Living in Orwell’s 1984? manipulative political doublespeak/ministry of “truthism” which is really a ministry of lies…
George Orwell wrote the book *1984*, after the immense slaughter across the world in WWII and its’ aftermath of more murder and killing via the cold grip of Stalin on personal freedoms across many of the European nations which had been handed him by his Allies, the USA and England. Orwell’s book was published in 1949. Orwell was about 43 years old at the time he was writing 1984, and died young at age 47, and his prescience was remarkable about his own time, about our time.
The protagonist Winston Smith is slowly losing his grip on his own humanity, as is wanted and required by Big Brother. It occurs in part from being assaulted on every side by propaganda lies that insist that everyone believe that Love is Hate, that War is Peace… and through the fact that no one call tell if there is even one decent human being left in the world who holds the old true ideas of justice, love, peace and care of one another—
for most and many are put to the superstitious work of reporting those who are not towing the line, that is those thought to be non-patriots, those who are ‘thinking people’ and therefore considered disloyal to Big Brother– and thus are marginalized as ‘just proles,’ ‘the little people of no consequence,’ or taken off to be killed.
Winston works at The Ministry of Truth. It is housed in what is described as [sounds like a NORAD-like facility] four buildings that tower over all other buildings disproportionately, with 3000 rooms above ground and 3000 identical rooms below ground as bunkers in case of invasion, those loyal workers to Big Brother will be saved, all others will be lost. In other words, the vile organism of BB protects only itself, like some cosmic cockaroach.
The four buildings represent the upside down world that people have been forced to not question:
The Ministry of Truth, which gives out falsified news, propaganda entertainment, mind-numbing repetitious education, and re-interpretation of the old fine arts.
The Ministry of Peace, which rationalizes incessant war—as a means of keeping a form of ‘peace’ in which no one is allowed to be free, save Big Brother and friends.
The Ministry of Love, which maintains “law and order” according to Big Brothers ideals of dishonesty– creating charges against citizens as a result of day and night surveillance by peering in windows, planting listening and video devices right in citizen’s homes, following them about at work and rewarding peers for spying on and denouncing one another… to fatal ends.
The Ministry of Plenty, which overlooks all economic affairs, and falsifies how wonderful the job outlook is, how wonderful commerce is moving up up up, how productive all the workers are –even though the workers live in incessant squalor (Winston only has a scrap of dark bread to get him through the next day) and are afraid to complain…
for as Orwell writes, no one can enter any of these four departments of the government, for they are barricaded and only give access to Big Brother’s ‘friends.’ So there can be no writs of complaint let alone demands, filed with anyone in power, even if anyone so dared.
The names of the Ministries in Newspeak (which is garbled ‘politically correct’ and enforced language,) are: Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv, and Miniplenty.
Winston fears most The Ministry of Love, it being surrounded by “a maze of
barbed-wire entanglements, steel doors, and hidden machine-gun nests. Even the streets leading up to its outer barriers were roamed by gorilla-faced guards in black uniforms, armed with jointed truncheons.”
The oppression of humans is so great, that even their facial expressions cannot be allow to be sincere. Because there is a tele-screen in his apartment recording in audio and video to make sure Winston is not a traitor, he has to “set his features into the expression of quiet optimism which it was advisable to wear when facing the telescreen.”
Like the “Victory Fries” that some in the US dreamt up as ‘patriotic’ when some were miffed with France in our time… Winston takes up “a bottle of colourless liquid with a plain white label marked VICTORY GIN.” It’s lofty name however cannot disguise that it is cheap rot-gut, for “…it gave off a sickly, oily smell…”
Winston tosses a teacup’s worth back and becomes immediately stunned-drunk from the potion which is meant to keep ‘the proles’ in a state of being unable to think clearly. The cigarettes are equally cheap, desultorily and carelessly rolled so that : “he took a cigarette from a crumpled packet marked VICTORY CIGARETTES and incautiously held it upright, whereupon the tobacco fell out on to the floor.” The quality that once was in manufacturing of anything, is no more.
Thence Winston commits three purposeful crimes: the worst. the most shocking. He has one tiny place in his room where he cannot be seen by the telescreen (it is forbidden not to be before the screen), and sitting in that hidey-hole, he draws out a tiny book (it is forbidden to own an actual book one holds in their hands) and books stopped being manufactured over 40 years previous– as a way to make the people ‘richer.’
