Orwell's 1984 in 2017

[AlexH]

I was planning to begin reading 1984 for the first time on the Isle of Jura (where much of it was written) last year, but despite making it to 21 islands in that region, Jura wasn't one of them! It's one I wanted to visit most too. Another time...

 

[Vladd67]

I was planning to begin reading 1984 for the first time on the Isle of Jura (where much of it was written) last year, but despite making it to 21 islands in that region, Jura wasn't one of them! It's one I wanted to visit most too. Another time...

Nice whisky there too.

 

[Hoverdasher]

I think 1984 remains hugely relevant. Obviously the three-megastate system hasn't come to pass, but there are a number of countries that operate in a similar way to Oceania. It's essentially a blueprint for dictators. Also, just look at the variety of politicians, agitators and crackpots who mention 1984 to support their own causes, many of whom would happily have had Orwell shot. The book clearly carries a lot of weight for a huge range of people.

Forum rules prohibit the discussion of politics in much detail, but the all-out assault on objective truth we've seen in the English-speaking world over the last year or two is pure 1984. Millions of people in the US and a fair few in the UK believe in nonsense conspiracy theories that you can only believe if you accept whatever the group-leader is saying at the moment as being correct, even if it contradicts your own eyes or what he was saying the moment before.

One point Orwell makes which I think is often missed relates to the purpose of the dictatorship rather than how it is run. The purpose of the 1984 world, and all dictatorships, is sadism. As O'Brien says, the 1984 world exists to allow the Inner Party to wield power, and power is wielded by making people suffer. When you look at the vindictiveness of many politicians and despots, it's clear how true this is.

I appreciate the thought you have put into this post. I'm barely into the book, and yet can fathom just what you are saying. The book makes one think. I will add something. Evil used to be overt--in-your-face; obvious. People did not engage in war that was not mutually declared. There was hand-to-hand combat. The list goes on. Nowadays, evil is subtle, nuanced--difficult to pinpoint. We cannot, for instance, say for certain if all democratic citizens living under a competitive economic system are truly free--and if so, it is impossible to pinpoint how or why, setting aside the what. In 1984, the evil is conspicuous--obvious, tacit to any reader. Yet, in our modern world, whatever in the world "evil' is, well, it is far too nuanced, to subtle for us to outline or model. Its more difficult to model or predict outcomes than it is to predict whether or economic outcomes! Weird, heh.

Thank you so much for your post; it has given me much to contemplate as I read through Orwell's novel.

Hoverdasher.

 

[Caledfwlch]

Orwell was hugely wrong on one thing.
"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face"

It's not a Fascist Thug putting the jackboot in, instead, imagine a smiling happy man in a suit, as he tricks you into signing for a loan, for a credit card, for a mortgage.
In the "Democratic West" they don't need fascist thugs in stylish uniforms, we kick our own heads in, throwing ourselves at the walls, as we sign up to be good Citizens, chasing the latest trends and gadgets.
They don't need to force people to do stuff, when the people willingly follow.

 

[Vince W]

Fascism isn't the great oppressor today. It's advanced marketing techniques. We've happily made our own prisons. Or at least we're told we're happy if we only drink Brand X, while eating Food substance Q, and owning a shiny new Needless object Z.

 

[DelActivisto]

I appreciate the thought you have put into this post. I'm barely into the book, and yet can fathom just what you are saying. The book makes one think. I will add something. Evil used to be overt--in-your-face; obvious. People did not engage in war that was not mutually declared. There was hand-to-hand combat. The list goes on. Nowadays, evil is subtle, nuanced--difficult to pinpoint. We cannot, for instance, say for certain if all democratic citizens living under a competitive economic system are truly free--and if so, it is impossible to pinpoint how or why, setting aside the what. In 1984, the evil is conspicuous--obvious, tacit to any reader. Yet, in our modern world, whatever in the world "evil' is, well, it is far too nuanced, to subtle for us to outline or model. Its more difficult to model or predict outcomes than it is to predict whether or economic outcomes! Weird, heh.

