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George Orwell's 1984 and How Power Manufactures Truth
- mc32 1y agoIt’s absolutely sad and heavily ironic that this book now gets slapped with trigger warnings[1] What in hell has happened to people? How in hell is any adult supposed to read any book of consequence if routine things trigger them? Moreso for such an iconic book that criticizes crass authoritarianism. [1]https://uk.news.yahoo.com/putting-trigger-warnings-george-orwell-060000149.html https://uk.news.yahoo.com/putting-trigger-warnings-george-or...
- perching_aix 1y ago> George Orwell’s estate has been accused of attempting to censor 1984 by adding a “trigger warning” preface to a US edition of the dystopian novel. > The new introductory essay describes the novel’s protagonist Winston Smith as “problematic” and warns modern readers may find his views on women “despicable”. How is this different to something like the PEGI or ESRB labels? Because to the extent that I can tell, nohow, apart from being more verbose, although I wasn't able to find the actual text. And how is an additive change censorship? Like that's a new one, even for me.
- mc32 1y agoReaders of this book are not first graders or elementary school kids. Why does this need a trigger warning? Are they going to place trigger warnings on erotic novels for adults too, now?
- perching_aix 1y agoI dunno man, I think if I went through a bout of suicidal thoughts for a few years, even attempted a few times, I might want to skip on media that features suicide for example. And the only way to do that is if you're given a heads up about it ahead of time. This trigger warning stuff in my view is literally just content labels with some political coating on top. Reminds me to folks rediscovering vending machines in the form of overly complicated and brittle AI robotized fast food restaurants.
- p_ing 1y agoYou'd think you'd speak for people, too. But you'd be wrong on that point, as well.
- perching_aix 1y agoAm I speaking for people when I want to filter the content that reaches me? How does that work?
- XorNot 1y agoIf the erotic novel you were reading suddenly included a whole bunch of the wrong type of erotica for your sexual preferences, you might be somewhat upset that you weren't warned in advance (which should be obvious: story tags have been a thing since Usenet).
- RedShift1 1y agoWell if you don't like it you can just... Stop reading?
- perching_aix 1y agoSounds like a great experience.
- tom_ 1y agoWhy not? I expect they're already categorised to some extent - after all, how many straight men would want to read the ones where gay men are fucking each other and sucking each other's cocks and whatnot? - and this would just be an extended version of that. (EDIT: after stepping away from the keyboard, I was struck by the question of how many men of any orientation would want to read erotic novels anyway! - when they could just load up private browsing mode and watch more videos of people doing their favourite nasty shit than they'd ever be able to muster the urge to view to completion. But my view is that the question was dumb enough as posed already without needing to think about it any more. But maybe there's more to unpack here, if anybody is so inclined, which I'm not - though I'll admit that I've instinctively taken a male perspective here, even though that was never specified. Apologies.)
- fallingknife 1y agoIt's pretty pathetic to include a scolding essay at the beginning of the book. Their sanctimonious drivel stands in total contrast to the work of a brilliant author that they feel the need to mar with the inclusion of their commentary. Nobody would ever read it if they didn't include it in a book that people actually care about.
- farts_mckensy 1y agoOrwell was not a good writer. 1984 in particular is a slog. His work was mostly popular because it conformed to anti soviet narratives, so schools naturally added them to the curriculum to stamp out any communist sympathies. Now that the soviets are no longer a threat, it's not surprising that his work has gradually fallen out of fashion. Yet every pseudo rebellious edgelord thinks the ideological order of 1984 is being enacted because of progressive college kids and trigger warnings.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- bloak 1y ago"Nineteen eighty-four" is probably his most famous book, but many would say that "Animal farm" is a better book and that Orwell was best at writing essays, so make sure you've read a collection of his essays before you decide whether he was a good writer! You're not wrong about Orwell being posthumously enlisted as an anti-Soviet propagandist, but "Animal farm" is beautifully written and makes perfect sense to a reader who knows nothing about (and has no interest in) the early history of the Soviet Union.
- p_ing 1y agoTo the point with some soft conclusions - https://aeon.co/ideas/trigger-warnings-dont-help-people-cope-with-distressing-material https://aeon.co/ideas/trigger-warnings-dont-help-people-cope...
- relaxing 1y agoNow that’s some intellectually dishonest sophistry. The study on coping approaches shows how avoidance leads to maladaptive outcomes, but it also says that exposure in itself isn’t helpful either. What is helpful is learning how to process and express your emotions, but the study does not address whether english class is the place to be taught good coping strategies (because it’s not, obviously.)
- djeastm 1y agoPeople are always welcome to ignore the warnings if they want, as I think every one does.
- rustcleaner 1y ago'Unalive' Dear quantum field I've awoken into a nightmare!
- thrance 1y agoI can only find references to this in very conservative medias, used to lying and creating narratives out of thin air all the time. So don't get on your high horses. Those same "journals" are perfectly fine with Trump's unprecedented wave of censorship and state violence. You should probably read 1984 again, Orwell wasn't concerned by "trigger warnings". He was afraid of an authoritarian force creating and maintaining an alternate reality they can change on a whim, to manufacture consent for whatever they want to do. Like how Trump said he would be "the most peaceful president ever" but now screams about how Tehran should be evacuated, to presumably level it to the ground. Or how he said he would take care of the economy, utterly destroyed it and now claims it's doing better than ever.