He found the book in the window of a junk shop (it is forbidden to ‘deal in free market,’ [this may be familiar to us, e.g., as we currenty cannot freely travel nor buy certain things like medicines in certain other nations]) but he frequented the slum shops as the necessities of life, razor blades for shaving and other items promised by Big Brother, never came. Thus, he bought the book for an exorbitant price– $2.50.
Winston’s crime is owning a blank book, a diary for one’s own true thoughts, in a sense a ‘freedom of the press’ denied by the government which has brought all newsmedia under one overseer and owner while calling it ‘a free press’ — but one that is iunder the domination of BB.
But more than the diary, is the idea of it, for Winston who is supposed to by now by BB design, have lost all awareness he is being treated like an animal-worker, a beast of burder… still holds the creative ideation that such beautiful old paper in this diary deserves to be written on in pen. And thus, he gradually recalls his own language – before Big Brother, but with effort. And he writes “April 4th, 1984.” But then stops, thinking, “Why was he writing this diary? For the future, for the unborn… For the first time the magnitude of what he had undertaken came home to him.”
That a soul would have to even be careful of what they wrote in a private document is Orwell’s point. That BB is always watching even when you think BB is asleep. BB never sleeps.
Orwell tells us about Winston’s agony and despair that he cannot change things (this being the PERFECT foil for Big Brother’s continued domination of the people), Winston’s fear that he cannot reach the future, for “How could you communicate with the future? It was of its nature impossible. Either the future would resemble the present, in which case it would not listen to him: or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless.”
Orwell shows that Winston had thought all he needed was courage to write down/ record/say in words the thoughts he’d had for years. But Winston finds that it is his despair that nothing will ever change, that keeps him from remembering the salient points of his own true views of what is human and what is not human… Just as BB would have all the workers be, thinking they can do nothing to make change.
And here is the horrible tell of loss of humanity, loss of care for others, loss of concern that others are tortured and murdered… BB’s ideas that others ought be maimed and slaughtered without reason….
and Winston suddenly begins to write his truth for which he could be killed, no questions asked…
“The telescreen had changed over to strident military music….Suddenly he began writing in sheer panic, only imperfectly aware of what he was setting down. His small but childish handwriting straggled up anddown the page, shedding first its capital letters and finally even its
full stops:”
“April 4th, 1984. Last night to the flicks. All war films. One very good one of a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean. Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with a helicopter after him, first you saw him wallowing along in the water like a porpoise, then you saw him through the helicopters gunsights, then he was full of holes and the sea round him turned pink and he sank as suddenly as though the holes had let in the water, audience shouting with laughter when he sank. then you saw a lifeboat full of children with a helicopter hovering over it. there was a middle-aged woman might have been
a jewess sitting up in the bow with a little boy about three years old in her arms. little boy screaming with fright and hiding his head between herbreasts as if he was trying to burrow right into her and the woman putting her arms round him and comforting him although she was blue with fright herself, all the time covering him up as much as possible as if she thought her arms could keep the bullets off him. then the helicopter planted a 20 kilo bomb in among them terrific flash and the boat went all to matchwood. then there was a wonderful shot of a child’s arm going up up up right up into the air a helicopter with a camera in its nose must have followed it up and there was a lot of applause from the party seats but a woman down in the prole part of the house suddenly started kicking up a fuss and shouting they didnt oughter of showed it not in front of kids they didnt it aint right not in front of kids it aint until the police turned her turned her out i dont suppose anything happened to her nobody cares what the proles say typical prole reaction they never—-
“Winston stopped writing, partly because he was suffering from cramp. He did not know what had made him pour out this stream of rubbish. But the curious thing was that while he was doing so a totally different memory had clarified itself in his mind, to the point where he almost felt equal to writing it down. It was, he now realized, because of this other incident that he had suddenly decided to come home and begin the diary today.
“It had happened that morning at the Ministry, if anything so nebulous could be said to happen.”
