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1984: The novel

FinnMacCool

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Has anyone read this book? I was blown away by it. It's such a powerful book from start to finish. It seemed very pessimistic but I understand that this book is almost a warning to us and it is so masterfully and beautifully done and it left me with twice as many questions then answers. such a wonderful book but also a bit frighteneing and a bit sad. So many emotions. So very beautiful. Has anyone else read this wonderful book?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
Heres a link in case you never heard of it:

Oh yeah it also inspired me to get this new signature
 
Oh I've read the book... And of course, being from Massachusetts, my wonderfully biased teacher made sure to get into how the Patriot Act is Big Brother in our lives. We were indoctrinated with liberal rants by writing papers about this and discussing it in class. Everyone begins looking out for Big Brother at their every move. It was pathetic. America has little to worry about... assuming we retain our soveriegnty and aren't conquered by some other country... we will never have an extensive Big Brother watching us. The Revolutionary spirit, I think, still exists today in our country. I don't think Americans would stand for a Big Brother government... I'm quite confident we would take up arms and revolt. If anyone wants to install a Big Brother... its the liberals who oppose the 2nd Amendment. With the 2nd at every American's disposal, 1984 will never be a reality.
 
FinnMacCool said:
Has anyone read this book? I was blown away by it. It's such a powerful book from start to finish. It seemed very pessimistic but I understand that this book is almost a warning to us and it is so masterfully and beautifully done and it left me with twice as many questions then answers. such a wonderful book but also a bit frighteneing and a bit sad. So many emotions. So very beautiful. Has anyone else read this wonderful book?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
Heres a link in case you never heard of it:

Oh yeah it also inspired me to get this new signature
Old Eric Arthur Blair was right,just out by about 50 yrs.I haven't read the book,only watched the film with Richard Burton.
You're recommendation is very compelling,I'll have to give it a go.
 
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I've read it. Great book I must say. I really liked Catch-22 as well. Those two books are both great satire.
 
I am currently reading this book for a Political Theory class I am in. I have only gotten through the first 5 sections so far. It is a very interesting read. We are also reading the Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities Report of 1976. For those of you who do not believe that 1984 is a possibility read this report and let me know what you think. It summarizes the growth of domestic intelligence from 1936 to 1976. It explains how the FBI and other intelligence agencies came into becoming separate institutions that consider themselves above governmental checks. It was a report created by a committee that the government ordered. Seems the government was at one time also concerned with the power of intelligence agencies.

http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book2/contents.htm
 
Oh I've read the book... And of course, being from Massachusetts, my wonderfully biased teacher made sure to get into how the Patriot Act is Big Brother in our lives. We were indoctrinated with liberal rants by writing papers about this and discussing it in class. Everyone begins looking out for Big Brother at their every move. It was pathetic. America has little to worry about... assuming we retain our soveriegnty and aren't conquered by some other country... we will never have an extensive Big Brother watching us. The Revolutionary spirit, I think, still exists today in our country. I don't think Americans would stand for a Big Brother government... I'm quite confident we would take up arms and revolt. If anyone wants to install a Big Brother... its the liberals who oppose the 2nd Amendment. With the 2nd at every American's disposal, 1984 will never be a reality.

Many people compare things of this nature to "Big Brother" in fact the phrase Orwellian came from the society that George Orwell described in this book. I know what it feels like to have a teacher being not entirely unbiased but in a way he is correct though its you should of course stand up for yourself, which is what I did to my religion teacher.

One has to wonder though if we still had a "revolutionary spirit" then why can the government control us so? I've never forgotten the reason why my aunt voted for bush. It was because she felt "safe" and how safe are we with him really? Anymore safe then with another president? And meanwhile he feeds us propaganda everyday and controls us through fear by raising the terror alert just as a reminder that we still might get bombed. And with all these nutjob chrisitans and conservatives with their hate mongering. Already there is some widespread prejudice against muslims in general. All I have to do is listen to people talk about "terrorists" and "towel wearers" and you know that they don't care if we nuke the whole middle east tomorrow. Though its true Bush hasn't gotten to the "big brother" level and certainly hasn't gotten to the Nazi Germany level either because he hasn't started killing civillians yet, with all this in mind it is still possible that big brother could exist.

People have really gotten so close. Nazi Germany, Communist China. . .I don't think that you could possibly call any kind of mass manipulation of emotions impossible when you have all these examples and undeniable proof of the way you can control a person through fear.
 
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I read it for the first time when I was 14, and again in college at 17 when I took a course in distopian literature. I read it once again when I was in my 20s.

