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Traveller wrote: "Karin wrote: "Haha! Yeah, that was a little surprising. Julia is embracing her "feminine" side. Orwell does seem to idealize the the "feminine." This was especially evident when Winston remembered ..."

Yes, I see what you mean! That part had me gritting my teeth as well! Ack!

Ruth wrote: "Traveller wrote: "Oh! I had completely forgotten that i had wanted to post this bit:

In some ways she was far more acute than Winston, and far less susceptible to Party propaganda. Once when he h..."

Yes, I think Orwell must have hinted at it previously. I think in Chapter 3, Winston claims the Party invented airplanes, even though he thinks he remembers airplanes before the Party. And Winston's entire job is about forging the past, so I think you're right, Orwell was planting little seeds all a long that the bominbgs--and that Goldstein and the Brotherhood are all fabrications.

Traveller wrote: "I must admit though, that one area in which i had found We a lot more feminist, shall we say, is that there the protagonist's love-object had been a real rebel; a real instigator of revolution, and..."

I really need to read WE. I'm going to put it on my reading list.

Yes, Julia can be confusing. It seems as if everyone in Winston's immediate world demonstrates a type of social-political schizophrenia, believing one thing and acting another. I think what is consistent about Julia is her pragmatism. For example, when the prole woman's singing reminds Winston of the bird he saw on the first day he and Julia met, he Julia that the bird was singing for them. However, Julia replies that the bird was just singing, nothing more.

I did find it troubling that she fell asleep when Winston tried to read her O'Brian's book, as if Julia is Winston's ally in preserving a bit of humanity against the Party, but not intellectually.

Traveller wrote: "I'm not sure if this is part of the callousness that others had been talking about, but -that- I find too much. I would not do that. Not for anything or anybody, unless it was to save the entire w..."

My kids are all crying so I better go, but I thought it was definitely appalling that Winston agreed so readily to do such horrible things. Winston and Julia have never really cared too much about other peoples' lives.

I wonder if they really understand the consequences of such horrific actions? Winston is so eager to believe O'Brian, it's almost pathetic. And Winsotn is so careless! I would have thought that Julia would have been a little more aware of Party tricks and ask Winston, what proof do you have that O'Brian is trustworthy?

I did find it notable that it was Julia who spoke up first that they would not be willing to separate. It seemed that Winston almost said "yes."

What did you guys think about the paperweight?

And no rush at all to start the Part 3 thread :)

Karin wrote: "I did find it troubling that she fell asleep when Winston tried to read her O'Brian's book, as if Julia is Winston's ally in preserving a bit of humanity against the Party, but not intellectually."

I found it troubling too, until I found myself snoozing through it. Hmmmm...

Karin wrote: "What did you guys think about the paperweight?"

I winced, almost a bit teary.

Haha! Ruth, that made me laugh. Yes; I admit I skimmed through that part quite rapidly as well! Maybe Julia's on to something ;)

Will comment more here soon, in the meantime, here is the thread for part 3: /topic/show/...

Ruth wrote: "Karin wrote: "I did find it troubling that she fell asleep when Winston tried to read her O'Brian's book, as if Julia is Winston's ally in preserving a bit of humanity against the Party, but not in..."

Well, actually I've also been snoozing trying to get through 'The Book"! :D

Interesting though that Orwell did seem to anticipate the Cold War:

But in a physical sense war involves very small numbers of people, mostly highly trained specialists, and causes comparatively few casualties. The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the vague frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at, or round the Floating Fortresses which guard strategic spots on the sea lanes.

..and yet he missed the target so completely when it comes to this: Secondly, there is no longer, in a material sense, anything to fight about. With the establishment of self-contained economies, in which production and consumption are geared to one another, the scramble for markets which was a main cause of previous wars has come to an end, while the competition for raw materials is no longer a matter of life and death.


Wow, he really didn't see the internet and globalization coming, big-time. But i suppose how could he have been expected to? Also, oil, resource depletion, etc.

Hmm, his review of the equalization of the world is quite racist,[EDIT: well, just the equatorial bit sounded a bit racist, but he kind of redeems that later on in The Book, so, scrap the racist label, I guess] and that is obviously what is wrong with it, but in many ways it was quite astute:

Ever since the end of the nineteenth century, the problem of what to do with the surplus of consumption goods has been latent in industrial society.

