Join me if you will, in my regimen of Double Speak. Embrace my hate for this pamphlet of praise for the destruction and humiliation of all mankind. Bring forth the collective spite for this perfect construction of sociological manipulation; this masterpiece of vile ideological duplicity. Never has such a manifesto masquerading as a novel been so perfectly crafted as to bring forth such negative emotion.
I hated this book. Not because it isn’t good. But because it succeeded so well. Written in 1949, Orwell predicted a grim future where Big Brother sees all, controls all, and crushes all hope of there being anything other than service to Big Brother, a stand in for the absolute power held by The Party. Words, science, and data are just fantasy that The Party can twist and turn to its content to further the power dynamo machine that turns people into product. “We are the dead”, is a phrase used by one of the main characters and it is apt. War is a constant state that must continue. It matter not whether the war is going well, only that it is going, because it also feeds the machine. That Party doesn’t care about older beliefs or traditions, it picks and chooses what of those to use, and what to discard.
Orwell’s vision of the future is a boot stamping on a face. I hate that. And I believe that Orwell was wrong in his vision, but right in his warning. This was written in an obviously bleak state of mind and during a conceivably bleak period. The rise of the Nazi Party was scary in its implications. The rise of communist Russia was equally frightening. The rise of a powerful Military Industrial complex in the west was also a great cause for concern. But, he didn’t see the counter culture movements. He didn’t see the passing of the Civil Rights Act. He didn’t see environmental regulation, unions, and other increases in human rights. As someone who follows secular humanist philosophies and believes in the progress that humanity is capable of, 1984 is anathema.
Yuval Noah Harari stated in his excellent book, Sapiens, this:
“Things are better than ever.
Things are still quite bad.
Things can become much worse.
That fact that things are still quite bad and can become worse should make us wary of being too optimistic.
But the fact that things are better than ever implies that we can improve matters. It is not inevitable that things will actually become worse. So we shouldn’t be too pessimistic either.”
I like that sentiment, and I prefer it over the dire, scare the shit out of you warning that Orwell presents. Part of the issue is that while Orwell most likely meant this to be a warning, some actors of the world use it as a playbook (I’m looking at you Putin). So while you or I can take this book and say, “Hey, great book. Depressing as hell, but really well done and so important and vital for everyone to take heed of,” others may twist Orwell’s meaning and either want to ban it as communist propaganda, or take points from it in a classroom for Dictatorship 101.
I kid, of course. But the book is so immersive, and so pervasive. It really gets into your mind and causes genuine worry. Orwell didn’t know about the internet and smart phones, but I think they would scare the hell out of him. I even think he would possibly change his book from government rule to corporate rule. Maybe? Talk about double think! We love our conveniences, but how much freedom do we surrender to have them? How much does Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple, Microsoft, ect. Control our everyday lives? How much do we realize it? How much do we care?
1984 can bring up all these uncomfortable questions. Do we dare dig deeper?
I hate this book. I hate how good it is. I hate how well it’s constructed. I hate how strong the message is and I hate that everyone knows about it, even if they’ve never read it. It’s a true classic.
