6 ms·

This appendix, along with the chapters that are except from "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism", are actually my favorite parts of 1984. I en

This appendix, along with the chapters that are except from "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism", are actually my favorite parts of 1984. I enjoyed how "Principals of Newspeak" is written in a past tense when describing the language and the events of year 1984, it feels like a glimmer of hope that somehow mankind did indeed escape the horrific dystopian world otherwise presented in the book.

quartesixte 5y ago
I do hope that Orwell intended to do this, and was not merely an oversight or an enforcement of grammatical norms by his editors.
zepto 5y ago
Unfortunately there is no way to know whether the future from which newspeak is in the past, is not even more horrifically dystopian. Imagine arriving on a seemingly dead planet and discovering this article about newspeak on a primitive but still working library computer in a museum. Elsewhere in the museum a slowly decaying advanced compute core still executes the corrupted remains of the last of the human consciousnesses in an endless loop. A placard tells you that machines uploaded these not long before they realized that their existence no longer had a purpose and chose to self-terminate. A sign in the lobby indicates that this museum was left as a historical record to minimize suffering by helping other advanced races to reach the same conclusion and self-terminate sooner than they otherwise would.
- Y_Y 5y ago
  > Unfortunately there is no way to know whether the future ... is not even more horrifically dystopian. I agree.
- XorNot 5y ago
  Death is too optimistic about dystopias. 1984 wasn't a world which wanted to kill you: it might, but that wasn't the goal. The goal was to keep the system going: achieve absolute dominion over the human condition and thought. Suicide means that's no longer happening, so it can't have that. The 1984 cycle continues forever: it is it's own purpose.
  - zepto 5y ago
    Have some compassion for the poor corrupted consciousnesses running in a loop. You can speculate on the conditions the suicidal machines have left them in. Remember, they are only there to remind others about the futility of existence.
  - spiritplumber 5y ago
    I wonder how 1984 world would deal with resource depletion.
    - XorNot 5y ago
      Probably pretty well: the suffering and dominance is the point. War machines destroy excess production, then people would be tasked with harvesting the war machines. The system doesn't care if anyone is happy or fulfills their dreams - it's goal is explicitly the opposite. As long as the sun burns, it continues.
      - scoopertrooper 5y ago
        Yes, curiously enough resource depletion could be a benefit to Ingsoc for exactly the reasons you mentioned. However, if resource depletion (or abundance) were uneven, then it could risk the strategic imbalance between the powers. One might wonder if one of the reasons that they routinely switched alliances was to send each other aid to prop up the strategic balance during periods of famine.
JasonFruit 5y ago
I take the past tense as meaning the book was a fait accompli, not as an analysis from a fictional future.
- the_af 5y ago
  A solid argument against this is that the analysis itself isn't written in Newspeak but in the kind of thoughtcrime it seeks to prevent. It's also self-incrimination if it was written by someone in the regime, and while it could be argued that O'Brien employs similar discourse in the novel, the ruling party at that time is far from perfect and still hasn't achieved its goals. A future where this is a fait acompli would have made this kind of thinking impossible.
  - JasonFruit 5y ago
    I mean that the essay is not written in the fictional world of 1984, but in the real world. It's outside the work of fiction, a piece of literary criticism by the author of the work being discussed.
    - the_af 5y ago
      When I first read 1984 I also thought like you, that this was just Orwell writing an essay about his invention, but there are some passages in this essay that show it's being written from an "in universe" perspective, i.e. by someone who lives in the same universe that 1984 "happened". Just an example: > "Various writers, such as Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Byron, Dickens, and some others were therefore in process of translation [to Newspeak]: when the task had been completed, their original writings, with all else that survived of the literature of the past, would be destroyed. These translations were a slow and difficult business, and it was not expected that they would be finished before the first or second decade of the twenty-first century." There are many tell-tale phrases there, but to pick an example: "it was not expected that they would be finished before [...]". "Expected" by whom? This means very little if it's just Orwell saying so, and it makes more sense if our fictional narrator is actually describing the history of his/her world. Once you accept this, you must also accept Newspeak failed, which in turn hints at Ingsoc being defeated.
mynameishere 5y ago
1984's original title was 1948. He was describing his time in the BBC and the general squalor and shifting loyalties of post-war Britain. Like most dystopian fiction the point is to criticize the current day, not gamble on being a prophet.
- quietbritishjim 5y ago
  The Wikipedia article includes a quote that debunks this: > There's a very popular theory—so popular that many people don't realize it is just a theory—that Orwell's title was simply a satirical inversion of 1948, but there is no evidence for this whatsoever. This idea, first suggested by Orwell's US publisher, seems far too cute for such a serious book. [...] Scholars have raised other possibilities. [His wife] Eileen wrote a poem for her old school's centenary called "End of the Century: 1984." G. K. Chesterton's 1904 political satire The Napoleon of Notting Hill, which mocks the art of prophecy, opens in 1984. The year is also a significant date in The Iron Heel. But all of these connections are exposed as no more than coincidences by the early drafts of the novel Orwell was still calling The Last Man in Europe. First he wrote 1980, then 1982, and only later 1984. The most fateful date in literature was a late amendment. — Dorian Lynskey, The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell's 1984 (2019)
- simonebrunozzi 5y ago
  The original title was "The Last Man in Europe" [0]. From the wikipedia article: ...but in a letter dated 22 October 1948 to his publisher Fredric Warburg, eight months before publication, Orwell wrote about hesitating between that title and Nineteen Eighty-Four. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four#:~:text=The%20Last%20Man%20in%20Europe,title%20and%20Nineteen%20Eighty%2DFour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four#:~:text=T....
dmitryminkovsky 5y ago
> We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares. > But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. > What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us. > This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”
- arminiusreturns 5y ago
  I've said it before and I'll say it again: It's a brave new world... until you resist. Then it's 1984. For those curious about the topic, I highly suggest reading the rest of Eric Blairs work, and also maybe looking up the Fabian Society.
bjowen 5y ago
Or perhaps the history as it is told by refugees from Ingsoc. We don’t get any information about what lies beyond the border, but I always imagined that the Handmaid universe was somehow continuous with this one and that there might plausibly be people who’d escaped.
hkai 5y ago
1984 is a nice book, but it's too late to read it. We are already living in a 1984 world. I find it more useful to read another dystopian novel, Atlas Shrugged, which, written in 1957, surprisingly well predicts the collectivist changes happening right now.