At present, when few human beings even have enough to eat, this problem is obviously not urgent, and it might not have become so, even if no artificial processes of destruction had been at work. The world of today is a bare, hungry, dilapidated place compared with the world that existed before 1914, and still more so if compared with the imaginary future to which the people of that period looked forward. In the early twentieth century, the vision of a future society unbelievably rich, leisured, orderly and efficient � a glittering antiseptic world of glass and steel and snow-white concrete � was part of the consciousness of nearly every literate person.

Science and technology were developing at a prodigious speed, and it seemed natural to assume that they would go on developing. This failed to happen, partly because of the impoverishment caused by a long series of wars and revolutions, partly because scientific and technical progress depended on the empirical habit of thought, which could not survive in a strictly regimented society.

As a whole the world is more primitive today than it was fifty years ago. Certain backward areas have advanced, and various devices, always in some way connected with warfare and police espionage, have been developed, but experiment and invention have largely stopped,

except that the first world is still fat and definitely not hungry.

Sadly this might also prove to be true:

To return to the agricultural past, as some thinkers about the beginning of the twentieth century dreamed of doing, was not a practicable solution. It conflicted with the tendency towards mechanisation which had become quasi-instinctive throughout almost the whole world, and moreover, any country which remained industrially backward was helpless in a military sense and was bound to be dominated, directly or indirectly, by its more advanced rivals.

Hmmm, so in the nature or nurture debate, he definitely believes that nurture is the deciding factor, since he believes that wealth and a positive environment would automatically make a population more intelligent.

Boy, would he be in for a rude shock if he could ever come back to earth!
But from what i have heard of communism, he is right in that it never really manages to abolish class distinctions. The members of the "Inner Party" remain just as privileged as the Aristocracy in a feudalist society, and the kings of capital in a capitalist society.

..so in reality, it has proved true that humanity's society will always be hierarchical, and it just happens naturally; it doesn't even have to be as forced as Orwell predicts. In fact, it proves to be the case despite efforts to equalize it...

....who was it who asked why it's okay for the proles to read porn and not the party members?

As The Book explains it:
What is concerned here is not the morale of the masses, whose attitude is unimportant so long as they are kept steadily at work, but the morale of the Party itself.

Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war.

His analysis of global stasis does show the racism of the time, but he seems to have a profound disregard to the possibility that finite resources such as the metals and fuels needed for warfare would eventually become depleted, and for the fact that resources unfortunately aren't exactly equally available over the globe, as if we were playing a strategy video game in which one of the conditions is that all the factions get to start with equal amounts of resources and equal sources for resources.

However, for all that, he did predict the Cold War very well, and also the prerequisite for war that the participants need to be kept from seeing one another as human beings. Orwell seems to have missed the fact though, that deep ideological rifts, such as we are right now experiencing between Middle-eastern and Western ideologies will fuel enough of a rift - that a physical rift is even less of a prerequisite for war than psychological and ideological rifts might prove to be. The Crusades, the Old Testament "purges" and the numerous civil wars that have almost always shaken the globe should have alerted him to this, and I feel surprised that it didn't.

Unfortunately he was spot on with this one:

The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim � for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives � is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal.

Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in its main outlines recurs over and over again. For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both.
They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High. Presently a new Middle group splits off from one of the other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins over again.

Of the three groups, only the Low are never even temporarily successful in achieving their aims.

It would be an exaggeration to say that throughout history there has been no progress of a material kind. Even today, in a period of decline, the average human being is physically better off than he was a few centuries ago.
But no advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimetre nearer. From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of their masters.

Ouch, some sharp criticism here; hurty but true:

The heirs of the French, English and American revolutions had partly believed in their own phrases about the rights of man, freedom of speech, equality before the law, and the like, and had even allowed their conduct to be influenced by them to some extent. But by the fourth decade of the twentieth century all the main currents of political thought were authoritarian. The earthly paradise had been discredited at exactly the moment when it became realisable.

Every new political theory, by whatever name it called itself, led back to hierarchy and regimentation. And in the general hardening of outlook that set in round about 1930, practices which had been long abandoned, in some cases for hundreds of years � imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages and the deportation of whole populations � not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.

Sigh, but then he misses the mark again here:

The new aristocracy was made up for the most part of bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organisers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists and professional politicians. These people, whose origins lay in the salaried middle class and the upper grades of the working class, had been shaped and brought together by the barren world of monopoly industry and centralised government. As compared with their opposite numbers in past ages, they were less avaricious, less tempted by luxury, hungrier for pure power, and, above all, more conscious of what they were doing and more intent on crushing opposition.

