stripped of his power, privileges ,dignity( What Little he has) and his life. The Great beast Oceania consumes everyone and in the end , it will consume itself.

 

[paranoid marvin]

But the people didn't realise that they were being oppressed, so had no reason to fight back. I believe that O'Brien was once like Winston but was now 'conditioned' by the system "they got me a long time ago"; I don't think he's mad or deluded , just totally believes in the infallibility of Big Brother. I would like to think that you are right Baylor, and that the system will come crashing down around them, but the state is so strong that any resistance seems futile. "If there is hope... it lies with the proles" Will they rise against the system? Possibly. They are the only ones who retain any element of freedom; yet they have no focus, no co-ordination and most importantly no reason to do so.

 

[BAYLOR]

But the people didn't realise that they were being oppressed, so had no reason to fight back. I believe that O'Brien was once like Winston but was now 'conditioned' by the system "they got me a long time ago"; I don't think he's mad or deluded , just totally believes in the infallibility of Big Brother. I would like to think that you are right Baylor, and that the system will come crashing down around them, but the state is so strong that any resistance seems futile. "If there is hope... it lies with the proles" Will they rise against the system? Possibly. They are the only ones who retain any element of freedom; yet they have no focus, no co-ordination and most importantly no reason to do so.

Even O Brian who is a believer will get consumed by Big Brother

"Things fall apart the center does not hold" Yeats. All Empires must fall. A system as deranged as that has to come down and usually the rot starts from the bottom. Winston Smith was broken by the system . But the thing that Big Brother fears most, are the emergence people like Winston Smith. if enough of them appear , the machine will starts to break down bit by bit. Big Brother can't suppress and eliminate them all.

 

[BAYLOR]

Constant Warfare kept the three dictatorships in power , it kept public distracted, didn't give them time to think about how bad thing were under Big Brother.