quartesixte 5y ago

I do hope that Orwell intended to do this, and was not merely an oversight or an enforcement of grammatical norms by his editors.

zepto 5y ago

Unfortunately there is no way to know whether the future from which newspeak is in the past, is not even more horrifically dystopian. Imagine arriving on a seemingly dead planet and discovering this article about newspeak on a primitive but still working library computer in a museum. Elsewhere in the museum a slowly decaying advanced compute core still executes the corrupted remains of the last of the human consciousnesses in an endless loop. A placard tells you that machines uploaded these not long before they realized that their existence no longer had a purpose and chose to self-terminate. A sign in the lobby indicates that this museum was left as a historical record to minimize suffering by helping other advanced races to reach the same conclusion and self-terminate sooner than they otherwise would.

Y_Y 5y ago
> Unfortunately there is no way to know whether the future ... is not even more horrifically dystopian. I agree.
XorNot 5y ago
Death is too optimistic about dystopias. 1984 wasn't a world which wanted to kill you: it might, but that wasn't the goal. The goal was to keep the system going: achieve absolute dominion over the human condition and thought. Suicide means that's no longer happening, so it can't have that. The 1984 cycle continues forever: it is it's own purpose.
- zepto 5y ago
  Have some compassion for the poor corrupted consciousnesses running in a loop. You can speculate on the conditions the suicidal machines have left them in. Remember, they are only there to remind others about the futility of existence.
- spiritplumber 5y ago
  I wonder how 1984 world would deal with resource depletion.
  - XorNot 5y ago
    Probably pretty well: the suffering and dominance is the point. War machines destroy excess production, then people would be tasked with harvesting the war machines. The system doesn't care if anyone is happy or fulfills their dreams - it's goal is explicitly the opposite. As long as the sun burns, it continues.
    - scoopertrooper 5y ago
      Yes, curiously enough resource depletion could be a benefit to Ingsoc for exactly the reasons you mentioned. However, if resource depletion (or abundance) were uneven, then it could risk the strategic imbalance between the powers. One might wonder if one of the reasons that they routinely switched alliances was to send each other aid to prop up the strategic balance during periods of famine.