If you like the genre, a work that preceeded 1984 and one from which Orwell drew much of his inspiration is "We" by Evgeny Zamyatin.
 
KevinWan said:
Oh I've read the book... And of course, being from Massachusetts, my wonderfully biased teacher made sure to get into how the Patriot Act is Big Brother in our lives. We were indoctrinated with liberal rants by writing papers about this and discussing it in class. Everyone begins looking out for Big Brother at their every move. It was pathetic. America has little to worry about... assuming we retain our soveriegnty and aren't conquered by some other country... we will never have an extensive Big Brother watching us. The Revolutionary spirit, I think, still exists today in our country. I don't think Americans would stand for a Big Brother government... I'm quite confident we would take up arms and revolt. If anyone wants to install a Big Brother... its the liberals who oppose the 2nd Amendment. With the 2nd at every American's disposal, 1984 will never be a reality.

You obviously have very little literary taste. 1984 is a wonderful book, from beginning to end. It is a dramatization, an extreme, not saying that this will actually happen. This is a literary technique that enforces the overall meaning of the story. When you make the story extreme, it makes it easier to relate some of the elements of that society to your own. Look at America, the poor are stuck in a cycle of drugs, sex, and alchohol, much like the book. The middle class is always concerned with their own lives, individualistic, much like the book. And look at your own response, you have pitted yourself against the liberals like Big Brother pitted the middle class against rebels. Once again, it is a wonderful book.

Adding on, look at the pillars of the 1984 society, "War is Peace, Ignorance is Power/Knowledge (I can't remember), Slavery is Freedom" Specifically look at War is Peace, the perpetual war in the novel became the lifestyle of those people, it became their peace. Are we not becoming more and more accustomed to seeing wars across the world?
 
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Exactly. Obviously it was too the extreme but, to an extent, he was right. In some way you can draw comparisions to the war with iraq but I'm not going to do that here. But I just found it interesting how nobody cared when they all of the sudden switched from being at war with Eurasia to being at war with EastAsia and for Eurasia being an ally. Apparently, it made no difference to them. Because they are at war with East Asia now. They always are at war with East Asia.

And the slogan was " War is Peace Slavery is Freedom Ignorance is Stength"

but later on I think there was another one that Winstin made it was "War is Peace two plus two make five and God is Power."

Here is one of my favorite parts of the book that I found very interesting and powerful. It doesn't really have spoilers but you might want to read it from start to finish anyways. Here it is:

He accepted everything. The past was alterable. The past had never been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford were guilty of crimes they were charged with. He had never seen the photograph that disproved their guilt. It had never existed; he had invented it. He remembered remembering contrary things, but those were false memories, products of self-deception. How easy it was! Only surrender, and everything else followed.

I also liked the irony of how he called the place where people who were found to have commited a "thoughtcrime" and were tortured and shot the "Ministry of Love".
 
FinnMacCool said:
Has anyone read this book? I was blown away by it. It's such a powerful book from start to finish. It seemed very pessimistic but I understand that this book is almost a warning to us and it is so masterfully and beautifully done and it left me with twice as many questions then answers. such a wonderful book but also a bit frighteneing and a bit sad. So many emotions. So very beautiful. Has anyone else read this wonderful book?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
Heres a link in case you never heard of it:

Oh yeah it also inspired me to get this new signature

Also, read a brave new world by aldous huxley, oh, and Orwell was referring to the Soviet Union and the fascist states of Germany Italy and Japan I believe the book was written shortly after WW2 and the war had a profound impact on the writing of the book, the U.S. is the antithesis to Oceania.
 
That is certainly a possibility. Oceania can definatly be compared to those totalitarian states. However, I do not think that was his aim. My belief is that he was warning all of mankind and he wasn't just attacking a single state. For one, O'brien SPOILERSPOLIERPSPOILER when he was torturing Winstin mentioned them as an example of how close they got but not close enough to achieving their absolute goal which was to practically control all citizens through propaganda and lies.

In addition, Eurasia is Eastern Europe conquered by Russia and Eastasia is japan mongila, china etc. Oceania is the United States and Canada along with Great Britain. The story takes place in London though. Besides that, Orwell, though he criticized communism and rightly so, considered himself a "democratic Socialist".
 
FinnMacCool said:
Exactly. Obviously it was too the extreme but, to an extent, he was right. In some way you can draw comparisions to the war with iraq but I'm not going to do that here. But I just found it interesting how nobody cared when they all of the sudden switched from being at war with Eurasia to being at war with EastAsia and for Eurasia being an ally. Apparently, it made no difference to them. Because they are at war with East Asia now. They always are at war with East Asia.