The above are just hired by the ruling classes. The real ruling classes are those who have the strongest competitive instincts, who are astute and single-minded and hungry enough for power and wealth to claw their way to the top. Once there, they pay politicians and publicity experts to help them manipulate the show.

Truly chilling though, are his comments as to why a modern totalitarian regime might succeed where similar non-democracies might have failed in the past: (and this is of course what has made the novel 1984 so famous):

Part of the reason for this was that in the past no government had the power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance. The invention of print, however, made it easier to manipulate public opinion, and the film and the radio carried the process further. With the development of television,[insert AND INTERNET]and the technical advance which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end.

Every citizen, or at least every citizen important enough to be worth watching, could be kept for twenty-four hours a day under the eyes of the police and in the sound of official propaganda, with all other channels of communication closed. The possibility of enforcing not only complete obedience to the will of the State, but complete uniformity of opinion on all subjects, now existed for the first time.

The words in bold were added by myself.

I suppose the whole point of this entire book is summarized in the following:

It had long been realised that the only secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism. Wealth and privilege are most easily defended when they are possessed jointly.
The so-called ‘abolition of private property� which took place in the middle years of the century meant, in effect, the concentration of property in far fewer hands than before: but with this difference, that the new owners were a group instead of a mass of individuals.

Individually, no member of the Party owns anything, except petty personal belongings. Collectively, the Party owns everything in Oceania, because it controls everything, and disposes of the products as it thinks fit.

In the years following the Revolution it was able to step into this commanding position almost unopposed, because the whole process was represented as an act of collectivisation. It had always been assumed that if the capitalist class were expropriated, Socialism must follow: and unquestionably the capitalists had been expropriated.

Factories, mines, land, houses, transport � everything had been taken away from them: and since these things were no longer private property, it followed that they must be public property. Ingsoc, which grew out of the earlier Socialist movement and inherited its phraseology, has in fact carried out the main item in the Socialist programme; with the result, foreseen and intended beforehand, that economic inequality has been made permanent.

But the problems of perpetuating a hierarchical society go deeper than this. There are only four ways in which a ruling group can fall from power. Either it is conquered from without, or it governs so inefficiently that the masses are stirred to revolt, or it allows a strong and discontented Middle group to come into being, or it loses its own self-confidence and willingness to govern. These causes do not operate singly, and as a rule all four of them are present in some degree. A ruling class which could guard against all of them would remain in power permanently.

Orwell does not seem to factor in the measure of how important initiative and motitavion is for a system to be economically successful.

Also, not having tasted really sophisticated consumer goods, i suppose he never thought of how goods could be diversified and still be in demand because of it's diversification and level of sophistication: like smartphones and PC's and million dollar motor cars etc etc.

So, although his political thought is quite astute, his economics isn't quite - but then it would have been extremely hard for a person born in 1908 to have foreseen the level of technical sophistication with regard to consumer goods that we have today. (Only my opinion, of course. Others may disagree)

Traveller wrote: "..and yet he missed the target so completely when it comes to this: Secondly, there is no longer, in a material sense, anything to fight about. With the establishment of self-contained economies,... Wow, he really didn't see the internet and globalization coming, big-time. But i suppose how could he have been expected to? Also, oil, resource depletion, etc. "

Well maybe he did see it coming... But that's the morality play at work again. IF you made the economies self-sufficient, then I wouldn't say there was "nothing" to fight about, because people always want more, but it's far easier to whip up support for a war when the other side has something you know you need.

"Orwell does not seem to factor in the measure of how important initiative and motitavion is for a system to be economically successful."

That doesn't follow. Oceania's economy, and one must assume Eurasia's and Eastasia's are a shambles. There are so many reasons for that that you can't say lack of initiative and motivation are the cause, but they're no doubt part of the problem.

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "That doesn't follow. Oceania's economy, and one must assume Eurasia's and Eastasia's are a shambles. There are so many reasons for that that you can't say lack of initiative and motivation are the cause, but they're no doubt part of the problem.."

I meant regarding all the places (I have come across at least 3 by now) where he says the powers that be want to get rid of excess production on purpose to keep the masses wanting.