Thank you so much for your post; it has given me much to contemplate as I read through Orwell's novel.

Hoverdasher.

To be fair, I feel history often boils things down to make it more palatable and easy to digest. I think history has always been nuanced.

Orwell was hugely wrong on one thing.
"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face"

It's not a Fascist Thug putting the jackboot in, instead, imagine a smiling happy man in a suit, as he tricks you into signing for a loan, for a credit card, for a mortgage.
In the "Democratic West" they don't need fascist thugs in stylish uniforms, we kick our own heads in, throwing ourselves at the walls, as we sign up to be good Citizens, chasing the latest trends and gadgets.
They don't need to force people to do stuff, when the people willingly follow.

We do tend to walk willingly forward often times. But to be fair again, loans, mortgages, and credit cards can be quite useful. I recently signed up for a new credit card. It is a rewards card, which I expect will literally make me hundreds of dollars a year. So debt, tightly managed, can be quite advantageous.

It can also be used to make a voluntary prison.

 

[Hoverdasher]

To be fair, I feel history often boils things down to make it more palatable and easy to digest. I think history has always been nuanced.



We do tend to walk willingly forward often times. But to be fair again, loans, mortgages, and credit cards can be quite useful. I recently signed up for a new credit card. It is a rewards card, which I expect will literally make me hundreds of dollars a year. So debt, tightly managed, can be quite advantageous.

It can also be used to make a voluntary prison.

There is a spirit of the times, at all times--a Zeitgeist, as you know.

It quite often boils down to our desire for acceptance within our society, coupled with our desire to either be or "feel" as though we have some semblance of--and I am being metaphorical, here--a child board that is not autonomically controlled apart from our input or even our consent; instead--we want a piece of us that is unfettered even by our own body's autonomic system: we wish to be or "feel" free.

You are correct. "It" (debt/credit) can, and often is, used to make us into voluntary vassals to the materials that we freely chose to become indebted.

I wonder, hmmm.

What is freedom?

I mean--I have known homeless individuals--sat with them, eaten with them--who are completely unfettered by any ambition for wealth. Yet, I have also known and eaten with self-disciplined wealthy individuals who are unfettered by the consequences of irresponsible financial choices.

So, I wonder about what freedom truly constitutes. Is it a fact or an illusion--perhaps, both, depending on our appropriation of the will.

If you grow up in a communist civilization, perhaps you enjoy freedoms unknown by those who have grown up in a capitalistic society?! Vice-Versa, as well.

This reminds me of another thread about what it means to be human...

Good thoughts, thanks for this post.

Hoverdasher

 

[Hoverdasher]

I was planning to begin reading 1984 for the first time on the Isle of Jura (where much of it was written) last year, but despite making it to 21 islands in that region, Jura wasn't one of them! It's one I wanted to visit most too. Another time...

Man, there is one for my bucket list! Cool.

 

[Hoverdasher]

I read this in school in 1984. While we don't have thought police, we do have advanced marketing strategies to help 'shape' your opinions. I have my orange Penguin edition on the self. I should really give it another read.

I hope you read it, soon. We can exchange thoughts--as we read. Although, this is my first time through...

 

[Caledfwlch]

To be fair, I feel history often boils things down to make it more palatable and easy to digest. I think history has always been nuanced.



We do tend to walk willingly forward often times. But to be fair again, loans, mortgages, and credit cards can be quite useful. I recently signed up for a new credit card. It is a rewards card, which I expect will literally make me hundreds of dollars a year. So debt, tightly managed, can be quite advantageous.

It can also be used to make a voluntary prison.

It also creates involuntary prisons for many, many people.
in 2017, Debt isn't a lifestyle choice for a lot of people, they are not clocking it up to buy the latest Iphone or Armani Jeans, its the only way they can live or support their family - at least here in the UK.

The UK had the least/lowest amount of Employment Rights in the whole of the EU, we looked Alien compared to the rest of the Union.

