1984

I thought the book was about Orwell's "prediction" of the USA, not USSR...as far as I believe.

To me it matters less what he thought it was about then what it warns for and which states show behavior as described by Orwell. Perhaps the most important question is if it is possible for a state not to show said behavior.

I think Arjen has the right idea - the book isn't about what this state or that state might be like some time in the future; instead, the book is about all states as the bureaucracy grows and technology progresses.

To answer Arjen's question, taking any sort of government seen in the world today, they will all tend towards state control and domination. I do not think any nation has been safe from the designs of the power hungry. No wonder Thomas Jefferson suggested revolution every ten years.

Now for the bonus question:

Do you think it is possible for states not to show said behavior?

I suppose I could conjure up some sort of state that would not devolve into this sort of Orwellian nightmare, but for all practical purposes, no I do not think any sort of state can exist for very long without beginning to move in a totalitarian direction.

This one is the million dollar question I think:

Why do we bother with states then?

Security.

But if you want to know why we bother with states for security, even though if left unchecked they will eliminate our security, the answer is, I think, that we can influence this change in government. We may not go so far as Jefferson and advocate violent revolution every ten years; however, due to the tendency of certain individuals to pursue power at all costs, there is a need for some method by which the people can limit and usurp the government.

The best way to significantly limit the government's ability to become a nightmare state is for the people to refuse their government a standing army.

Was it not always Benjamin Franklin who said:

"A scoiety who will trade a little freedom for a little security deserves neither and will lose both."


Is not power a result of state (or social contract for that matter)?


But will it not need a force to become that "Leviathan" Hobbes spoke of? -An internal and external security force I mean.

I didn't feel that Orwell's message was as much about controlling the masses as much as it was about the human desire for proper companionship and human contact, as well as the focus on the socio-psychological aspect of the result of segregating people from each other which created loneliness in the masses.
That loneliness and despair that was driven into the minds of the readers was what I got out of it, more so than the political aspects of the novel.


Although the propaganda that he portrayed in the book was also interesting, it really only set the mood for the background, and not so much for the two main characters.

I like the way you read books Aristoddler.

What is your opinion of the work as a whole?

as a whole, i thought the book was a terrible read.
the sentence structure and prose was encyclopedic at best, and not written to inspire, but to instill paranoia and fear.
in that aspect Orwell did an amazing job in his writing. compare it to animal farm, where he personalized every living creature to the point of creating emotion from instinct-driven creatures that we think of only as a good meal at the best of times, and you'll see that his writing is very purposeful and unemotional in 1984.

creating a war that nobody really knows anything about...who's really winning, losing or if the war even exists in the first place...and the state of mind that he placed the characters in was truly phenomenal.

thomas jefferson said that the only way for a nation to survive was if it had a revolution every ten years.
Orwell gave us that impression of a form of a resistance with the old man who let the romantic duo rent the secret room upstairs to his shop, and then tore it out from under us by having them caught.
so the resistance was there? or was it the faded memory of one that was quelled? or was the old man perhaps a gov't agent laying trap for foolish citizens?

the economic issues that were established early on also set an interesting backdrop. victory gin, victory tea and sp****ly rationed food, coffee and tobacco are something that really set the tone for a society that has become so immersed in winning a war, that all else has become less than secondary. in that stance, the phrase, "with friends like these, who needs enemies?" comes to mind. the enemy doesn't even have to sit outside the gates to starve the people to death, since the utter lack of an import sector has left them starving on their own.
smart citizens may actually begin to wonder; "if we cannot import FOOD...where are we getting our military supplies and armaments from, since we have exhausted all our resources?"

States result in a highly concentrated power being in the hands of a very few. I think that's the whole idea of social contract. But that's all politics is - fighting for that power.

Maybe - if it is to become exactly what Hobbes dreamed up.

Standing armies provide the muscle needed by those in power to suppress citizens opposed to the workings of the authorities. The events at Kent State are a wonderful, modern, example.


Aristoddler - I think you're right, the emotional impact of the lifestyle Orwell presents is crucial to the book - and to why the book is so appealing. Orwell gives us a grim presentation of the future world, but we only really see the viciousness of the world as we see the characters suffer.



Isn't that the point, though? The characters would have died with these same sorts of questions burning in their minds.

I tumbled across this...found it relevant.

When were you in town, Aristoddler? We should have met for coffee or something.

I didn't know you guys lived in Holland too!

Here's an essay I wrote to expand the 1984 universe into Eurasia's Neo-Bolshevism world.



THE FORMATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF NEO-BOLSHEVISM
After the Second World War, Russia in its form prior to the formation of Eurasia effectively annexed to its own control the nations of Eastern Europe east of the so-called "Iron Curtain" into an Eastern Bloc. This Eastern Bloc became hand-in-hand with the Russian Communist Party so much that Communism was installed in each nation as its own "democratic" will of the populace. On the other side, the West enjoyed many more freedoms than did their Eastern counterparts.

