Members Unfed Posted April 26, 2006 Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 any thoughts on this novel and its possible parallels to the current or possibly the future? am i just paranoid? one quick thought - obviously Orwell couldn't foresee the advent of computers in our society which would make a lot of it pretty much impossible. pretty scary though, i think i'll make it a point to read it at least once a year. any thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members suitandtieguy Posted April 26, 2006 Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 1984 is the most important book i ever read. the parts which i feel have the most bearing on life today are the oversimplification of speech and the constant state of un-war the state is in. remember, this "war on terror" is supposed to be infinite in length and breadth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members packrat Posted April 26, 2006 Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 Originally posted by Unfed any thoughts on this novel and its possible parallels to the current or possibly the future? am i just paranoid? one quick thought - obviously Orwell couldn't foresee the advent of computers in our society which would make a lot of it pretty much impossible. pretty scary though, i think i'll make it a point to read it at least once a year. Apropos the brand new shiny copyright laws, the most interesting thing about it was the addition of certain magic words, guaranteed to get the law passed without question. Because software piracy is what "terrorists do", and piracy "funds terrorism", it's desperately important that new laws be created so the RIAA can send lawyers they don't need to pay for after 6-year-olds. It was only a matter of time before this started to work its way into unrelated legislation, and expect to see agricultural subsidies and trade tariffs be set up to 'stop terrorists' any day now. B> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Unfed Posted April 26, 2006 Author Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 STG - beautiful post, my thoughts exactly. you said it better than i could... packrat - i wasn't just thinking of RIAA/copyright, but great points as well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members percyexpat Posted April 26, 2006 Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 the most interesting thing in that book for me is doublethink, the way that people are perfectly capable of believing totally contradictory things and whats more be willing to kill you if you dont agree with their bull{censored}. so true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dirge Posted April 26, 2006 Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 amazing book. revolutionary in my intellectual development. mix in a little huxley and vonnegut too. yes, you are paranoid, but it is the right type of paranoia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members percyexpat Posted April 26, 2006 Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 just cos youre paranoid doesnt mean theyre not watching you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kooki_sf Posted April 26, 2006 Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 FREEDOM IS SLAVERY TWO AND TWO MAKE FIVE GOD IS POWER Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Unfed Posted April 26, 2006 Author Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 yeah... WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH scary {censored}. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kooki_sf Posted April 26, 2006 Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 "A shrill trumpet call had pierced the air. It was the Bulletin! Victory!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Amos Posted April 26, 2006 Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 good stuff, I also highly recommend reading "The Machine Stops" (1909) by E.M. Forster... very prescient, and important for anyone who, for example, communicates w/ others via internet fora. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members stikygum Posted April 26, 2006 Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 Originally posted by Unfed yeah... WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH scary {censored}. I'm sure the book is a good read. I've been up on the conspiracies and paranoia. Ever listen to Art Bell's radio stuff? But just by glancing at some of these ideas, it seems pretty oddball to me. Then again I haven't read the book so I don't know what kind of spin it has. For that, I guess I'm ignorant. But wait! That means I have the strength in this matter and hold the upper hand in this post. Ah Hah! I wonder how this guy would look at ol' Bush and government for that matter when many times governments are doing things behind people's back and breaking laws. How the hell did the Patriot Act beat out our Constitution? Ignorance is bliss, and if bliss makes you happy, then more strength to you, I guess. I, however, do like the Freedom is Slavery. I think freedom gets many people into trouble, just on human nature alone, with our own indulgences and desires that can easily get out of hand or go down a path we don't see as wrong, until things in our lives give us those 'Moments of Epiphanies", that is if your lucky enough to come to that point. I hate the War is Peace idea, mainly because I think humans have the capacity to deal with matters without it, yet War is seen as necessary these days. People love weapons, because people crave authority and power. Wow I can really get started with this kind of stuff. Excuse me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Unfed Posted April 26, 2006 Author Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 please read the novel as soon as humanly possible. actually, here's a little cut n' paste for you... Chapter 4 With the deep, unconscious sigh which not even the nearness of the telescreen could prevent him from uttering when his day's work started, Winston pulled the speakwrite towards him, blew the dust from its mouthpiece, and put on his spectacles. Then he unrolled and clipped together four small cylinders of paper which had already