And the slogan was " War is Peace Slavery is Freedom Ignorance is Stength"

but later on I think there was another one that Winstin made it was "War is Peace two plus two make five and God is Power."

Here is one of my favorite parts of the book that I found very interesting and powerful. It doesn't really have spoilers but you might want to read it from start to finish anyways. Here it is:



I also liked the irony of how he called the place where people who were found to have commited a "thoughtcrime" and were tortured and shot the "Ministry of Love".

Thats what the slogan was! The most amazing thing to me was how everyone was so complacent with how things were. No one felt the slightest inclination (besides the main characters of course) to change anything, as things got worse, people just accepted it.

And also, this book focuses on the amazing ability of the human race to decieve itself. You can make yourself think anything, and eventually make yourself believe anything. I haven't read the book in a while, but they had a term for making themselves believe something that was completely contradictory.
 
CAUTION TO ANYONE WHO HAS NOT READ THE BOOK: DO NOT SPOIL IT FOR YOURSELF BY READING THESE POSTS, READ THE BOOK FIRST!

FinnMacCool said:
Exactly. Obviously it was too the extreme but, to an extent, he was right. In some way you can draw comparisions to the war with iraq but I'm not going to do that here. But I just found it interesting how nobody cared when they all of the sudden switched from being at war with Eurasia to being at war with EastAsia and for Eurasia being an ally. Apparently, it made no difference to them. Because they are at war with East Asia now. They always are at war with East Asia.

And the slogan was " War is Peace Slavery is Freedom Ignorance is Stength"

but later on I think there was another one that Winstin made it was "War is Peace two plus two make five and God is Power."

Here is one of my favorite parts of the book that I found very interesting and powerful. It doesn't really have spoilers but you might want to read it from start to finish anyways. Here it is:



I also liked the irony of how he called the place where people who were found to have commited a "thoughtcrime" and were tortured and shot the "Ministry of Love".

Thats what the slogan was! The most amazing thing to me was how everyone was so complacent with how things were. No one felt the slightest inclination (besides the main characters of course) to change anything, as things got worse, people just accepted it.

And also, this book focuses on the amazing ability of the human race to decieve itself. You can make yourself think anything, and eventually make yourself believe anything. I haven't read the book in a while, but they had a term for making themselves believe something that was completely contradictory. If you like this book, you might also try Fareinheit 451 and (as someone else mentioned) Brave New World.
 
I'll definatly have to try those books once I return 1984 to the library. Of course, I will also probably buy a hardcover edition of 1985 since I like it so much. That's basically the way I buy books. I read it and if I like it I buy a hardcover book. Pretty neat.

there was also a television show called 'The Prisoner' which seemed to have been inspired by 1984. It was about some kind of an agent of the government who resigned but is later taken to this place where all these former agents and No.2 attempts to try and steal his secrets by trying to brainwash him also. It is a most excellent series so far. I'm actually ordering the episodes one by one from net flix.

BTW you probably noticed but you actually have a double post there.I actually didn't think it was gonna spoil anyone cause I thought it would be too vauge.
 
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FinnMacCool said:
One has to wonder though if we still had a "revolutionary spirit" then why can the government control us so? I've never forgotten the reason why my aunt voted for bush. It was because she felt "safe" and how safe are we with him really? Anymore safe then with another president? And meanwhile he feeds us propaganda everyday and controls us through fear by raising the terror alert just as a reminder that we still might get bombed. And with all these nutjob chrisitans and conservatives with their hate mongering. Already there is some widespread prejudice against muslims in general. All I have to do is listen to people talk about "terrorists" and "towel wearers" and you know that they don't care if we nuke the whole middle east tomorrow. Though its true Bush hasn't gotten to the "big brother" level and certainly hasn't gotten to the Nazi Germany level either because he hasn't started killing civillians yet, with all this in mind it is still possible that big brother could exist.

People have really gotten so close. Nazi Germany, Communist China. . .I don't think that you could possibly call any kind of mass manipulation of emotions impossible when you have all these examples and undeniable proof of the way you can control a person through fear.

Of the course the government has a level of control over its people... that is one of the many purposes of government in the first place. However, we live in a democratic, free country. We can be swayed by propaganda, but we have the opportunities to talk out and oppose such propaganda. Propaganda, in many respects, is actually part of the democratic process. If your aunt feels safe, she can vote for Bush. It is true that Ronald Reagan probably made many people feel safe also... he got re-elected. Those were fearful times, in the midst of the Cold War. Now is also a fearful time, but not by the governments making, in many respects. (Although I would agree there is a degree made by the government.) 9/11 was a foreign attack, the government didn't contemplate the attack. The government probably had intelligence that could have diverted the attack, but obviously that failed. However, I HIGLY doubt anyone in the Federal Government intended to just let 9/11 slide by and use it to grab power.

