1984 Discussion Thread.

[hazlnut]

Sorry...this thread got a bit off track. The movie that was referred to was "Orwell turns in his grave". It is a documentary I watched recently. It hits some really good points about media propaganda, but it's got a collectivists left leaning slant that really hurts it. I'm all for calling out the corporate media...but many references tend to relate only to right wing politicians. As if only they tend to propagandize for the status quo. That's a major flaw to me especially if you wish to convince right leaning people that the media is biased against ALL citizens.

The 1984 film adaption with Hurt was pretty good adaption of the book. I haven't seen it in many years, but I really should go back and revisit it. Nothing partisan about the film. One thing about Orwell is that, although he sympathized with socialism, his book was critique about collectivism. He understood that the Nazi's and Soviets were blood brothers in ideology. They just disagreed over the minor details. They certainly didn't disagree with planned economy or their hatred of individualism. I admire him for his ability to see this.

Sorry -- my bad.

The John Hurt film pops up on IFC a couple times a year. I think it is a well-made adaptation.

I have not seen the 1956 film.



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048918/

[PALEOCON]

War is Peace
Ignorance is Strength
Freedom is Slavery

The three governing slogans of INGSOC and if you stop to think about it the Unity Party USA

[HowardRoark]

There's actually a really interesting cartoon that contrasts Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and "1984".

http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourselves-to-Death.html

Basically if you don't feel like reading the cartoon, it takes about how Orwell was worried that governments would become totalitarian through force, coersion, and controlling information while Huxley was worried government would become totalitarian because citizens would become too enamored with entertainment and would not even be concerned about their diminishing freedoms due to being distracted by "American's Next Top Model". Interesting since both seem to be partially right.

[PoliCon]

There's actually a really interesting cartoon that contrasts Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and "1984".

http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourselves-to-Death.html

Basically if you don't feel like reading the cartoon, it takes about how Orwell was worried that governments would become totalitarian through force, coersion, and controlling information while Huxley was worried government would become totalitarian because citizens would become too enamored with entertainment and would not even be concerned about their diminishing freedoms due to being distracted by "American's Next Top Model". Interesting since both seem to be partially right.

yup yup yup.

[Constitutionally Speaking]

War is Peace
Ignorance is Strength
Freedom is Slavery

The three governing slogans of INGSOC and if you stop to think about it the Unity Party USA

Straight from the Democrats of 2009 (and re-posted for our new member)

But what was the purpose of newspeak?

By messing with the language you can control people. Words no longer have meaning or no longer have the ability to express the subtlety of thought needed to communicate things such as outrage or dissatisfaction.

It allows for great manipulation of the masses.

We see this now in how some organizations are destroying our language with the purpose of undermining our freedom. Freedom of religion, as it once was understood, has now been turned upside down to mean freedom FROM religion. It destroys the whole intent of the first amendment, and lays the groundwork to take all freedoms away.

Welfare becomes a tax cut - despite that you need to pay taxes in order to get a cut! It worked as a control measure and people actually believed Obama gave tax cuts to people who paid no taxes in the first place.

It is now humane to allow despots like Saddam Hussein to go on murdering innocents by the millions and it is a war crime to attempt to end it.

Torture has been defined downward to include placing a single caterpillar - confined to a box no less - in the same room as a terrorist.

Terrorists are called freedom fighters despite fighting FOR oppression.



Control of the language means control of the masses.



1984 was not just a critique of Stalin.



It was a warning.



We are not listening.

Also, it is a bit unsettling that SINCE this thread has started, one of topics from one of Ginger's posts has ALSO seen light in in this administration.

Early on we meet Winston's neighbor. Discuss his neighbor's family in terms of Nazism and in terms of both conservative and liberal lifestyle and mindset. How are they different or the same? Are there parraells between Winston's neighbor's family life and anything you see in our own society?

The Parsons were the family who were devoted to "Big Brother" but one of the children turned in the father for a thought crime.

Sort of like what Obama has asked people do if they discuss anything contrary to the party line on health care.

[Molon Labe]

There's actually a really interesting cartoon that contrasts Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and "1984".

http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourselves-to-Death.html

Basically if you don't feel like reading the cartoon, it takes about how Orwell was worried that governments would become totalitarian through force, coersion, and controlling information while Huxley was worried government would become totalitarian because citizens would become too enamored with entertainment and would not even be concerned about their diminishing freedoms due to being distracted by "American's Next Top Model". Interesting since both seem to be partially right.

Huxley was more right. The movie Idiocracy is another that comes to mind.

[HowardRoark]

I've heard of Idiocracy but it's kind of hard to watch anything with Luke Wilson in it

[Last Samurai]

1984. I read that book during my High School "formative" years. I considered it an effort at Science Fiction with a warning based on societal trends even back then observable to the astute political observer.

Since the advent of the ObamaNation, I read it again this past Spring. Mainly because there were a LOT of comparisons being made between the Obama agenda and the conditions outlined in the Orwell book, politically speaking.

While the coefficient of coincidence is not yet uniform, the trends DO seem, to me at any rate, to be merging. I find that worrying. Primarily because the Orwell society of Big Brother subverts the individual into a sheeplike mass of humanity, incapable of individual thought (and if you do, you are subversive), action other than that decided (and/or dictated) by the Government and completely robs one of self determination.

I once lived in a Country where all these "individualistic" things were guaranteed by the Law of the Land. I still live in that Country, but I am constantly reminded that certain "Orwellian" aspects to our society are slowly creeping it's way into our lives. It's not just Obama (although I DO accuse him of "picking up the pace" a bit), it's been going on for nearly two generations now.

As for "NewSpeak", it is nothing more than a means by which to "condition" the language away from subtle nuances thereof, giving life to more "black and white" observances rather than examination of the "grey areas". For the subdued (read: dummied down) mind the "either/or" selection is easier to make than a myriad of "what ifs" or contingencies. To get the "choice" of two you want to evoke, one merely has to "demonize" the "other side". I suggest that this is MOST prevalent in today's Policical scene. ("You're either for us or against us!" No thought, no analysis, no compromise...... no prisoners.)

Anyway, you get my drift.

LS