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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 an

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.

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.