Since seizing power in the 2010 Election, the current parcel of fools have lowered them even further, because, apparantly, despite already having the least Rights, we still were not competitive enough.
This is a wealthy, Western European Nation State, yet every town and city has multiple food banks, because people are literally starving to death. A woman was so hungry last year that she was given a Custodial Sentence for stealing a 50 pence Mars Bar. The Magistrate, bless his cotton socks, was so divorced from the reality faced by many people in the Home Nations, from the people he was supposed to sit in judgement over, that he refused to believe someone could have no money or food, and thus be starving.
A married couple in another situation had their charges dismissed by a Judge who was actually a bit more aware of the real world. Their great, civilisation toppling Crime? They took out of date food from a rubbish Bin outside of a supermarket that was going to landfill.

The biggest Evil is what is called a "Zero hours Contract" if your, for example a parent who's partner is in full time employment, and you want to fill in some spare time, get a bit of extra cash, they are great contracts. For single people who need to work full time, they are horrific, and are abused dreadfully by employers, and have put hundreds of thousands of people into massive debt, seen them evicted from their homes.

It is near impossible to live without getting into debt, unless you have a great, well paid stable job. If your having to stack up debt, just to live, to feed yourself, your kids, to keep a roof over your/their heads, that's not a voluntary prison, and its not the fault of the individual, it is absolutely the fault, and failure of the State, to do the only thing a State should exist for - to protect its citizens, whether from foreign invasion, or their health after injury in a serious accident, or discovering they have Cancer.

We have a lot of deluded old buzzards here in the UK who ramble on about how when they were young in the 50's and 60's and 70's they never needed credit, they didn't have debts (they generally conveniently forget the Mortgages they took out - the biggest debt a person can rack up)
And they also forget, that in those halcyon days, jobs were plenty, jobs were stable, if you lost one, you moved into another, and they had rights, probably a fair few more than we have now. They didn't have debts because they didnt need it to survive, they worked an honest days work, got an honest days pay. That is no longer reality for most people.
This country has spent years encouraging people, no matter how talented, or indeed, untalented to go to university, turning the universities into giant cash cows, whilst hugely devaluing the degrees they offer. Now their are thousands of people, hundreds of thousands, probably working minimum wage jobs on zero hours contracts saddled with £50,000+ university fee debts.

The whole thing these days, debt, credit is a giant con, based around pretend money, that people are forced to get into debt with, the money they have to take as debt may be fake, just digital entries on a computer, but the debts they have to repay, and the lives it is destroying are very real..

 

[Hoverdasher]

Indeed - our thoughts, beliefs, soul - can never be changed against our will.

Unless, somehow our memories were to be erased. Yikes!

 

[Hoverdasher]

It also creates involuntary prisons for many, many people.
in 2017, Debt isn't a lifestyle choice for a lot of people, they are not clocking it up to buy the latest Iphone or Armani Jeans, its the only way they can live or support their family - at least here in the UK.

The UK had the least/lowest amount of Employment Rights in the whole of the EU, we looked Alien compared to the rest of the Union.

Since seizing power in the 2010 Election, the current parcel of fools have lowered them even further, because, apparantly, despite already having the least Rights, we still were not competitive enough.
This is a wealthy, Western European Nation State, yet every town and city has multiple food banks, because people are literally starving to death. A woman was so hungry last year that she was given a Custodial Sentence for stealing a 50 pence Mars Bar. The Magistrate, bless his cotton socks, was so divorced from the reality faced by many people in the Home Nations, from the people he was supposed to sit in judgement over, that he refused to believe someone could have no money or food, and thus be starving.
A married couple in another situation had their charges dismissed by a Judge who was actually a bit more aware of the real world. Their great, civilisation toppling Crime? They took out of date food from a rubbish Bin outside of a supermarket that was going to landfill.