Here is an example that i could find quickly:

The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously recognised and not recognised by the directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living. Ever since the end of the nineteenth century, the problem of what to do with the surplus of consumption goods has been latent in industrial society. At present, when few human beings even have enough to eat, this problem is obviously not urgent, and it might not have become so, even if no artificial processes of destruction had been at work. The world of today is a bare, hungry, dilapidated place compared with the world that existed before 1914, and still more so if compared with the imaginary future to which the people of that period looked forward.

I'll look for the other one I was thinking of as well.

EDIT: Hmm, okay, though re-reading,(I found the other example) I guess the REASONS why they are purposely restricting production and wealth, is to keep the masses stupid. However, once again this does not make sense from an economic POV. I'll have to go read up on my economic theory again; of course there is not consensus regarding economic theory and political economy, so i guess that would also depend on which school of thought you support.

There are so many variables that play a role.

Traveller wrote: "Hmmm, so in the nature or nurture debate, he definitely believes that nurture is the deciding factor, since he believes that wealth and a positive environment would automatically make a population more intelligent.

Boy, would he be in for a rude shock if he could ever come back to earth!"

I think he's 100% right. He doesn't say that being wealthy and well-fed will make you smart: just more intelligent. The science seems pretty good on that (not perfect, but indicative): similar ethnic populations in middle-class or poor neighborhoods show sharply different IQ scores.

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "I think he's 100% right. He doesn't say that being wealthy and well-fed will make you smart: just more intelligent. The science seems pretty good on that (not perfect, but indicative): similar ethnic populations in middle-class or poor neighborhoods show sharply different IQ scores."

I'm not disputing the statistic, but which was first, the chicken or the egg?

I suppose it also depends on how you define "intelligence".

What he says here is very true:

The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed.

Revolt always comes via instigation from the Middle; never from the bottom itself. Unless anyone can think of an example?

Traveller wrote: "I meant regarding all the places (I have come across at least 3 by now) where he says the powers that be want to get rid of excess production on purpose to keep the masses wanting."

I'm afraid I can't see what you're trying to say...

*Sigh* how long can this "The Book" really be?

Ooooorwwwweelllllll!!!!!! You can be glad you're dead and buried because you are torturing me with your never-ending Book, (Emmanuel Goldstein's "The Book") dooo youu hearrr me George, freaking Orwell?????

I do not blame Julia for falling asleep one whit, no, sirree, and if if i was Julia, i would have snored as well, and who knows, i might even have farted. Just to make it stop.

And here (yours truly) is a person who read Middlemarch from cover to cover, who read Foucault's Pendulum - every single word, who read War and Peace, who read Gone With the Wind a few times, who read Derrida, who read Michel Foucault, who read... *cry* okay, I did not make it through Gravity's Rainbow or Ulysess, so i must be a biiig wimp. *cry*

I felt the same way about Battlefield: Earth. The stupid thing just WOULD. NOT. END! Argh! Finally, it did, but I think I got my first grey hairs at the age of sixteen, just trying to get through the silly thing....

So, I can understand what you're going through. My sympathies!

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "I'm afraid I can't see what you're trying to say... .."

Yes, just scrap those original thoughts of mine about Orwell not foreseeing the sophistication of production, because i didn't think it through that the very point, according to Orwell, of keeping the masses needy and keeping them poor on purpose, is to keep them stupid enough not to revolt. But of course he is still wrong, because the very thing that in our Global capitalist system is keeping the masses happy is, conversely to what he seems to have believed, consumerism.
(I really must re-read Brave New World).

It's not very hard to manipulate people when you play to their greed. Yes they become envious of those that have more, but mostly, the need to have more, is what motivates them to work even harder for their capitalist slavemasters.

So, what I am saying, is that i think Orwell's "Masters" are making use of the wrong principles just as the Soviets did.

I don't think Stalin actually purposely caused famine though, and the idea of purposely suppressing production and agriculture to keep people poor, is to me one of Orwell's rather more quaint ideas.

I think that the Soviet union became poor because of the lack of freedom and initiative. I don't think they purposely caused poverty as Orwell suggests- it was just a natural result of the system.

But I could be wrong.

This sounds like the Chinese prefecture system from centuries past:

In principle, membership of these three groups is not hereditary. The child of Inner Party parents is in theory not born into the Inner Party. Admission to either branch of the Party is by examination, taken at the age of sixteen.

Oh, thank you Puddin. I assume you are refer to my little nervous breakdown a few posts up. I felt i was very brave to type the word fart, but I must tell you that bringing my feelings out into the open gave me great relief!

