WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Winston Smith, or more properly 6079 SMITH, W, lives in London, the capitol city of Airstrip One, used to be England but that was before the Party, before INGSOC. London is part of Oceania, one of the three mega-states that rule Earth in the year 1984. Oceania is at war with Eastasia. It has always been at war with Eastasia and always will be, any memories Winston may have to the contrary are... Crimethink. Crimethink, the Newspeak term for Thought Crime is really the only crime any more, but it's enough. Winston is a member of the Outer Party with a job at the Ministry of Truth correcting the past and thus has more reason to fear the consequences of Thought Crime than a run-of-the-mill prole. Those consequences are imposed by the Thought Police, a branch of the Ministry of Love (the KGB and the Gestapo perfected). Everywhere in Oceania there are the telescreens, these are like TV sets (flat panel, even...ooh...ahh...), with a difference, in addition to providing shrill, boring propaganda, they watch you. (Oh, there's no turning them off either, sorry.)

"1984" is the story of Winston's descent into the slough of Thought Crime and his subsequent "redemption" in the eyes of the Party. The Party (no other name) runs Oceania. The ruler of the Party is Big Brother. Big Brother (also no other name) looks a lot like Stalin. Big Brother is philosopher, strategist, planner, and all-father. He is also wrathful avenger and all-seeing watcher. Big Brother is the closest thing Oceania has to God.

Among his very first sins against Party was inscribing the words "Down with Big Brother" over and over in his (forbidden) diary. Doesn't get any worse than that.

But, wait! It turns out Winston isn't the only person in Oceania who isn't a fan of Big Brother, perhaps things aren't so grim after. Or... perhaps not.

George Orwell completed "1984" in 1948 (the title was a last minute, writer's block thing, I've read, finally solved with transposing "48" to "84"). At the time, even though the mini-totalitarianism of Nazi Germany had been defeated, the mega-totalitarianism of the Soviet Union was still there to be grappled with. The feeling that centralized political-economic planning was the the only reasonable blueprint for the future was still very much the vogue in the circles on the intellectual communities of the West. (Still is in many places...) Orwell was, I have read (and as some of the parts of "1984" make plain), something of a socialist. However he had a visceral loathing of totalitarian systems specifically Nazi National Socialism and Soviet/Chinese Marxist/Leninism. Another of his works "Animal Farm" was a rather funny satire of the first three decades or so of the Soviet Union's history. "1984" is in the same vein, except no pigs, or humor.

This book is a member of a sub-genera of works called "Dystopias" This is a riff on Sir Thomas Moore's "Utopia". Where a Utopian story tells the tale of things as they should be, at least in the author's mind, dystopic visions are the opposite end of the spectrum, visions of how bad things could be and frequently how bad the author thinks are going to get. "Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World " is the grand-daddy of these stories. "1984", however, is the one everybody thinks of first.

"1984" is a frightening book in many ways. In 1948 the concept of TV was novel and the idea of a TV that can watch you was pure moonshine, not any more (webcams, anyone?). Orwell's approach was basically to extrapolate Soviet/Chinese Marxism from where it stood in 1948, assuming that a similar regime would be installed in the US/South American zone of influence. Eurasia is obviously the Soviet Union after a successful conquest of Europe (except for the UK) and Eastasia a similar Chinese super-state. He also assumed a certain advancement of technology allowing a surveillance society creepily similar to what we are seeing come to pass today, without any of the defenses which we have access to (scant as they may be.) As one of the Party slogans says: "Big Brother is Watching You." Always.

"1984" is a thin book but not an especially easy one to read. Much of the material is rather pedantic. Orwell, or at least his characters, believe the Party's slogans as Orwell explains. He does this through the device of "The Book". A forbidden book written by Emmanuel Goldstein, a former compatriot of Big Brother who is now the Party's most fervent and dangerous enemy. Orwell "excerpts" "The Book" at some length.

WAR IS PEACE

In previous times, before the Party, wars were fought for territorial or political gain. In previous times armies tried to control territory and destroy the enemy's will to continue fighting. In previous times, wars eventually came to an end. This is now completely changed. In order to maintain the permanent state of deprivation and chaos the Party needs to prosper war must never end, the products of economy must be used up without benefit to the people. Eternal war serves this purpose. War is peace, the distinction is non-existent.

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

Or more to the point "Slavery is Freedom". The Party knows all, provides all, plans all. If you subordinate your will to the omnipotent thought of Big Brother you will never need to agonize over any decision. In slavery, you will discover the only freedom available.

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

"Ignorance" here is not simply the absence of knowledge or information but the annihilation of any possibility of true knowledge. This is the philosophical kernel of "1984". The Party seeks nothing less that the total control of the thoughts of it's subjects. This does not simply mean the expressed thoughts manifested in written and oral ways but the very thoughts inside the brains of the people. The Party controls the past through constant revision of libraries and newspaper archives. It watches all its members for the slightest deviation from what-is-expected. Anyone detected committing Thought Crime, no matter how trivial is arrested and, in Party jargon, vaporized. The Party is even striving to make thought crime impossible by denying it the linguistic tools to exist. This is done through the creation of Newspeak, an official Party language, which is born in the destruction of words. Why have "good" and "bad" when you can have "Good" and Ungood"? The entire real effort of Oceania is set toward the goal of destroying any possibility of ideological deviation in the Party.