And as to the terror alert... I've only heard it be raised a few times, maybe 6 or 7 total. I don't know the exact figures, but it seems like no one really pays attention anyway. Towel Wearers and Arab slurs is simply racism. 1984 demonstrated division more by a class society rather than by race.

...Nazi Germany, yes. The Soviet Union, yes. China... sorta, not quite. The closests I can think of... Communist North Korea.
 
Of the course the government has a level of control over its people... that is one of the many purposes of government in the first place. However, we live in a democratic, free country. We can be swayed by propaganda, but we have the opportunities to talk out and oppose such propaganda. Propaganda, in many respects, is actually part of the democratic process. If your aunt feels safe, she can vote for Bush. It is true that Ronald Reagan probably made many people feel safe also... he got re-elected. Those were fearful times, in the midst of the Cold War. Now is also a fearful time, but not by the governments making, in many respects. (Although I would agree there is a degree made by the government.) 9/11 was a foreign attack, the government didn't contemplate the attack. The government probably had intelligence that could have diverted the attack, but obviously that failed. However, I HIGLY doubt anyone in the Federal Government intended to just let 9/11 slide by and use it to grab power.

You make some great points however I think it is quite obvious that Bush actually *tried* to make people afraid so that he could get elected again. It wasn't neccesarily the fact he was making them safe but the fact that he was presenting an image of himself that was not true and he used it to his advantage, which is the same thing that Oceania did to control the dumb masses.
9/11 was a foreign attack, the government didn't contemplate the attack. The government probably had intelligence that could have diverted the attack, but obviously that failed. However, I HIGLY doubt anyone in the Federal Government intended to just let 9/11 slide by and use it to grab power.

Maybe not to the extent to the dictatorship but I definatly think that he used 9/11 for his political gain and also as a way to push through the PATRIOT act and as a good excuse to go to war.

As for communist China, yeah I do think they were at that level. Chairman Mao thought that the masses were idiots but they weren't. He presented himself as a liberal who was going to change things for him but instead he just abused his power and practically abolished freedom of speech. Communist China is a very fascinating subject to me. I find it hard to believe so many people overlook it.

And as to the terror alert... I've only heard it be raised a few times, maybe 6 or 7 total. I don't know the exact figures, but it seems like no one really pays attention anyway. Towel Wearers and Arab slurs is simply racism. 1984 demonstrated division more by a class society rather than by race.

It's true they don't neccesarily touch on racism (not neccesarily anyways) but they do produce hateful propaganda which makes it sort of the same thing except to the very extreme. Everything in this book is to the very very extreme. I only pray it never goes that far.
 
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I love the book. It is one of the best books I have ever read. It is amazing. We is another great read. All are good.

I love you signature
 
FinnMacCool said:
That is certainly a possibility. Oceania can definatly be compared to those totalitarian states. However, I do not think that was his aim. My belief is that he was warning all of mankind and he wasn't just attacking a single state. For one, O'brien SPOILERSPOLIERPSPOILER when he was torturing Winstin mentioned them as an example of how close they got but not close enough to achieving their absolute goal which was to practically control all citizens through propaganda and lies.

In addition, Eurasia is Eastern Europe conquered by Russia and Eastasia is japan mongila, china etc. Oceania is the United States and Canada along with Great Britain. The story takes place in London though. Besides that, Orwell, though he criticized communism and rightly so, considered himself a "democratic Socialist".

Yes he may have spoken of the land masses them selves but it was the ideologies and political systems controlling them that were of relevance, you have to realize the era in which the book was written (as you would do with Locke or Hobbes) it was a very different time from that of today, it was a time where the tyrants and dictators almost actually defeated the free peoples of the world, Orwell lived in a world in which tyranny almost triumphed over liberty, not at all like the world of today where the free people are the ones with the power, I don't believe a system of gov't even remotely similar to 1984 could ever happen in the U.S. because the framers of the constitution put in safe guards against such things, the F.F.'s were freaking geniuses who were way ahead of their time. The constitution is a contract with the people of America that cannot be broken and it is an eternal document eternally meaning forever. It's when these f's in the gov't start thinking that they're above the constitution that's we need to take notice. Luckily we have the 2nd amendment which go's back to the genius of how the constitution was designed. All in all I believe 1984 was a critique on the dangers of totalitarianism, as well as, the power of revisionist historians of which we have many on this forum.
 