Don't feel bad about farting, Traveller, be it in writing or in actuality: everybody does it. :)

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: ""Orwell does not seem to factor in the measure of how important initiative and motitavion is for a system to be economically successful."

That doesn't follow. Oceania's economy, and one must assume Eurasia's and Eastasia's are a shambles. There are so many reasons for that that you can't say lack of initiative and motivation are the cause, but they're no doubt part of the problem. ."

Derek, in several places, Orwell says that the Outer Party and the proles are deliberately kept poor, and that "excess production" had to be curbed - according to "The Book" the easiest way to get rid of "excess production" is war.

Puddin Pointy-Toes wrote: "I felt the same way about Battlefield: Earth. The stupid thing just WOULD. NOT. END! Argh! Finally, it did, but I think I got my first grey hairs at the age of sixteen, just trying to get throug..."

Yeah, but Battlefield Earth WAS stupid. 1984 is considerably more thoughtful.

Just to make it clear, Puddin, i was talking about the book within a book which is Emmanuel Goldstein's "The Book."

Winston is reading The Book to poor old Julia, who is fobbing him off by turning her back on him and snoring away, and like a few of us have said - we're with Julia! :P

Oh! I see! Then it's more like Paul Duré's journal in Hyperion, isn't it? Except I actually found that one interesting... It did rather go on forever, though, and the person reading the journal to the other pilgrims (the awkwardly-pronounced Father Hoyt) is barely explored compared to this person who isn't even in the story otherwise.

So this is supposedly formally an Anarchy which managed to still have rules/control by bypassing the whole judicial process by simply having people who are potential threats "disappear", nay, un-exist.

He has no freedom of choice in any direction whatever. On the other hand his actions are not regulated by law or by any clearly formulated code of behaviour. In Oceania there is no law. Thoughts and actions which, when detected, mean certain death are not formally forbidden, and the endless purges, arrests, tortures, imprisonments and vaporisations are not inflicted as punishment for crimes which have actually been committed, but are merely the wiping-out of persons who might perhaps commit a crime at some time in the future.

That last bit reminded me of the film Minority Report.

Traveller wrote: "� the very point� of keeping the masses needy and keeping them poor on purpose, is to keep them stupid enough not to revolt. But of course he is still wrong, because the very thing that in our Global capitalist system is keeping the masses happy is, conversely to what he seems to have believed, consumerism."

I still don't think he's wrong. Do you really think consumerism can keep anybody happy? Consumerism is entirely based on making people unhappy! Your six-month old iPhone isn't good enough! You need a new car EVERY YEAR! One Barbie isn't enough; you need ten—and Ken, and the Dream Home, and... well, wth do I know about Barbies...

Traveller wrote: "I think that the Soviet union became poor because of the lack of freedom and initiative. I don't think they purposely caused poverty as Orwell suggests- it was just a natural result of the system."

OK, now I see your point, but still don't entirely agree. Lack of freedom and initiative is one part of the problem, but that didn't cause mass starvation. Stalin did that (possibly not deliberately, but I'm doubtful). It was an inevitable consequence of removing people from farms, putting people who didn't know anything about farming on farms, not building enough farm equipment, building farm equipment but providing no way to get it to farms, etc, etc.

I think Orwell has a good, and defensible, point, and just like the intelligence issue, it's not provable but history is highly indicative. Let's restart my sidetrack from Neverwhere! It's feudalism all over again. The English feudal system was collapsing way back in the Middle Ages. Cromwell's revolution put the final nail in the coffin, and even after the Restoration the feudal overlords were never again able to prevent the people having their democratic say. France's revolution was more abrupt, and despite Napoleon's interruption, equally effective. The Russian feudal system lasted right into the twentieth century, but no sooner had the Russian revolution overturned it, than the USSR put something nearly identical in place: and a feudal system is absolutely dependent on keeping the poor, poor.

As for intelligence:
“I'm not disputing the statistic, but which was first, the chicken or the egg?

I suppose it also depends on how you define "intelligence". �

It doesn't matter which comes first: whether poverty and a poor environment make you dumber, or wealth and a rich environment make you smarter. It's the gap that matters.

As for defining intelligence, that's why I said the science is "not perfect, but indicative". Nobody's ever managed to come up with a perfect definition of intelligence, let alone a perfect way to measure it. But study after study still suggest poverty damages it.

