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I read is as a pretake on 1984. The concept of double-think etc. Basically, people want to believe facts that align with their ideology and reject facts that d

I read is as a pretake on 1984. The concept of double-think etc. Basically, people want to believe facts that align with their ideology and reject facts that do not. This keeps people focused and less distracted by doubts. In 1984 this gets exploited in a regular manner.

thrur484 6y ago
In 1984 normal person has no access to facts and ideology. In totalitarian society ideology becomes embedded into fabric of society. It forms new equilibrium and replaces social contract.
- jariel 6y ago
  This is a really subtle and correct point that's I think really difficult to grasp for High School students studying Orwell. I think this frankly is hard to understand until you're somewhere past 30. It's hard to understand, when you're young, that basically everyone in the press is lying to you in little ways, even though they're 'mostly telling the truth' - that there is a huge game behind it. I'm reminded of when E. Germany had to be re-integrated into the West, the problem was that the vocabulary relating to politics and democracy had been erased in the East. Several generations of people grew up without even thinking about various aspects of politics. There literally was no language for the W. Germans to use to re-introduce E. Germans to political dialogue. You can erase democracy by suppressing language, and therefore by suppressing thought. It doesn't exist if nobody is thinking about it. The idea is to enforce the rules through the daily rituals, language, constructs that people use - there's no need for facts or ideology then. The beginning of this I think happens more or less out in the open with certain subjects now in 2020, when we see language and culture shifting - but it shifts slow enough that it's not noticed. Go ahead and look at episodes of '30 Rock' - a brilliant, first rate, amazing production from literally just 10 years ago --> it's couldn't be made today, or rather, it would have to be 'heavily censored' today because so many of those jokes are just a little to un PC (jokes about women's pay, harassment in the workplace). But today, it wouldn't be 'network censorship' - it would be a kind of 'thought and behaviour censorship' right from the writers room and producers edict. When I look at '30 Rock' from a 2020 communications perspective I'm actually very, very concerned - the level of suppression that has slowly been sinking in is alarming.
bgilroy26 6y ago
1984 grew directly out of Orwells experience in the war. POUM and Andreu Nin Perez and Leon Trotsky's treatment at the hands of Stalin and the ComIntern were very disheartening for him 1984 is very difficult to map directly on to US politics because liberal/neoliberal capture of the universities and mainstream journalism are kindof total the way that American conservatives allege, but also George Blair hoped that figures like Trotsky of the Red Army and Perez of the POUM would win out in the end Orwell would not have been friends with the pepper Christian homeschooler, the glad-handing inside dealing Mar a Lago member, the little local lord like the area car dealership owner, the conspiracy theorist YouTuber, the Rad Trad anti Vatican II syncretist, those supremely Trumpist figures. You kindof have to visit with George the man, his actions, and his times to understand his story. But that tends to muck up any chance to put him to use purely for your side. (He was a socialist though, til the day he died, so he'd be voting Biden were he here in Wisconsin right now : P)
- hutzlibu 6y ago
  "He was a socialist though, til the day he died so he'd be voting Biden were he here in Wisconsin right now : P" Not sure if that was sarcasm referring to labeling of Biden as socialist by Trump and co? Because I doubt any real socialist would consider Biden a socialist.
  - bgilroy26 6y ago
    They wouldn't, you're right. We will not see the NYSE shuttered in the next 4 years or Amazon's excess of revenue over expenses taxed at 100% and their money bags driven across the country in armored trucks and heaved into Elizabeth Warren's US Treasury as a result of this election. On the other hand, despite the fact that my tongue was firmly planted in my cheek when I wrote it, such Debbie Wasserman Schultz haters as Nathan J Robinson and Noam Chomsky have adopted the 'Vote for Biden and keep protesting' angle so who's to say how the real socialists are voting this year?
    - bleeding 6y ago
      "Real socialists" is definitely not a community with a homogeneous opinion on who to vote for, or even on whether a "real socialist" should vote. The argument on whether socialists should participate in liberal democracy has been one that has been ongoing since essentially the dawn of leftist politics. The theory of two revolutions, the idea that a revolution constructing a liberal democracy was a necessary step towards socialism, was probably the prevailing idea in many of the 19th and early 20th century revolutions (like the revolutions of 1848 and the Russian Revolution of 1905). There were obviously people who did not take this line, but it is not new or conciliatory that some leftists take a similar stance today.