- tho23iwlefdsfd 1y agoA disclaimer: this "political" nature of everything is deeply baked into Western culture, going all the way back to pre-Xtian 'Western' (~ non-Indian) religion. Things are a lot more subtlety in broadly "Indosphere" (or atleast its old version before all the rampage of Islam and Western colonization).
- aks_tldr 1y agoThe history of "Indosphere" is all but struggle between castes since its origin, so much for the subtlety.
- tho23iwlefdsfd 1y ago[flagged]
- z2 1y agoI'm reminded of this famous quote from the Nuremberg Diary, and the casualness of how it seems to have been stated: Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars. Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Diary https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Diary
- mc32 1y agoI'm not sure if this quote takes into account mob rule. Take ethnic strife in Myanmar or in Africa or rural Mexico, etc. It's not governments doing it --it's mostly grass roots after a grievance is unaddressed and explodes.
- dennis_jeeves2 1y ago>grievance is unaddressed and explodes The grievance is also often created by the govt.
- aspenmayer 1y agoAfrican fears and ethnic strife were invented out of whole cloth by colonial powers to divide and conquer the local populace. Myanmar I am less familiar with, but I believe that region has been under military junta rule for decades, and I believe religious tensions have been stoked by both the military rulers and armed insurgent revolutionary groups to rally support for their side.
- vjvjvjvjghv 1y agoI find it a little disappointing that they are reducing it to Trump. The left has its own version of “Newspeak” thanks to political correctness and DEI efforts. I guess in the end people in power or who want to get in power will promote vocabularies that support their cause and discourage use of words that don’t support them. I feel more and more we are slowly moving into a future between 1984 and Brave New World.
- aspenmayer 1y agoI think it’s largely liberals who tone police the dirtbag left, like when they were calling Bernie Sanders sexist for something that I never heard articulated well, but was when he was running in the primary against Hilary Clinton. I’m convinced that the whole identity politics wave is controlled opposition from establishment powers in both the liberal and conservative wings of the two-team uniparty system.
- thrance 1y agoIf you really believe the two are comparable, you've been successfully brainwashed by conservative media. No one ever got deported for acting "politically incorrect".
- HK-NC 1y agoPeople have been arrested for telling the truth. Theres absolutely comparison to be made on both sides.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- M95D 1y agoNo need. It's enough to simply lose your job.
- thrance 1y agoI mean, yeah, if you're being a dick to your coworkers for too long, losing your job is eventually justified. Someone losing their job for being merely "politically incorrect" is unheard of.
- chiefalchemist 1y agoTruth is a function of Trust. The more you trust the source the greater the risk of being manipulated; especially under the influence of confirmation bias; of course there’s also repetition.
- senectus1 1y agointeresting way to put it. How do you define "fact" in light of this definition?
- nathanaldensr 1y agoYou can't. This is the very reason the scientific method exists.
- chiefalchemist 1y agoThe gist of my theory (?) is, it’s not about power but trust. For example, Power often lacks transparency and completeness. We see it happen often enough, and yet many ppl still - for reasons I can’t explain - continue to trust the Power. If a mate did the same, you’d leave them, no questions asked.
- Gathering6678 1y agoI feel like there are different kinds of "truth": some of them easier than others to be manufactured, e.g. easier to manufacture hatred and war than peace (unless the country is already deep in it and not winning)?
- dfxm12 1y agoEither is just as easy. There's just more to be gained manufacturing hatred and war than peace. This comes in many forms. Political fundraising, pretense for holding onto/expanding power, greasing the cogs of the prison or military industrial complex, etc. Peace benefits ordinary citizens, but that's not the concern of the white house right now...
- Gathering6678 1y agoAh that's a good point.
- absurdo 1y agoMegadeth covered this in practically one stanza: “peace sells, but who’s buying?” We keep doing somersaults over dead writers lengthy works when it’s the simple shit in front of our eyes. Including the festering pile of shit HN has become because of dang’s bullshit. Don’t need Trump or Putin or Mao or Bibi or any other high powered asshole. The ones we have here are more than enough, and they’re no different than these high and mighty pricks.
- jhanschoo 1y agoPeace and cooperation is manufactured all the time: US-Western Europe (regular diplomacy with allies), US-Israel (why care so much in particular about Israel), (Trump's attempts) US-Russia, etc.
- aaron695 1y ago[flagged]
- sandspar 1y ago"The Internet of Beefs" https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/01/16/the-internet-of-beefs/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/01/16/the-internet-of-beefs/
- thrance 1y agoTrans men can get pregnant, yes. How is that 1984? That's a fact, you can verify it.