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "Traveller wrote: "� the very point� of keeping the masses needy and keeping them poor on purpose, is to keep them stupid enough not to revolt. But of course he is still wrong, because the very thin..."

I think we agree about more than we disagree, but what would i do without you, my... er... nemesis, Derek? :D
Thanks for couching the concepts in your own terms and for adding so much to my comments and observations.

<evil maniacal laugh>Heh! Heh! Heh!</evil maniacal laugh>

I've always wanted to be somebody's nemesis!

Traveller wrote: "The invention of print, however, made it easier to manipulate public opinion, and the film and the radio carried the process further. With the development of television,[insert AND INTERNET]and the technical advance which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end. "

Yep. You guys are way smarter than I am. In fact, the longer I explore Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ, the more I realize how hopelessly far behind I am in everything I want to read. If GR has a hierarchy, I am definitely on the lower rungs-- which brings up an interesting question: If Orwell were alive, how would he label Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ politically: utopian, capitalistic, communistic? ;).

I'm not sure Orwell is correct in thinking technology destroys privacy. I'm still thinking this out for myself, but in 1984, the telescreen "massifies" the people. Everyone watches the same channel and hears the same message from the government. But in 2015, the Internet and T.V. seems to depoliticize and privatize by keeping people indoors and isolated, right?

Also, Traveller brought up A Brave New World. Doesn't the dystopia in Brave New World seem more likely to happen than the dystopia in 1984? The whole "boot in the face" just seems a lot harder to maintain than hedonism? Maybe that's why Orwell set his story just 35 years into the future and Huxley set his story 500 years into the future :).

Oh, *yawn* I'm to exhausted to comment more, but will catch yopu guys again after a bit of shut-eye. Thnkzzzz for commenting, so glad to see your commentzzzzz Zzzzzz

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "I still don't think he's wrong. Do you really think consumerism can keep anybody happy? Consumerism is entirely based on making people unhappy! Your six-month old iPhone isn't good enough! You need a new car EVERY YEAR! One Barbie isn't enough; you need ten—and Ken, and the Dream Home, and... well, wth do I know about Barbies....."

Exactly! They always want more, are willing to consume more, and are willing to work more and harder in order to buy more and consume more. And this very fact keeps the Capitalist Masters rich and powerful. But the same principle won't work for the Socialist Masters, because their proletariat are not allowed to own anything; and so Orwell's INGSOC has to make use of elaborate mind-control techniques where they could have simply harnessed greed to their purposes instead.

Regarding Stalin, yes of course, I did say so - you're repeating what i said just in slightly other words- but my point was in Orwell's world the de-agrciculturalization was done on purpose and in Stalin's case, he was just (in my opinion) being an idiot.

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: " It's feudalism all over again. The English feudal system was collapsing way back in the Middle Ages. Cromwell's revolution put the final nail in the coffin, and even after the Restoration the feudal overlords were never again able to prevent the people having their democratic say. France's revolution was more abrupt, and despite Napoleon's interruption, equally effective. The Russian feudal system lasted right into the twentieth century, but no sooner had the Russian revolution overturned it, than the USSR put something nearly identical in place: and a feudal system is absolutely dependent on keeping the poor, poor. ..."

Well, of course we agree about what Orwell had said about the 3 groups: please see my Post 69, and i would urge you perhaps to re-read the bit where Winston goes back to Chapter 1 of the book - I have quoted some of it above already:

