Tag: George Orwell

Chapter two of the first section builds on the first chapter. It peels back a little more of what life is like with a neighborly interaction and the struggles of rationing and substandard infrastructure. What’s more, a few concepts are further developed.

Propaganda- Once again, the slogans “War is Peace”, “Freedom is Slavery” and “Ignorance is Strength” are brought up. We learn that these slogans are ubiquitous are found on money, posters, tax stamps, etc. The use of propaganda is to unite the population on simple slogans. It might remind us of “Make America Great Again” or “Yes, We Can”.

Indoctrination- begins at a very young age. There are the Spies and the Youth League which seem to be these Cub Scout/Boy Scout analogs of kids organizations training into the system. The focus is on activities relating to eventual military or government service such as physical fitness and hard skills like bushcraft. There is reference to kids turning the parents into the “Thought Police” which is some organization for eradicating non-conformist thinking.

Scarcity- Another control mechanism to manipulate the population. From what I can gather throughout the book, the situation is real. By controlling diet, heat, living conditions and even pleasures Big Brother can exert some constant level of control. They can also use situational change to effect the citizens perception of reality. In essence, no one believes anything because everything is wrong making it difficult to know if something is really true.

This is a short chapter I feel to support that home life is as dire as work life was in chapter one. Minor character development paints similar interactions regardless of the circumstances or locations. Things don’t look to good for Winston as he is having wandering thoughts and treasonous writing.

I think that it was three days ago, I was listening to Glenn Beck while I was getting ready for work. Of all the people in talk radio, he is one of the people that I like. I think that he really does use his brain and is not afraid to change his opinion if the facts warrant a change. That being said, he does stand for principles and he is one of the few in that space that has a grasp on the what is happening, not just echoing talking points.

He started talking about the book 1984. I started listening more intently because I knew that I was going to start writing about the subject. There wasn’t much detail in the discussion but one of the things I heard was that sales have skyrocketed in the last year. I looked it up to see if it was true, and here is what I found.

I really haven’t been plugged into the latest news of the day, but I really didn’t realize the references to the 1984 have been so prevalent. I didn’t realize that so many people were making the same connection that I have. With that, let us get into it.

I am going to refer to the indexing as Section and Chapter. This post will be discussing Chapter 1 of Section 1. I think rather than summarize the entire book each day, I will highlight the concepts that I thought were applicable to us. There is a brief introduction into the world of Winston Smith, the main character. It describes the construct of the political system and the basic work life and home life routines.

The following are some of the important constructs of the book and a bit of my analysis.

Cultural Divide: There appears to be two sides in this world. One side is called ‘Big Brother’ and the other side is the ‘Proletariat’. It is portrayed as Big Brother is the side that is and agrees with the government and partakes in the benefits that come with that membership. The proletariat is a class that is more like the ‘untouchable’ caste in the Indian culture. These are people that are not involved with the government in any form and the two groups do not interact in any form – for risk of retribution from Big Brother.

I think in today’s lens, I would put the what we would call ‘Big Brother’ are all of the interests sympathetic to the government angle like all forms of media and related groups right or left. While not a perfect match, the ‘proletariat’ would be those that do not participate. They are the dirty and nasty which the party will not associate because they are not worthy.

Telescreen: This is a device that information is put out and has two way capability. They are also ubiquitous. They are in every home and workplace. As a party member, you are expected to listen and interact with this device at all times.

I think the telescreen is what today’s cell phone is becoming. As we all know, the phone knows our location, it can listen to what we are doing and saying. Based on the profile that our data builds, we start to get fed only information that fits our profile.

Newspeak: This is a particular language that is spoken as well as a system of communication. So the system part, this is a way of changing facts to fit the narrative. It can be goods produced or history. Everything bit of data is cross referenced so that an attempt to change the permanent record has to be made for all media items such as newspapers, books and television programs.

In our culture, I think both sides are using this tactic. For example, does everyone remember when wearing a mask did prevent the spread of Covid-19? Now, there seems to be many studies supporting the opposite conclusion, hmmm. It seems that most ‘science’ today is done in a way to provide proof of a political agenda and not to learn the truth.

Hate Week/Two Minutes Hate: The two minutes hate is a mandatory, daily rally to reinforce the agenda of Big Brother as well as communicate the Newspeak changes for the day. Because the facts are always changing, the party members are conditioned to accept whatever the story is presented at the moment as truth.

Hate Week is portrayed as a festival celebrating the propaganda. Said another way, a week of constant hate. The tactics of xenophobia (build a wall or Black Lives Matter) combined with constant warfare as our side is bringing liberty to a country that doesn’t know it is the perfect cover align the party members with Big Brother.

Already in Chapter 1, we can see these concepts have striking corollaries in today’s world. I want to point out that no matter what side of the left/right dichotomy you chose today, these tactics are in play. That being said, the only way to not be manipulated is to not play the game.