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FinnMacCool said:
You make some great points however I think it is quite obvious that Bush actually *tried* to make people afraid so that he could get elected again. It wasn't neccesarily the fact he was making them safe but the fact that he was presenting an image of himself that was not true and he used it to his advantage, which is the same thing that Oceania did to control the dumb masses.

eh... I don't think the President tried to instill fear in the public. I think he continuously stresses the importance of not being fearful... Fear means defeat in the War on Terror. Political candidates always present images of themselves that may be contrary to the truth. John Kerry did the exact same thing, only the Bush campaign was politically savy such that they were able to exploit the facts better than could the Kerry camp. Kerry tried to present himself as a moderate, centrist uniter. He disassociated himself with the realities of his beliefs. This is a basic concept of the democratic process. Machiovelli told this to us all.


FinnMacCool said:
Maybe not to the extent to the dictatorship but I definatly think that he used 9/11 for his political gain and also as a way to push through the PATRIOT act and as a good excuse to go to war.

There may be a disagreement here (I'm actually quite sure there is...) but I have no problem with viewing 9/11 as a pretense for war. 9/11 was war... on our homeland. However, thats not the debate here, so I won't elaborate.

FinMacCool said:
As for communist China, yeah I do think they were at that level. Chairman Mao thought that the masses were idiots but they weren't. He presented himself as a liberal who was going to change things for him but instead he just abused his power and practically abolished freedom of speech. Communist China is a very fascinating subject to me. I find it hard to believe so many people overlook it.

I would agree that Mao's China was definately 1984-esque... minus the immense technology needed to instigate such control. Today's China, however, is a different story. The economy is Capitalist. Capitalism and a 1984 society are simply incompatible.
 
Everyone is saying that we can speak out, we can use our rights. But we, the average person, don't use them. And the old adage says "If you don't use it, you'll lose it". The people in 1984 had rights that they could have used, but the didn't and the gov't took over. It wasn't a drastic take over, it was gradual steps against freedom. These steps are more accepted in times of war, give up freedoms for safety, seems logical. BTW, 1984 was not, IMO, a caution against gov't, it was a warning to the people and our behaviors, not a warning to the gov't.
 
in 1984 the communist government was allready in place for many years, its a great book. but i believe Animal Farm should be read first so you can see where the idea of communism at first can seam like a good idea but once human, well pig, nature comes in and changes it into something fare removed from what is was meant to be.

in animal farm once the animals over through the farmer all of them start out as equals, with the pigs as the government because their supposedly the smart ones. slowly as the book progresses the pigs are secretly changing all the laws of animal farm, and starting to behave more and more like the humans, and all the other animals are working harder and with less food than they did under the farmer.

i look at the changing of the rules by the pigs and i thank of groups like the ACLU who are taking laws and beliefs our country is founded on , and reinterpreting what our forfathers did when they founded this country. the ACLU supports moral decay and they are flushing this country down the toilet, they support nambla for god sake.
 
I've never read "Animal Farm" but I disagree that 1984 was a communist government. In my opinion, it is a fascist state that has complete control over its people, more similar to nazi germany then communism.

But, in my opinion, it is also a message to us trying to tell us that we shouldn't just step aside and let people destroy democracy. That is why I oppose the PATRIOT act and why I disapprove of the direction our country is heading in.
 
FinnMacCool said:
I've never read "Animal Farm" but I disagree that 1984 was a communist government. In my opinion, it is a fascist state that has complete control over its people, more similar to nazi germany then communism.

But, in my opinion, it is also a message to us trying to tell us that we shouldn't just step aside and let people destroy democracy. That is why I oppose the PATRIOT act and why This post is of bad quality. of the direction our country is heading in.

... No its definately more like communism. Orwell's intentions were for the novel to be about communism... I believe he wrote the book in the late '40's, early '50's... during the onset of the Cold War, and ideological debate of Communism vs. Capitalism. However, I would agree that there are some Fascist elements to the novel, but these do not override the overal communist theme. Communism is more heavily based on propaganda, whereas Fascism is more heavily based on harsh nationalism. There was harsh nationalism in the novel, but the control in your own home by the "telescreen" (I believe that was what it was called) is VERY communist, and was more important to the plot of the novel. Communism and Fascism may be polar opposites on the political scale, but the way in which both are enforced is remarkably similar, so I suppose the novel incorporates a mix of the two.
 
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