He propped the book against his knees and began reading: Chapter I. Ignorance is Strength. Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other. ‘Julia, are you awake?� said Winston. ‘Yes, my love, I’m listening. Go on. It’s marvellous.� He continued reading: The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim � for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives � is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal. Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in its main outlines recurs over and over again. For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High. Presently a new Middle group splits off from one of the other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins over again. Of the three groups, only the Low are never even temporarily successful in achieving their aims. It would be an exaggeration to say that throughout history there has been no progress of a material kind. Even today, in a period of decline, the average human being is physically better off than he was a few centuries ago. But no advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimetre nearer. From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of their masters. By the late nineteenth century the recurrence of this pattern had become obvious to many observers. There then arose schools of thinkers who interpreted history as a cyclical process and claimed to show that inequality was the unalterable law of human life. This doctrine, of course, had always had its adherents, but in the manner in which it was now put forward there was a significant change. In the past the need for a hierarchical form of society had been the doctrine specifically of the High. It had been preached by kings and aristocrats and by the priests, lawyers and the like who were parasitical upon them, and it had generally been softened by promises of compensation in an imaginary world beyond the grave. The Middle, so long as it was struggling for power, had always made use of such terms as freedom, justice and fraternity. Now, however, the concept of human brotherhood began to be assailed by people who were not yet in positions of command, but merely hoped to be so before long. In the past the Middle had made revolutions under the banner of equality, and then had established a fresh tyranny as soon as the old one was overthrown. The new Middle groups in effect proclaimed their tyranny beforehand. Socialism, a theory which appeared in the early nineteenth century and was the last link in a chain of thought stretching back to the slave rebellions of antiquity, was still deeply infected by the Utopianism of past ages. But in each variant of Socialism that appeared from about 1900 onwards the aim of establishing liberty and equality was more and more openly abandoned. The new movements which appeared in the middle years of the century, Ingsoc in Oceania, Neo-Bolshevism in Eurasia, Death-Worship, as it is commonly called, in Eastasia, had the conscious aim of perpetuating unfreedom and inequality. These new movements, of course, grew out of the old ones and tended to keep their names and pay lip-service to their ideology. But the purpose of all of them was to arrest progress and freeze history at a chosen moment. The familiar pendulum swing was to happen once more, and then stop. As usual, the High were to be turned out by the Middle, who would then become the High; but this time, by conscious strategy, the High would be able to maintain their position permanently.

I do want to point out though, that this is not feudalism, since feudalism presupposes landholding and is arranged around the concept of landowners and their vassals. The power structures are the same as it tends to be in a feudal system, i agree with that and you'll see i already agreed with it in posts 69 and 73. Yes, but you cannot actually call it feudalism, because it isn't feudalism.

Btw, as you will remember, Catherynne M. Valente pointed this continuing power structure out very poignantly in her novel Deathless.

Karin wrote: "I'm not sure Orwell is correct in thinking technology destroys privacy. I'm still thinking this out for myself, but in 1984, the telescreen "massifies" the people. Everyone watches the same channel and hears the same message from the government. But in 2015, the Internet and T.V. seems to depoliticize and privatize by keeping people indoors and isolated, right? ..."

Phew, Karin, and there have been so many debates in the past few years around the increasing intrusions of privacy that corporations like Google and the CIA and Facebook etc has been perpetrating by basically invading our computers and recording our patterns, our purchases, our conversations - they even have your location pinpointed to within a few meters on your PC and on your tablet and your mobile phone.

I'm slightly puzzled as to how TV and especially the internet isolates? Maybe the internet isolates to the extent that we focus on our screens more than people used to do, but I certainly feel a lot more connected with it; I am connected to millions of people all over the world via this wonderful device that i am talking to you with right now.

Also, depoliticize? I am afraid you are going to need to explain that to me. I honestly don't understand what you mean by that? You feel that T.V. and the internet has depoliticized things? In which way, if I may ask?

Traveller wrote: "Yes, but you cannot actually call it feudalism, because it isn't feudalism."

Aw, c'mon! There's no need to ruin a perfectly good argument with facts. Yes, I know it's not really feudalism, but it's awfully close. In any case, of course there's landholding! In Stalinist Russia, the "People" owned the land. Which meant Stalin. And Stalin in essence parcelled it out in a very feudalish system. In 1984 we don't know much about the landholding, but we do know the People, that is Big Brother, own it all.

Now, I realize there's a lot of the USSR's power structure (and most of 1984's) that involved fiefs that do not involve actual land, but I don't think that really changes its feudal nature.

I agree with a lot of what Karin says, and the social scientists are always on about the fact that while the Internet makes us all feel more connected, it's actually isolating us. otoh, those of us like me who would be isolated without it (I'm miles from civilization, and we've just had a major winter storm) are definitely more connected.

But isolation is not the same as privacy. Right now, the NSA has the ability to collect every single packet that moves across the US—which is still a majority of all the traffic on the Internet—and not only do they have the ability, but they actually DO collect a huge amount of it.

I'm not sure about politicization. The Internet gives fringe groups ways to attract members, so I feel it's more politicized at the edges, but shear volume makes it hard for people of more mainstream political thought to get a message across, and we see more and more evidence that we, as individuals, don't matter to the mainstream political parties. So, I think I'd agree that the Internet has helped depoliticize the majority.