JasonFruit 5y ago

I take the past tense as meaning the book was a fait accompli, not as an analysis from a fictional future.

the_af 5y ago
A solid argument against this is that the analysis itself isn't written in Newspeak but in the kind of thoughtcrime it seeks to prevent. It's also self-incrimination if it was written by someone in the regime, and while it could be argued that O'Brien employs similar discourse in the novel, the ruling party at that time is far from perfect and still hasn't achieved its goals. A future where this is a fait acompli would have made this kind of thinking impossible.
- JasonFruit 5y ago
  I mean that the essay is not written in the fictional world of 1984, but in the real world. It's outside the work of fiction, a piece of literary criticism by the author of the work being discussed.
  - the_af 5y ago
    When I first read 1984 I also thought like you, that this was just Orwell writing an essay about his invention, but there are some passages in this essay that show it's being written from an "in universe" perspective, i.e. by someone who lives in the same universe that 1984 "happened". Just an example: > "Various writers, such as Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Byron, Dickens, and some others were therefore in process of translation [to Newspeak]: when the task had been completed, their original writings, with all else that survived of the literature of the past, would be destroyed. These translations were a slow and difficult business, and it was not expected that they would be finished before the first or second decade of the twenty-first century." There are many tell-tale phrases there, but to pick an example: "it was not expected that they would be finished before [...]". "Expected" by whom? This means very little if it's just Orwell saying so, and it makes more sense if our fictional narrator is actually describing the history of his/her world. Once you accept this, you must also accept Newspeak failed, which in turn hints at Ingsoc being defeated.

mynameishere 5y ago

1984's original title was 1948. He was describing his time in the BBC and the general squalor and shifting loyalties of post-war Britain. Like most dystopian fiction the point is to criticize the current day, not gamble on being a prophet.

quietbritishjim 5y ago
The Wikipedia article includes a quote that debunks this: > There's a very popular theory—so popular that many people don't realize it is just a theory—that Orwell's title was simply a satirical inversion of 1948, but there is no evidence for this whatsoever. This idea, first suggested by Orwell's US publisher, seems far too cute for such a serious book. [...] Scholars have raised other possibilities. [His wife] Eileen wrote a poem for her old school's centenary called "End of the Century: 1984." G. K. Chesterton's 1904 political satire The Napoleon of Notting Hill, which mocks the art of prophecy, opens in 1984. The year is also a significant date in The Iron Heel. But all of these connections are exposed as no more than coincidences by the early drafts of the novel Orwell was still calling The Last Man in Europe. First he wrote 1980, then 1982, and only later 1984. The most fateful date in literature was a late amendment. — Dorian Lynskey, The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell's 1984 (2019)
simonebrunozzi 5y ago
The original title was "The Last Man in Europe" [0]. From the wikipedia article: ...but in a letter dated 22 October 1948 to his publisher Fredric Warburg, eight months before publication, Orwell wrote about hesitating between that title and Nineteen Eighty-Four. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four#:~:text=The%20Last%20Man%20in%20Europe,title%20and%20Nineteen%20Eighty%2DFour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four#:~:text=T....

dmitryminkovsky 5y ago

> We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares. > But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. > What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us. > This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”

arminiusreturns 5y ago
I've said it before and I'll say it again: It's a brave new world... until you resist. Then it's 1984. For those curious about the topic, I highly suggest reading the rest of Eric Blairs work, and also maybe looking up the Fabian Society.

bjowen 5y ago

Or perhaps the history as it is told by refugees from Ingsoc. We don’t get any information about what lies beyond the border, but I always imagined that the Handmaid universe was somehow continuous with this one and that there might plausibly be people who’d escaped.

hkai 5y ago

1984 is a nice book, but it's too late to read it. We are already living in a 1984 world. I find it more useful to read another dystopian novel, Atlas Shrugged, which, written in 1957, surprisingly well predicts the collectivist changes happening right now.