flopped out of the pneumatic tube on the right-hand side of his desk. In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages, to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston's arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building. Winston examined the four slips of paper which he had unrolled. Each contained a message of only one or two lines, in the abbreviated jargon -- not actually Newspeak, but consisting largely of Newspeak words -- which was used in the Ministry for internal purposes. They ran: times 17.3.84 bb speech malreported africa rectify times 19.12.83 forecasts 3 yp 4th quarter 83 misprints verify current issue times 14.2.84 miniplenty malquoted chocolate rectify times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling With a faint feeling of satisfaction Winston laid the fourth message aside. It was an intricate and responsible job and had better be dealt with last. The other three were routine matters, though the second one would probably mean some tedious wading through lists of figures. Winston dialled 'back numbers' on the telescreen and called for the appropriate issues of The Times, which slid out of the pneumatic tube after only a few minutes' delay. The messages he had received referred to articles or news items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to alter, or, as the official phrase had it, to rectify. For example, it appeared from The Times of the seventeenth of March that Big Brother, in his speech of the previous day, had predicted that the South Indian front would remain quiet but that a Eurasian offensive would shortly be launched in North Africa. As it happened, the Eurasian Higher Command had launched its offensive in South India and left North Africa alone. It was therefore necessary to rewrite a paragraph of Big Brother's speech, in such a way as to make him predict the thing that had actually happened. Or again, The Times of the nineteenth of December had published the official forecasts of the output of various classes of consumption goods in the fourth quarter of 1983, which was also the sixth quarter of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. Today's issue contained a statement of the actual output, from which it appeared that the forecasts were in every instance grossly wrong. Winston's job was to rectify the original figures by making them agree with the later ones. As for the third message, it referred to a very simple error which could be set right in a couple of minutes. As short a time ago as February, the Ministry of Plenty had issued a promise (a 'categorical pledge' were the official words) that there would be no reduction of the chocolate ration during 1984. Actually, as Winston was aware, the chocolate ration was to be reduced from thirty grammes to twenty at the end of the present week. All that was needed was to substitute for the original promise a warning that it would probably be necessary to reduce the ration at some time in April. As soon as Winston had dealt with each of the messages, he clipped his speakwritten corrections to the appropriate copy of The Times and pushed them into the pneumatic tube. Then, with a movement which was as nearly as possible unconscious, he crumpled up the original message and any notes that he himself had made, and dropped them into the memory hole to be devoured by the flames. What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the pneumatic tubes led, he did not know in detail, but he did know in general terms. As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of The Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs -- to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place. The largest section of the Records Department, far larger than the one on which Winston worked, consisted simply of persons whose duty it was to track down and collect all copies of books, newspapers, and other documents which had been superseded and were due for destruction. A number of The Times which might, because of changes in political alignment, or mistaken prophecies uttered by Big Brother, have been rewritten a dozen times still stood on the files bearing its original date, and no other copy existed to contradict it. Books, also, were recalled and rewritten again and again, and were invariably reissued without any admission that any alteration had been made. Even the written instructions which Winston received, and which he invariably got rid of as soon as he had dealt with them, never stated or implied that an act of forgery was to be committed: always the reference was to slips, errors, misprints, or misquotations which it was necessary to put right in the interests of accuracy. But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head. For example, the Ministry of Plenty's forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at one-hundred-and-forty-five million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than one-hundred-and-forty-five millions. Very likely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain. Winston glanced across the hall. In the corresponding cubicle on the other side a small, precise-looking, dark-chinned man named Tillotson was working steadily away, with a folded newspaper on his knee and his mouth very close to the mouthpiece of the speakwrite. He had the air of trying to keep what he was saying a secret between himself and the telescreen. He looked up, and his spectacles darted a hostile flash in Winston's direction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Meatball Fulton Posted April 26, 2006 Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 Check out my sig. That quote is actually engraved on the entrance of the Worcester, MA county courthouse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members felix Posted April 26, 2006 Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 Man, I gotta re-read that book again! One of my favorites. I have a worn-out paperback special commemorative edition from 1984 - and I did my Senior English research paper on it - in 1984. Of course, it has been documented that 1984 was something of a random year (the book was written in 1948, so the last two digits were switched for the book