Now that Winston has written a horrendous account of loss of humanity, what BB has forbidden anyone to retain in memory, in fact has erased and had rewritten any evidences of humane ideation in all documents in the province… now that Winston has identified himself as ‘witness’ to inhumanity- on paper- the inhumanity of the many who’d already lost their minds, and the very few of the poor, who had kept their heartful and visionary minds… even as Winston himself is seeming ambivalent and calls the film and some of its most brutal shots, ‘good’ and ‘wonderful.’ Yet the act of writing it as it was, truly was, remains as a huge renegade act. It appears Winston is awakening through this subversive act, even though it shows evidence of his brainwashing by BB, calling the horrific, ‘good’ and ‘wonderful.’
But we shall see what happens next…
now that the other ‘incident’ that had occurred that day at the Ministry of Truth, was another crack in BB’s dark world from which a thin but pure stream of light poured through, an incident that set Winston off on a death-defying defiance that will grow more and more outrageous… as he tries to come back from the dead mind he’s been pounded down into that believes ‘nothing can be done to make things any different; we’ll just have to live with it all’… as he tries to swim away from the whirlpool which has normalized what ought never be allowed to be considered in any way ‘normal.’
To be continued…
Share This
“… then he was full of holes and the sea round him turned pink and he sank as suddenly as though the holes had let in the water, audience shouting with laughter when he sank. then you saw a lifeboat full of children with a helicopter hovering over it…”
Sept 2011, ABC News:
“CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer’s hypothetical question about whether an uninsured 30-year-old working man in coma should be treated prompted one of the most boisterous moments of audience participation in the CNN/Tea Party Express.
‘What he should do is whatever he wants to do and assume responsibility for himself,’ Paul responded, adding, ‘That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risk. This whole idea that you have to compare and take care of everybody…’
The audience erupted into cheers, cutting off the Congressman’s sentence.
After a pause, Blitzer followed up by asking ‘Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?” to which a small number of audience members shouted ‘Yeah!’”
Are we there yet?
Thank you Dr. E., and please continue
youre welcome Dorian, and your response is just what I was hoping to see more of… linking the phenoms in 1984 to our current culture ‘edge of the cliff’ realities. Your choices of that novelistic scene and the actual reality of audience jeering and cheering re a scenario of a desperate human …to link those together is stunningly right on. Thanks DdW
Here is one i will long remember.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ik4f1dRbP8&feature=player_embedded
“If you’re looking for a handout, you’re in the wrong part of town. Nothing for free. You have to work for everything you get,” one teabagger chided, bending over to get in the face of the seated older man. The next Tea Partier dropped a dollar in his face, saying, “Start a pot, I’ll pay for you. I’ll decide when to give you money,” in a mocking tone of voice. After some grumbling about “Communism,” an offscreen teabagger yelled, “No more handouts!”
I wonder Sparrow, when I see that, whathappened to the person’s humanity who is screeching in the face of another. I wonder especially what permission is given by falsehoods repeated over and over, to act less than human toward another human. I have a feeling it has something to do with preponderance of negative examples ever braodcast by many means, not just the free will of the actor. I’ve wondered about this for a long time: repetetive sitcoms and commercials ofpeople treating one another inhumanely. I wonder if that imprints. I think Marshall McLuhan may have said yes? your example of that jeering that Winston is writing about, but in real life, was an effective living example of what Orwell was writing toward showing.
I missed this when it happened and just read it today. The man that heckled makes public apology..
“He’s got every right to do what he did and some may say I did too, but what I did was shameful,” Reichert said. “I haven’t slept since that day.”
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2010/03/24/dollar-bill-throw.html
The man says he had never gone to a rally before and never will again…
The power of the collective is greater than the power of the individual, if the individual does not stand guard with his own integrity of being?
Have often sensed the power of this kind of fanaticism is amplified by the linked hatred of mind and fear of heart, as it becomes a force much greater than one individual…
” Where two or more are gathered in my name….” can be a transmission of hatred or grace?
We are not separate.
You want to see 1984 brought to life? Go to North Korea.
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/04/states_shush_corporate_critics/
http://fabiusmaximus.com/2012/04/04/37153/
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/mike-bloombergs-new-york-cops-in-your-hallways-20120403
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1895
http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2010/04/the-origins-of-the-next-crisis.html
http://www.economonitor.com/blog/2012/04/is-there-really-an-aggregate-demand-problem/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/the-two-documents-everyon_b_169813.html?