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "Traveller wrote: "Yes, but you cannot actually call it feudalism, because it isn't feudalism."

Aw, c'mon! There's no need to ruin a perfectly good argument with facts. Yes, I know it's not really ..."

Well, I agree with all of that, as already mentioned, but I still wouldn't call it feudalism. Sure, it's LIKE feudalism, but let's keep our terminology pure, my nemesis! @-@


Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "I agree with a lot of what Karin says, and the social scientists are always on about the fact that while the Internet makes us all feel more connected, it's actually isolating us. otoh, those of u..."

Well, i would have been a lot lonelier without the internet. Without the internet, i would have spent a LOT more time on solitary pursuits like working, video gaming and reading, and i know for a fact that i can speak for many other introverts who would have been a lot lot lonelier and less connected and literally more isolated without the internet.

The politicization/depoliticization debate would probably need a thread of it's own. I'd like to hear Karin's take on it, but for now I'm going to defer myself entering that debate to later when i have a bit more time.

Traveller wrote: "They always want more, are willing to consume more, and are willing to work more and harder in order to buy more and consume more. And this very fact keeps the Capitalist Masters rich and powerful. But the same principle won't work for the Socialist Masters, because their proletariat are not allowed to own anything; and so Orwell's INGSOC has to make use of elaborate mind-control techniques where they could have simply harnessed greed to their purposes instead"

I still don't agree. Consumerism certainly makes the Capitalist Masters rich and powerful¹, but in itself it doesn't make it possible to control the populace. To actually achieve control, modern states still have to resort to the same sort of things that Orwell describes.

¹Though, despite all the talk of the 1%, I really wonder how much richer or more powerful the 1% are today than a hundred years ago. I once pointed out to my wife that if we had the relative wealth in 1900 that we actually had a hundred years later (these, days, we're sadly diminished :-) ), we'd have had a couple of servants. Even O'Brien has at least one. The 1% would have huge numbers of them. The modern rich generally don't go in for servants on that scale.

They don't need servants at large scale when the servants have modern machinery.

"...hereditary aristocracies have always been shortlived, whereas adoptive organizations such as the Catholic Church have sometimes lasted hundreds or thousands of years."

He hit the nail on the head, here (though I'd have omitted the "hundreds"—lots of hereditary aristocracies have lasted hundreds of years, but I doubt even any of the Chinese dynasties have lasted as long as the Catholic Church).

I was going to start a separate post, but now I realize these points are connected.

"All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour."

This seemed pretty clever. Yes, sex is the primal instinct, and it does seem you could do some pretty amazing/awful things if you could subvert an entire population's sex drive. Until I started to write this I was thinking it was rather self-defeating, as they need to keep enough sex to keep producing party members. But they don't! If Party numbers drop far enough, you just adopt a few more proles. If anything, the Party seems to have specifically co-opted the Catholic church's dogma here.

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "I still don't agree. Consumerism certainly makes the Capitalist Masters rich and powerful¹, but in itself it doesn't make it possible to control the populace. To actually achieve control, modern states still have to resort to the same sort of things that Orwell describes..."

Derek, Derek Derek, is my nemesis starting to grasp at straws in order to disagree because we don't disagree enough? :D
Nope, i never said it can be used to control them. That is what propaganda and similar forms of mass control is for. What they tend to call "Marketing" and PR these days. And there is of course still propaganda, but it doesn't like to be called by that name.

In any case, I was about to sort of come full circle with my very first post, regarding Doublethink and the three (now four) ministries: here at the end of part three, we get:
The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink. For it is only by reconciling contradictions that power can be retained indefinitely. In no other way could the ancient cycle be broken. If human equality is to be for ever averted � if the High, as we have called them, are to keep their places permanently � then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity.

Just before that, he describes crimestop, whiteblack and doublethink.

We use terms like "cognitive dissonance" and "compartmentalization" for situations where we know something cannot really be true (Most often religious or political situations, in which case we tend to have crowds who 'believe' with us to help us believe the unbelievable. ) Other situations can be when a child is told things by a parent or teacher - because a child is impressionable and has a limited frame of reference, they will tend to believe what to an adult would seem obviously "unbelievable".

Traveller wrote: "Derek, Derek Derek, is my nemesis starting to grasp at straws in order to disagree because we don't disagree enough? :D
Nope, i never said it can be used to control them. "

Not at all. My point is that being rich and powerful isn't enough for the Party. They need to be in complete control.