Following the death of Stalin in 1953, a short power struggle ensued with Malenkov the new General Secretary of the Communist Party of Russia. His lesser, Khrushchev, bitter over his loss to gain great power, decided to take an initiative and claim glory for himself, in a possible bid for his lost seat. Having spent the rest of 1954 secretly organizing units still loyal to him as a result of his personal combat in the Second World War to conduct "drills" near the West German border, he ordered an attack across the West German border. His forces suffered substantial losses and were forced to retreat, causing a chain reaction in the Russian lines. Believing the Westerners were the aggressors and not the other way around, Russian forces invaded West Germany. Malenkov, being informed by Khrushchev that the West attacked first, ordered a nuclear strike upon the Western nations, including the continental United States, as a pre-emtive strike. This failed, as a result of faulty intelligence and inefficiency in orders, leaving most American nuclear weapons virtually unscathed. The West launched a counter-attack, firm in the belief that the Russians had attacked first, which was correct. A short nuclear war ensued, leaving continental Europe, Britain, and North America ravaged by nuclear bombs and deadly fall-out.

In the aftermath of the Nuclear War of 1954, an unsigned and unofficial truce came effectively into being banning the use of nuclear weapons, or else the ruling parties of both great Blocs would suffer ultimate defeat to no one's benefit. Western troops evacuated the continent and escaped into Britain while Russian forces took over the ravaged cities of continental Europe. In Moscow, Khrushchev ordered the assassination of Malenkov, elevating himself to General Secretary as a result of his personal command of forces during the Nuclear War, giving him the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and a serious war hero contender amongst the greatest Russian war heroes of his time. Proclaiming a New Bolshevik programme, Khrushchev re-organized the Communist Parties across all of Eurasia to accept and dispense the new Eurasian ideology.

Disseminating propaganda across Europe was no hard task; the populace, ravaged by the Second World War as a recent event, and by the Nuclear War, accepted Eurasian propaganda that the War was started by the West. In the West, at the same time, the War caused major rethinking in how society needed to be formed in order to prevent another war of such magnitude, and Oceania became to take shape.

With many small and gratutious-sized nations of Europe neutral during the War, Eurasian forces whittled down their independence one nation after another. Relocating the population from city to city instilled a fear and compliance towards their new masters. Given the choice of either being killed, or accepting the invasion as a matter of survival, most gave in and submitted to Eurasian authority. Additionally, with the formation of Oceania coming into being before the end of the 1950s, and the beginnings of an alliance of East Asian nations, submission to the Neo-Bolshevik Party of Eurasia was firmly linked with survival. It was painted as the will of the people.

The flag of Eurasia was based upon the old Soviet "hammer and sickle", with two stars representing the two continents which Eurasia stretched across, and the color green to represent natural victory.

Eurasia organized itself along nationalistic lines prior to the War in order to control the populations much more easily. With their infrastructure destroyed in the aftermath of the atom bombs and troop ravagings, national "republics" were set up with Russian Republic overseers to build their republics again. The nationalism inherent in each republic was replaced with an overall Eurasian nationalistic pride; pride in being one of the largest nations on Earth, and pride in having successfully won the Atomic War. The last incident was quite literally an endless pool of patriotism which could be counted upon to inspire workers to work harder to win a new war, just as they had won the previous War.

Under the leadership of Glorious Comrade Khrushchev, Eurasia rebuilt enough infrastructure to sustain itself on a bare minimum. With transportation systems rebuilt to a bare minimum, whole populations were deported and re-arranged throughout each Republic to assist in an Eurasian programme of sowing complete dependency on the State. All Jews found themselves deported to the Jewish Republic in the Far-east while former nations such as Spain and Portugal were lumped together into an Iberian Republic. The currency of each Republic was set to rubles, and in face of Russianization, each Republic was faced with a re-organized school system teaching children Russian instead of their native languages. Adults were also forced to participate in re-education centers designed to teach them Russian. Yet, the common denominator in each Republic was that each citizen raised the same flag: the flag of the Neo-Bolshevik Party.

As of 1984, with its gulags, Eurasia has the most extensive prison system in the world. Sent to the gulags for even minor infractions of the law, almost one-quarter of the entire Eurasian population is confined within gulags stretching from both sides of Siberia. While political criminals are simply given show trials and executed, regular criminals are relegated into the gulags. From there, there is no escape, and no release. It's a life-sentence. In this sense, a virtual slave class exists within the gulags which is forced to produce war material and paraphernalia. With male and females not being separated, children are born into the gulags, and since no one leaves the gulags, despite their innocence, the slaves perpetuate themselves with slave children.

However, life was not without end, and Khrushchev eventually died during 1971 of natural causes, in the Kremlin. His figure lives on as an object of worship in the form of an ikon for the millions of Neo-Bolshevik adherents across all of Eurasia's great Republics.

THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF NEO-BOLSHEVISM
1. национализма (Nationalism)

"Without struggle, there can be no victory, and without victory, our struggle would have failed." - Nikita Khrushchev

In the aftermath of the Atomic War, and in the resulting chaos and rampant destruction of European civilization and Eurasian occupation of continental Europe, a method of unity and control had to be enabled in order to keep the very fabric of continental European society afloat and alive. Substituting Neo-Bolshevik patriotism for the nationalism inherent in each nation overrun by Eurasian forces, a new form of pan-European-Asian nationalism was born.

Extolling the virtues of community and of iconatry, as well as being a victorious nation in the Atomic War, were used as an endless pool from which to draw patriotism at the appropriate times by the ruling Neo-Bolshevik Party of Eurasia. With "spontaneous" demonstrations showing pride for Eurasia and for the Glorious Comrades dead in honorable combat (Khrushchev always died in combat, comrade.), nationalism was instilled into every citizen across Eurasia in the form of chills down one's spine, and a burning in one's heart for the glorious victory over Oceania during the War. Eurasia effectively became a nation of mindless drones, raising the same flag, chanting the same slogans, eating the same meals, and marching to the same beat.

2. иконизма (Iconatry)

"Praise your fellow Glorious Comrades, for their deaths serve as a reminder that we all must make sacrifices for the noble cause!" - Nikita Khrushchev


As Glorious Comrade Khrushchev knew, nationalism alone could not instill unity throughout Eurasia by itself. A new system of worship and beliefs had to be created, and therein lies the ideology of iconatry. Once religious in nature, it now occupies the nature of political religion.

Elevating himself to Glorious Comrade (a position only held by Glorious Comrades Lenin and Stalin), Khrushchev elevated himself effectively to god-hood. The ownership of ikons being a requirement under unspoken penalty of death, each community home has ikons displayed in almost every room. In the factories, in the homes, in the gulags, and even in the filthy rest-rooms, the faces of Lenin, Stalin, Malenkov, and Khrushchev benevolently smile down upon the average cold, malnourished, and thread-bare citizen of Eurasia.

Although Khrushchev had Malenkov killed whilst making it look like a death by natural causes, he had no real choice but to elevate Malenkov also to the title of Glorious Comrade.

After the death of Khrushchev, it was announced that only an unanimous vote by the Party members could make a new General Secretary a Glorious Comrade. Each General Secretary has been unanimously voted each time.
With Russian leaders prominently displayed in every home as a virtual god, the rule of the Party was ensured, and the Nationalistic tendences of the people of Eurasia were fed. Elevated to virtual god-hood, the Glorious Comrades resided in the heart of each citizen.

3. сообщестивизма (Communalism)

"Be happy you have a bed to sleep in, clothes to wear, and plentiful potatoes to eat!" - Nikita Khrushchev

Designed to create dependency, in fact, complete dependency upon the State via mass-deportations and constant forced moves from city to city, or Republic to Republic, the ideology of communalism is one of the great ideologies of the Neo-Bolshevik Party.

Every worker shares a house with other workers. Every worker shares the same clothes, the same boots, even the same goods. With their clothes rotated around to instill a sense of community pride and feeling, many workers often go to work barefoot, unable to wear the boot size provided by the previous worker. Every worker shares a bed, and shares the same mates. There are no marriages or relationships between a man and woman anymore. Several women are assigned to one male, and several males are assigned to one female. Such is the way of things.

Each year, workers are given new move orders. Some are moved to different community homes nearby in the same city, while others are ordered to move to entirely different cities in the same Republic, or sometimes entirely new Republics throughout Eurasia. The only constant is the State, the eternal provider and keeper of sanity.

Workers are not the only class in Eurasia, of course. The social structure consists of four classes: Glorious-Comrades, Party members, workers, and slaves. Glorious-Comrades fill the highest echelon in Eurasian society, and are considered virtual gods. They are worshipped, praised, and their lives are always somewhat murky as the personal events are being constantly upgraded to further mythologize their past. Party members are the bureaucrats of society, running Eurasia, organizing events, and devising new methods of killing the enemy in their eternal war, and much like the Party of Oceania, the Party of Eurasia is also not hereditary. Workers are the proletariat, they form the brute force class of Eurasia, doing all the heavy, manual physical labor in society. Slaves are either criminals sentenced to gulags, or children born of gulag parents. They do dirty work, such as build explosives and other dangerous material to cut down on human cost.

I'd post my work I did in class but is that allowed? There's like 30 pages so it'd be a great summary of 1984

1984 bespoke valuable morals throughout the novel.

I think the book demonstrates the problems inherent within a autocratic society, and what happens when bureaucracy [it the snowball effect] gets out of hand - which - inevitably - it will.:brickwall:

I have friends that argue democracy doesn't work for two reasons

a) we elect a leader to make decisions for us, not vote on decisions.

b) every-one [including those not intellectually worthy] gets a vote

he says an autocratic society [or dictatorship!] is the only way forward. I use this book as my counter.