And finally:
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/07/27/12994571-chronicling-mitts-mendacity-vol-xxvii?lite
The last one is truly something Orwellian.
Thanks Clarissa,
For a typically poignant addition to your discussions about 1984 and the dangers of succumbing to a Totalitarian society.
The account of Winston’s impressions about a particularly graphic movie featuring the fear and anguish of refugees who are destroyed in horrifically violent ways, was very powerful and impressive. I use the word impressive mostly because such graphic portrayals unavoidably leave impressions on us all, regardless if they enhance or detract from our own political views of the world.
The fact that Orwell reveals even Winston referring to scenes of carnage by admiring a “wonderful shot of a child’s arm going up through the air,” is a great testimony to the way our society desensitizes children and adults, by using excessive portrayal of violence in movies and video games (for example) as routine and acceptable material. The fact that the audience laughed at the image of a fat man who is gruesomely shot to death during a desperate attempt to escape has a chilling effect. Such scenes are often offensive to us when they portray the horrors of war, but, not only are we expected to conform unquestionably to fight whatever wars our country wants us to (at least in times when the draft is invoked) we are also expected to approve of our leaders ideological justifications. The use of man’s inhumanity to man, as a vehicle for entertainment is also flourishing in america.
Whenever I witness the Jerry Springer show for more than ten consecutive seconds, I am repulsed by the way that poor angry, frightened and emotionally damaged people, are used to entertain a laughing, cheering crowd that finds their anger and violent outbursts SO amusing. On a lesser scale, shows like “The Biggest Loser,” which might actually offer some helpful awareness of problems related to obesity, seems geared to entertain us while cheering with apparent and virtuos moral support as we watch “courageous fatties” being subjected to boot camp-like workouts and allowing humiliating shots of their excess weight during weigh-in sessions. It is almost as if these scenes convey the message, that it is wonderful to pity fat people as they struggle valiantly to be worthy of admission to the human race.
Institutions and Bureaucratic organizations can also be fraught with power games and the fear of breaking the rules even slightly– those on lower rungs of the ladder are often afraid to assert their humanity out of fear that their superiors will terminate them.
A few years back I found myself at odds with a fitness program that operated in a local nursing home. This program was geared toward helping seniors like myself improve our physical health while socializing with our peers in a gymnasium-like workout area. I struggled very hard for several years to lose weight with a self-imposed boot camp mentality, and, eventually succeeded in losing more than 70 pounds. This was an important goal since I had recently suffered congestive heart failure and was, and still am, on a pill taking regimen including several necessary medications. Sadly, when I discovered that I began to sweat profusely, in a way that made workouts difficult to endure, the nursing home hired a new Administer who took over the facility. she quickly confiscated a small inexpensive table fan that a previous administrator had gladly allowed me to use.
To make a long story short, I appealed to an agency that totally bungled its investigation and sided with the facility! My own family doctor could not be reached for more than two weeks, and, even though, as a person on the facilities board of Directors, he could easily have stressed the importance of my health problems in regard to needing comfort and relief during work-outs, he refused to give me even a few seconds, of his time! The gym did have fans designed to alternate air flow through adjustable angle and oscillation settings, but, every effort I made to use these as they were intended, was met with fierce and punitive authority on the part of the new “boss.” Some of the employees who had frequently been very sociable and supportive to my wife and I, suddenly did the bosses bidding unquestioningly,and I was accusing of “abusing the staff,” just because I briefly lost my temper and swore at them. I didn’t consult the ADA people, because I was gullible enough to believe that the problem could be easily resolved through less extreme channels. Instead, employees dared not deviate in the least from the Administrator’s orders, and, eventually I was ejected from the program.
I know that this is hardly on the abusive scale of the society in 1984, but it has made me wonder why so many of us have difficulty in thinking for ourselves? Accordingly, my experience has made me aware that many State Agencies and advocacy groups really don’t give a damn about individuals–only that they can enjoy their job security by refusing to make waves.
Ms. Pinkola’s excellent articles brought my memory back to me what a wonderful and perceptive novel Mr. Orwell wrote, and, it may prove to be eerily prophetic if we don’t heed the writing on the wall,or, in excellent forums like this one!