The biggest Evil is what is called a "Zero hours Contract" if your, for example a parent who's partner is in full time employment, and you want to fill in some spare time, get a bit of extra cash, they are great contracts. For single people who need to work full time, they are horrific, and are abused dreadfully by employers, and have put hundreds of thousands of people into massive debt, seen them evicted from their homes.

It is near impossible to live without getting into debt, unless you have a great, well paid stable job. If your having to stack up debt, just to live, to feed yourself, your kids, to keep a roof over your/their heads, that's not a voluntary prison, and its not the fault of the individual, it is absolutely the fault, and failure of the State, to do the only thing a State should exist for - to protect its citizens, whether from foreign invasion, or their health after injury in a serious accident, or discovering they have Cancer.

We have a lot of deluded old buzzards here in the UK who ramble on about how when they were young in the 50's and 60's and 70's they never needed credit, they didn't have debts (they generally conveniently forget the Mortgages they took out - the biggest debt a person can rack up)
And they also forget, that in those halcyon days, jobs were plenty, jobs were stable, if you lost one, you moved into another, and they had rights, probably a fair few more than we have now. They didn't have debts because they didnt need it to survive, they worked an honest days work, got an honest days pay. That is no longer reality for most people.
This country has spent years encouraging people, no matter how talented, or indeed, untalented to go to university, turning the universities into giant cash cows, whilst hugely devaluing the degrees they offer. Now their are thousands of people, hundreds of thousands, probably working minimum wage jobs on zero hours contracts saddled with £50,000+ university fee debts.

The whole thing these days, debt, credit is a giant con, based around pretend money, that people are forced to get into debt with, the money they have to take as debt may be fake, just digital entries on a computer, but the debts they have to repay, and the lives it is destroying are very real..

Your post is eloquently stated, cogent, to the point--very thoughtful.

I cannot help but think about our most vulnerable citizens--besides our children. Is freedom and opportunity correlated with a nations "pet virtues?" As an example, in one nation high aptitude and intellect may be the virtue she is most patriotic toward, while low aptitude and intellect may become stigmatized as less than virtuous ("those poor unfortunates," "thankfully I am not one of 'them.'"). It would create a correlation--in such a nation--between IQ and opportunity, to which the pursuit of happiness factually depends upon opportunity.

This leads me to pondering the ideas of privilege and the opportunity that it affords in order to bring someone nearer both that accolade, "Well done, fine chap, come in and dine with us," as well as that one step gained, that brings one nearer the end of one's pursuit--the actualization of happiness. Yet, how happy would such a chap be, were he looking down--as some misanthrope--from some prodigious loft, overlooking the city's poor and less fortunate?

 

[Hoverdasher]

Indeed - our thoughts, beliefs, soul - can never be changed against our will.

I must say, though, your words here, though brief, truly sent me away to think. Setting aside the erasure of our memory of ever having possessed a self or will to call our own, your statement proves true. People choose to make changes within their beliefs, to begin with...or choose not to make these changes. This is why colonization has always troubled me. To colonize another apart from their consent--their property or land, or worse yet--to have someone else's beliefs colonized upon them apart from their own willful consent. This seems to me an ambition run-a-muck.

Your post really sent me away, thinking and pondering.

 

[DelActivisto]

Yes, colonization is a major human rights violation. I think to a degree, we've always realized that, but we have done it anyway. Slavery has certainly always been seen as human rights violation to those enslaved, but humans have done that anyway, as well. It is as if, with our brilliant gifts and abilities, we are capable of equally great feats of goodness and evilness.

But I would argue that even should our memories be erased somehow, we still remain who we are. You can see this in people who've suffered memory loss. Not a great example, but to a very great degree, though their incompetence caused by their memory loss, they remain the same person. But memories are how we remember experiences, and if we forget those, we surely lose a part of ourselves, though not all of it.

 

[Brian G Turner]

This thread is getting directly into contemporary political discussion, so I'm going to close it now. The original poster just seemed to be interested in discussing the novel 1984 in general, in which case I recommend any further general discussion of the book itself on this thread: 1984