- implements 1y agoThe Orwellian part may be “men” and “women” changing from sex categories to gender ones, more specifically the ‘Newspeak‘ conflation of sex and gender into a single concept such that for some people it has become difficult to discuss them separately: “Not only can Trans men become pregnant, they can do so while being biologically male, too”. (Not attempting to debate Trans, only pointing out the 1984 type changes to how people must now think about sex and gender to avoid ‘finding themselves accused of crime-think and a trip to Room 101’ /s)
- thrance 1y agoI mean... yes. I just think it's weird insisting that someone that looks like a man, talks like a man, acts like a man is actually a woman because if you take a sample of their saliva, run it through a very expensive machine for a few days and decode the results with a supercomputer you can group them with most other womens on that basis. I feel like the "new" definition of man is just that much more natural than the "biological" one, even ignoring the intersex people which are impossible to categorize with the latter.
- ryandv 1y ago> I just think it's weird insisting that someone that looks like a man, talks like a man, acts like a man is actually a woman So suppose that someone looks like, talks like, and acts like a man, but nonetheless feels with certainty that their actual gender identity is a woman. Is it still strange to insist that they are actually a woman? Because the form of your argument is literally identical to that used by transphobes; the only difference is in your definition of terms. > I feel like the "new" definition of man But what is that "new" definition? Suppose we could finally arrive at a consensus of what a "man" or a "woman" really is, beyond saliva and other mere biological markers. Would it be fair to insist that those who fail to "pass" or meet those criteria, yet very strongly identify as a particular gender, are actually some other gender? Rather, mainstream scholarship on the issue would suggest "that self-identities ought to be definitive in terms of the question of sex membership and gendered treatment [0] [1]." In which case, why do you find it strange for someone to self-identify as a woman, even when they look like, talk like, and act like a man? > is just that much more natural than the "biological" one The difference is that the "biological" definition is objective, independently verifiable, and assertions of one biological sex vs. another can be readily falsified through experiment. This has implications for healthcare at the least, among other things. Meanwhile it's not even clear that a single "new" definition exists with widespread acceptance, since two people with incompatible ideas about what a gender is can nonetheless subjectively identify as the same thing. This is due to the ability to self-identify and declare gender by fiat, which makes it not only impossible but also morally wrong to even attempt a falsification of someone's gender. Additionally you run into problems of furnishing evidence for the existence of "genders" or "identities," similar to how it's not clear how one can prove that "souls" or "gods" exist. One of these definitions can more properly be regarded as "scientific," while the other cannot be, and enters more into the realm of "intersubjectivity" (which, interestingly enough, finds definition in an Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion [2]). Arguably, since biology is a branch of "natural science," the "biological" definition is far more "natural" than the intersubjectival one that relies on higher order cognition, human agency, and free will (which have too frequently opposed nature with dire consequences, c.f. climate crisis and environmental catastrophe). [0] https://sci-hub.se/https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/673088 https://sci-hub.se/https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/6730... [1] https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/hypa.12327 https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/hypa.12327 [2] https://sci-hub.se/https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4614-6086-2_9182 https://sci-hub.se/https://link.springer.com/referenceworken...
- farts_mckensy 1y agoThe idea that "power manufactures truth" sounds profound but it's ultimately a truism, and a somewhat unhelpful one due to the imprecise language of power and truth. Anyone who's worked at a small business with an authoritarian owner can attest to the distortion effect of authority. People trip over themselves to ensure such a personality remains placated. But truth, in any meaningful sense of the word, is something beyond the grasp of any single authority. Powerful elites may have sway over the narrative, but eventually the truth catches up with them, and that's when history starts moving again. The 2008 recession is a great example. Most financial authorities maintained that real estate was solid. Orwell's vision vastly oversells the true power of authoritarian states. At the end of the day, if you cannot keep a baseline number of the population satisfied, they will rebel in ways that will eventually undermine the status quo. It may not take the form of a full blown civil war, but people have a way of expressing their interests. For example, the birth rate is dropping in many countries. Increasingly, people do not see having children as viable. And for good reason. That undermines the present society. The upper classes need a working class to maintain their position.
- rustcleaner 1y agoPower manufactures 'truth' [memes] because the source of power is everybody's collective actions, and that has to be farmed in various ways through a consent manufacturing process. Change what people believe and you change their actions. Change their actions and you change the nature of the beast-machine they form, upon which oligarchy attempts to ride. Magick goes much deeper than parlor tricks of optics, or spooky hocuspocus spiritual bullshit. It is in use everyday by various institutions, and most who use magick don't even realize it. Examples: -The beliefs you hold about the world and others, much which was shaped by childhood media; -When Bush tells you Iraq has WMDs; -When the car commercial comes on, showing you a scenic vista and for a moment you forget yourself; -When you believe X, but the commenters in article comment sections sway the opposite (bots); to name a small handful. Sounds too far fetched? Here is the machine magicians program for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo_e0EvEZn8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo_e0EvEZn8 Do you see the zone in this machine, where magick can exist? It's the zone where you experience #FF00FF as magenta (if you're not colorblind). People really see what they expect to see, not what is there in front of them unless they really spend some effort! What do they want to see? They want to see what you set them up to want to see. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykzkvK1XaTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykzkvK1XaTE
- thrance 1y agoInsane how many people, even in this thread, are seeing the president sending the fucking army against US citizens and going "no bro, 1984 is when woke and DEI". America is done, and it's well deserved.