Pete I am sorry that happened to you. And you are right “job security” can make some people cruel to the vulnerable, when their own taskmasters insist on not making adaptations for anyone (including the employees themselves, too.) On the other hand, just as a tiny bit of levity, man, you should be proud of being kicked out of a poorly run ‘unhealthy health program’ because you protested that they did not/would not make a simple accommodation for an elder. As a commissioner for Special Needs children and young adults in the Boy Scouts, we think about 81% of our people in this nation have a need for an accommodation of one kind or another. People with diabetes need to eat at certain times a day, people with medication needs need often to have bathroom access easily, people have physical access needs [as in stairs/ escalators/elevators/sidewalks, and others need to feel warm or cool re their conditions. People with special needs dont make a big deal about it in our district because those in charge do all they can to help before it even might become an issue, and that is, firstly, by asking each person (scoutmasters, volunteers, parents, kids) if they have any special need that we hope to help ease and accomodate to the best of our ability and resources. And the joint you were working out with should have done same, and given that it was a group of sharp elders, should have had a clause that said in effect, if your needs change medically or physically, at any time, let us know so we can help. Period. (It’s a health program; it’s supposed to be concerned with each person’s health who is in their program)
And I see your points about the film in 1984 and the teachings to scorn and ridicule others’ plights. And it is rampant in many ways and to many depths in our society, you are accurate. And hopefully we can keep pushing back against that by acting with care for others.
Dont give up on exercising and drinking lots of water if so indicated for you Pete. Hang in there.
Thanks for the encouraging words Clarissa!
What happened to me will never be forgotten because during that time I was dealing with many personal challenges. Not only had I just developed heart disease, but my wife, who is bi-polar, had suffered a severe manic and psychotic episode that had gone on for months, and I feared she would never recover. However, once she became aware that I had developed heart disease, her love for me was motivation enough for her to return to reality.
A few years earlier we were busy fighting a landlord’s attempt to evict us over, basically, an oven that she did not consider clean enough, and a carpet that we could not restore after living there for 5 and a half years. By State law, we were not considered responsible after that long amount of time–especially since the apt. was quite small. The landlady lied, cheated, and completely disillusioned my belief in justice. State agencies did little to help even though we provided them with photographic evidence and the testimony from many professional people who stood up for us. Eventually, after a year and a half, we won a small settlement– small basically because I had decided not to be greedy like her. The case had to be managed totally by us, and was a constant form of stress.
The incident at the nursing home fitness program was particularly hurtful, because the original administrator had gladly let me use a fan, and had said, “Pete, we don’t want to lose you,”–a wonderful warm and human thing to say!
Anyway, since I had never gotten over the incident which happened about seven years ago, I kept writing letters to authority figures involved in my disputes, and did so continually, about once a year, until 2011. I was careful to state my case clearly and without threats or profanity,and amazingly, last year one of the agencies we dealt with obtained a new Director, one who had read some of my earlier letters and–miracles of miracles–actually called and personally apologized to me! In today’s world, there are very few people working in bureaucratic positions that would have the guts and integrity to do that!
AS I said, this is nowhere near the level of repression and abuse suffered by Winston in 1984, but sometimes I think the entire transformation that creates a repressive state, out of one that was once formerly more egalitarian and Democratic, happens slowly and,at first, unnoticeably, as little bits of human dignity are discarded in favor of the false security promised by a power hungry State–or financial system.
The conventional response of most people is to rely on bits of accepted folk wisdom like, “life isn’t fair,” or “shit happens.” Certainly we are all disillusioned at certain times of our lives, but I think there are many instances in which we should not adhere to conventional wisdom–especially when that wisdom coaxes us to accept situations that really should not happen and desperately need to be confronted.
1984 is particularly poignant because its message conveys aspects of most societies that most of us can presently witness happening in our own, supposedly free, civilizations. Most people would accuse me of making mountains out of mole hills and would ask that I just accept that “shit happens.” However I believe it all begins with the little things that one deals with by deliberately looking the other way.
Perhaps America will never deteriorate to the level of Winston’s Big Brother and its he/she/or its, nightmarish State, but, thank God that writers like Orwell would not be quiet or indifferent about human freedom and dignity!
1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, as well as Animal Farm, are absolutely wonderful works of artful and relevant literature, and we should all make it a point to read them!
Thanks again for the response!