thrur484 6y ago

In 1984 normal person has no access to facts and ideology. In totalitarian society ideology becomes embedded into fabric of society. It forms new equilibrium and replaces social contract.

jariel 6y ago
This is a really subtle and correct point that's I think really difficult to grasp for High School students studying Orwell. I think this frankly is hard to understand until you're somewhere past 30. It's hard to understand, when you're young, that basically everyone in the press is lying to you in little ways, even though they're 'mostly telling the truth' - that there is a huge game behind it. I'm reminded of when E. Germany had to be re-integrated into the West, the problem was that the vocabulary relating to politics and democracy had been erased in the East. Several generations of people grew up without even thinking about various aspects of politics. There literally was no language for the W. Germans to use to re-introduce E. Germans to political dialogue. You can erase democracy by suppressing language, and therefore by suppressing thought. It doesn't exist if nobody is thinking about it. The idea is to enforce the rules through the daily rituals, language, constructs that people use - there's no need for facts or ideology then. The beginning of this I think happens more or less out in the open with certain subjects now in 2020, when we see language and culture shifting - but it shifts slow enough that it's not noticed. Go ahead and look at episodes of '30 Rock' - a brilliant, first rate, amazing production from literally just 10 years ago --> it's couldn't be made today, or rather, it would have to be 'heavily censored' today because so many of those jokes are just a little to un PC (jokes about women's pay, harassment in the workplace). But today, it wouldn't be 'network censorship' - it would be a kind of 'thought and behaviour censorship' right from the writers room and producers edict. When I look at '30 Rock' from a 2020 communications perspective I'm actually very, very concerned - the level of suppression that has slowly been sinking in is alarming.

bgilroy26 6y ago

1984 grew directly out of Orwells experience in the war. POUM and Andreu Nin Perez and Leon Trotsky's treatment at the hands of Stalin and the ComIntern were very disheartening for him 1984 is very difficult to map directly on to US politics because liberal/neoliberal capture of the universities and mainstream journalism are kindof total the way that American conservatives allege, but also George Blair hoped that figures like Trotsky of the Red Army and Perez of the POUM would win out in the end Orwell would not have been friends with the pepper Christian homeschooler, the glad-handing inside dealing Mar a Lago member, the little local lord like the area car dealership owner, the conspiracy theorist YouTuber, the Rad Trad anti Vatican II syncretist, those supremely Trumpist figures. You kindof have to visit with George the man, his actions, and his times to understand his story. But that tends to muck up any chance to put him to use purely for your side. (He was a socialist though, til the day he died, so he'd be voting Biden were he here in Wisconsin right now : P)

hutzlibu 6y ago
"He was a socialist though, til the day he died so he'd be voting Biden were he here in Wisconsin right now : P" Not sure if that was sarcasm referring to labeling of Biden as socialist by Trump and co? Because I doubt any real socialist would consider Biden a socialist.
- bgilroy26 6y ago
  They wouldn't, you're right. We will not see the NYSE shuttered in the next 4 years or Amazon's excess of revenue over expenses taxed at 100% and their money bags driven across the country in armored trucks and heaved into Elizabeth Warren's US Treasury as a result of this election. On the other hand, despite the fact that my tongue was firmly planted in my cheek when I wrote it, such Debbie Wasserman Schultz haters as Nathan J Robinson and Noam Chomsky have adopted the 'Vote for Biden and keep protesting' angle so who's to say how the real socialists are voting this year?
  - bleeding 6y ago
    "Real socialists" is definitely not a community with a homogeneous opinion on who to vote for, or even on whether a "real socialist" should vote. The argument on whether socialists should participate in liberal democracy has been one that has been ongoing since essentially the dawn of leftist politics. The theory of two revolutions, the idea that a revolution constructing a liberal democracy was a necessary step towards socialism, was probably the prevailing idea in many of the 19th and early 20th century revolutions (like the revolutions of 1848 and the Russian Revolution of 1905). There were obviously people who did not take this line, but it is not new or conciliatory that some leftists take a similar stance today.