by George Orwell

This is a book that I’ve wanted to read for quite some time but only got around to recently. It has been constantly mentioned by people when referring to how things are with people saying, “Hur dur dur, it’s just like 1984!” I was always highly skeptical of such claims, but having not read the book, I couldn’t confirm anything. Now, though, it’s easy to see when such claims are tenuous and when they may have a point.

The story follows a man named Winston Smith who lives in England. However, it hasn’t been called that since a revolution decades earlier. Now it is known as Oceania, and it is a terrible, totalitarian place ruled by a group simply known as The Party. They watch and listen to everything that the citizenry do, checking for the slightest sign of someone stepping out of line. When that happens, the Thought Police sweep in and take those people to the Ministry of Love where all sorts of horrors await (lots of torture).

On top of this, The Party controls all information under the credo that whoever controls the past controls the future, and whoever controls the present controls the past. With that, propaganda is rife, as the Party goes out of its way to present its reality to Oceania. They have went so far as to create the Ministry of Truth, which constantly edits and re-edits old newspaper articles, books, movies, plays, music and so forth to bring past happenings within the country in line with whatever the current goals of the Party are. The ministry makes sure that it looks like whatever the Party declares at any given time was always that way throughout history. If it looks like Big Brother, the face of the party has contradicted himself, the ministry changes all records to look as though he always said that and everything is consistent with his plans.

In some ways, this feels similar to the stories one hears about how horrible it is in North Korea or in the Soviet Union where information was tightly controlled and a secret police force was constantly watching citizens. This is something that a lot of people focus on, and it’s a terrible, scary thing. Personally, if I was going to worry about this sort of thing, it would be more how corporations use surveillance to gather data on people. There are so many stories of Alexa’s just sitting in people’s houses recording what’s going on, or how smart phones can track where people go on a given day. Of course, companies can and will give the information to governments when it is demanded. 1984 also cautions readers about a cult of personality surrounding a leader, in this case Big Brother, who everyone are expected to shower adulation upon. While not of the same scale, it’s certainly been on the rise in our world over the last decade or two, for example the following someone like Donald Trump garnered. There are plenty of other examples on both sides of the political divide, but he has been the biggest by far over the last five years. With the massive PR wing that many politicians have to prop themselves up, cults of personality have become increasingly common in the political realm.

With the terrible state of the world, Winston eventually gets to thinking about how to overthrow the Party. He wonders if things were better in the past. Given that he works at the Ministry of Truth, changing old records, he has plenty of reason to be skeptical. Readers can easily tell that such a thing is doomed from the start, given the power of the Party, but the journey gives a lot of insights into the state of the world.

That being said, there’s always the question of how reliable all of this information is. Is Oceania really at war with Eastasia and / or Eurasia? Is the world really divided into three equally terrible super states? The Party is presenting its own truth. For all we know, the UK could be an isolated totalitarian regime similar to North Korea, and the rest of the world has just moved on, not sure how to deal with what’s going on there. Then again, maybe it’s all really happening. There’s no way to know for sure. Oceania lives in a world of “Doublethink” where people are expected to accept lies as truth and not even think of it as a lie. If the party says 2+2=5 people must accept it as fact without question. It shouldn’t even occur to them to question such claims. As such, there’s always the question of what information in the book is actually true.

At one point in the story, Winston gets a hold of a book that was allegedly written by the leader of a resistance group known as the Brotherhood. It contains all of their observations of the world, everything wrong with it, and how things came to be like that. Again, it’s quite possible that there is no truth to anything written in it. The book could actually be a big ‘ol honey trap created by the Thought Police. However, I’m inclined to believe that, if nothing else, it is a bit of a world building mechanism created by Orwell to paint a picture of a horrific world, and the tragic events / shortcomings of human nature that made things that way.

The book describes the steady decline of humanity in the first half of the 20th century. There were a series of wars both the sort that pitted nation against nation, as well as civil wars. Things got worse and worse as various factions fought for control. The truly disturbing part isn’t even that the world has become like this, but rather why it became this way: preservation of a power hierarchy.