The main distinction Orwell draws between Big Brother's INGSOC (Engligh Socialism, the official monicker of the Party's philosophy) and the oligarchies of the past is the destruction of the individual self. Whereas former tyrannies were operated for the benefit of a small coterie of individuals, perfected tyranny seeks power for its own sake. The Party is an organism in it's own right, it's individual members mere cells possessing no more individuality than a red blood cell. Even senior members of the Inner Party, like Winston's boss O'Brien, cannot rest comfortably despite their nominal perks. Individuals, even important ones have no relevancy outside their usefulness to the Party's goals.

Orwell's work is undisputably brilliant but not an especial pleasure to read. It is a dismal, dark work with very little humor or uplifting relief of any sort. One those rare occasions where a ray of light blinks through the cloud cover it is quickly strangled by a blast of smog from the direction of the Ministry of Love. Another issue some readers may have with "1984" is it's often pedantic tone. Great swaths of the book are devoted to explaining the organization of society in Oceania Orwell also "quotes" at length from Goldstein's evil book. This book is basically a Political Science textbook explaining the structure and Philosophy of INGSOC. It is a well-written Polly-Sci book but a Polly-Sci book nevertheless (it's title is "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Socialism", does that stir your blood, or what?). It doesn't exactly move the plot along like the car chase from "Ronin".

It isn't likely that Orwell's goal was to write an exciting story. Cautionary tales like "1984" must, of necessity, take an instructive tone. Orwell is showing us the end of the road that begins with Lenin, Hitler, Marx and Stalin (and Mao, and Pol Pot, and so on...). The end of the road to a hopeless extinction of the individual human soul. The road to hell. This isn't always congruent with telling a whopping good tale.

This isn't to say things are all dry instruction here. Orwell draws his dark pictures with great skill. He even dabbles with Philip K. Dick style questions of memory and consciousness, at times it seems that Winston's Thought Police tormentors have actual access to his thoughts and dreams. This is one of the creepier aspects of the book. "1984" can also be considered the father of the modern Dystopian story. Think THX-1138 or "Rollerbal" or "Logan's Run"
Despite it's age, "1984" still packs a hefty predictive and analytic punch. No study of the Soviet Union is complete without reading Orwell's incisive critiques in "1984" and "Animal Farm." One insight I have found especially interesting is the observation that totalitarian tyrannies require a constant state of war (or at least crisis) to flourish. One area where I diverge from Orwell's analysis is in the area of economics as laid out in Goldstein's "Book". Orwell describes the need of states like Oceania to consume the products of technological industry without these products benefiting the population. He says, through Goldstein's voice, that while the Party could simply erect pyramids to Big Brother or dig holes in the ground in fill them back in, a la "Cool Hand Luke". However, he opines, the most effective way to accomplish this goal is warfare. While I agree that war is very effective at grinding up the fruits of industry with little or no gain, Orwell's statements sound suspiciously like the waterhead Marxist Surplus Production/Surplus Value theories that the disastrous record of economic failure in the Soviet Union and elsewhere has pretty soundly disproved. I understand Orwell was something of a socialist and probably believed this Marxist/Keynesian pap. Except for the general feeling of inevitability concerning the victory of INGSOC-like systems over the values of the West, which I guess was dogmatically accepted by European socialists at the time I don't know how much Orwell's politics affect the story of "1984." I remember thinking a long time ago that Oceania couldn't really last much longer, it's falling apart at the seams. I remember having the same thought after reading Hedrick Smith's "The Russians", at that time (maybe 1980), I gave the USSR fifty years, tops. I was off a little bit but I was right. I know that Orwell thought the Party could manage the constant scarcity for it's own ends but as life had gone on I have become less and less enchanted with the ability of governments to manage anything, even failure and scarcity.

A quick word on the official language of Oceania, Newspeak. No part of this book has had more effect on modern culture than the ugly, clipped, jargon-burdened Newspeak. Newspeak is designed to evolve, devolve really, into a means of communication that will make Thought Crime impossible. The central concept of Newspeak is Doublethink. The ability to passionately hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time. This is an essential skill for living under Big Brother's reign. Every Newspeak word thus ideally, embodies two contradictory meanings, which have the effect of canceling each other. Newspeak is a language about nothing. Among the Newspeak words that have leached into proper English (Oldspeak) are "Newspeak" itself (and an extrapolated word Fed-Speak), "Doublethink", "Memory Hole" and "Thought Crime." My favorite Newspeak word is "Duckspeaker", one who's speech is like a quacking duck. Turn on C-SPAN, you'll see plenty of these guys. As always, "Duckspeak" is both good and bad. The antique edition of the book I have has an appendix where Orwell explains the intellectual underpinnings of Newspeak at length. It isn't 100% necessary to read this if it appears in your book. (Actually it might do to read it first...)

"1984" may be more than a half-century old but it still has a great deal to say to the present and future. The surveillance society Orwell sketched out is now nothing but an engineering problem. The computer tracking intelligence fusion, and data mining technology that Orwell couldn't have conceived in 1948 is now a reality. The Thought Police now watch us from the ceiling and checkouts at Wal-Mart and from every third light pole in some cities. Read "1984" and think about it before you decide that it "can't happen here." (For Hollywood's treatment of the surveillance society see this film.

Recommended: Yes