By this, the logic is that society is divided into the Low, Middle, and High. The High are a small group comprising the ruling class, while the Middles are a reasonably affluent middle class that sometimes fights the High for control, becoming the new High, consequently adjusting the social order at the upper end of the spectrum. The Low are the great masses of the working class. They stay where they are and are looked down upon by the other two groups. At most, the Middle manipulates the Low as a useful tool when they need the numbers to overtake the High. They’ll make beautiful promises of freedom and liberty to the Low in exchange for their help. However, once the Middle achieves their goal of becoming the new high, they kick the Low to the curb and do nothing for them.

According to the Brotherhood, this was the way of things for hundreds if not thousands of years. However, things looked to be changing. The Industrial Revolution brought new machines which produced goods much more quickly, in very high quantity. New technology was bringing with it a promise of plenty. In the past, the Low had to toil all day just to survive. They were so busy trying to put food on the table, and keep a roof over their head that they didn’t have time to think about anything else. This new technology would produce enough that the Low wouldn’t need to worry about such things anymore. It would free up their time for other things, like educating themselves.

This greatly bothered the Middle and the High, not so much because it would bring a level of wealth to the Low, but because once they educate themselves, they would be smart enough to know just how much of a raw deal they’ve had over the centuries. Once this happens, there would be a very high likelihood that the Low would try to push the Middle and the High out of power, creating a world where intellect dictated who made it into decision making positions, rather than being born into a privileged class.

The High and Middle were so put off by this that they were willing to plunge the world into a dreadful state in order to preserve some form of power hierarchy. All of the excess production created by these new machines was reallocated to a never ending war between the three super states. The Party believed it better to destroy all excess production rather than let it benefit the Low in any way shape or form. The Party furthers this line of thought, prioritizing power over all else. It is divided between an inner and outer portion. The inner part is where all of the decisions are made, while the outer executes them. There is no heredity in the Inner Party. If there are spaces available and an Outer Party member looks promising, they will be elevated to the Inner Party. If an Inner Party member doesn’t pass muster, they’ll be demoted to the Outer Party. In this way, a sort of Middle and High continues to exist, but it all revolves around maintaining a power hierarchy. The Low are represented by the Proles, which the party looks down on. The Proles have no hope of ever joining either part of the Party. They are not welcome. They just eek out an existence doing jobs that benefit the Party (although 1984 never explains what they actual do for work). Nevertheless, the Proles seem the most happy and most human out of anyone in Oceania. Generally, the Party leaves them alone, and will only go after individuals who outright want rebellion, but this is extremely rare since the Proles seem perfectly fine with just getting on with their day-to-day routine. Between family and work they seem pretty content despite the dystopia they live in.

It does get me wondering if 1984 could be viewed as a cautionary tale for post-scarcity societies. We’re once again having this discussion now as automation becomes increasingly common. It should relieve people of a lot of tedious work be it manual labour, or soul-crushingly dull office jobs. A leisure society where people can just learn and pursue their passions sounds like quite the utopia. However, are there enough shitty people actually out there that they would happily burn all of this down because they hate the idea of the lower classes becoming educated, and eventually their equals? I hope not, but then again I’ve met my fair share of shitty people, so who knows.

Looking at the characters, they felt more like vehicles to take the reader through the world of Oceania. They acted more as windows into the wretched state of things under a totalitarian regime like the Party. About the only thing that stood out to me about Winston was that he seemed to have a fatalistic streak to him. He often did needlessly risky things that surely would get the attention of the Thought Police, like when he went into a prole district in search of an old man in hopes of learning what the world was like before the revolution, or when he started taking Julia to that loft in the city to hang out despite all of their previous rendezvous being meticulously planned out to avoid detection. He also seemed to revel in the thought of getting caught one day, especially when O’Brien gave his address so that Winston could get a copy of the Brotherhood’s book.

On the whole, it was nice to finally read 1984. It’s a book that gets mentioned a lot with some people being genuine in discussing its implications, while others are clearly being manipulative. While it’s a clear warning of the dangers of totalitarianism that can border on doom porn at times, what will always impact me the most is why the world became that way more than anything. The last thing I want are for people to be so hell bent on power, that they’ll destroy huge portions of the population’s chance at equality in order to maintain theirs. Anyway, this book was quite enjoyable. I really do recommend people read it themselves and develop their own opinion. With a book like 1984, the worst thing one can do is let others tell you what to think about it.

Pennywhether

pennywhether@posteo.net

(April 30, 2021)