title). Visionary in a lot of ways. Combine 1984 with Brave New World and the movie Brazil, and you have a lot of really good examples of the way things are today. STG - you really hit the nail on the head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Yoozer Posted April 26, 2006 Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 Originally posted by stikygum Ignorance is bliss, and if bliss makes you happy, then more strength to you, I guess. Wiretapping? Sure. Incarceration and stripping of rights for indefinite times? No problem! Cronyism? Get over it! Gas prices hit $3/gallon? IMPEACH THE PREZ! Also, 1984 is not scary enough anymore. I'm much more concerned personally, about scenarios like this or this. A government can lose from a corporation in terms of ruthlessness, because the latter doesn't have to fool itself into the thinking of "for the good of the people" - unless you count the shareholders, of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Lancaster Posted April 26, 2006 Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 Originally posted by suitandtieguy 1984 is the most important book i ever read. I might have to agree with that. Some stuff has surfaced on the net that claims to be parts of the original draft for "1984" that didnt make the final cut. The parts in question are about the Thought Police or members of The Party using Internet-like technology to communicate from all over the world. His premise for the book is pretty close to our evolving reality.. His dystopia was Socialism+technology=totalitarianism whereas our reality is Fascism Lite+Technology= ???.It may not be necessary to listen in on everyone if you can just tell them what to think. He who controls the media controls reality. The parallel between Osama bin Laden and Emmanual Goldstein is chilling. My girlfriend doesnt get pissed off anymore when I say, "there's Emmanual Goldstein again" and hiss at the TV whenever Osama is trotted out to reinforce the necessity of the "endless war on terror".She doesnt buy into any alternative theories about 9/11,but she's starting to realize who his continued "existence" really benefits. Orwell coudnt forsee all the technological advancements that have come to pass, but that wasnt really the function of the book anyway. He foresaw a Soviet Union type of government taking over most of the world. While the omnipotent government model seemed to be something most of us thought we would never have to deal with in Western soceties, the events of the last 5 years have "changed everything" I'm sure there are many that think that the Internet and the freedom it represents will save us from a fate such as that. Recent technological advancements in the ability to analyze every packet of info from every computer in real time are here...many of your ISPs are using these voodoo boxes to minimize P2P usage on their networks.The Chinese, and other like minded governments use these boxes to flag whatever is considered worth checking out. If there is another major terrorist attack, I expect the Internet to be blamed as a means for allowing it, facilitating the planning,etc. Demonization of it and the need to "regulate content and access" will be the new buzzwords.As long as the ability of it to help companies make money is not impeded, there will be little sympathy for a "network which aids the enemy". The book is still fascinating and everyone should read it. Read it before you live it.We're already living little bits of it. More will be coming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted April 26, 2006 Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 Originally posted by multitrack mind The parallel between Osama bin Laden and Emmanual Goldstein is chilling. double plus truth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Awake77 Posted April 26, 2006 Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 I wonder how this guy would look at ol' Bush and government for that matter when many times governments are doing things behind people's back and breaking laws. How the hell did the Patriot Act beat out our Constitution? Ben Fraklin said it best: "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither" The way things are going is pretty alarming...its pretty obvious they can tag anything with with word 'terrorism' and use that to chip away just a little more of our civil liberties. I wonder how far it will really go? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members easy1 Posted April 26, 2006 Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 "When facism comes to America, it will be draped in a flag, carrying a cross" -- Sinclair Lewis 1885-1951 -- The first American to win the Nobel prize in literature Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Diametro Posted April 26, 2006 Members Share Posted April 26, 2006 Originally posted by suitandtieguy 1984 is the most important book i ever read.the parts which i feel have the most bearing on life today are the oversimplification of speech and the constant state of un-war the state is in.remember, this "war on terror" is supposed to be infinite in length and breadth. Amen! It's so straight from the book, it's downright insulting ... The only major aspect of today's global society it failed to portray was the takeover of everything by corporations ... See "Brave New World" for that. But in that future, it seems competition has been eliminated. For a more violent portrayl of the corporation mentality ... watch "Godfather III" (don't laugh) for that ... Just happened to catch it the other night on AMC (aside from Pacino's Wacko Jaco performance, it's not as bad as I remembered it ... Let's face it. It's a movie you WANT to like as much as various elements conspire against that enormous built-in good will.) Don't forget Animal Farm. But I think the most prophetic book of all time is "Dune" by Fank Herbert, which EXACTLY predicted the oil wars in Middle East (substitute 'oil' for 'spice' and 'America" for "House Harkonnen" and the ruling empire.) If anyone hasn't read this book, you will not be sorry if you do. And as for the movie -- I LOVE IT! -- miniseries -- yuck! -- but either or is merely a graphic representation of that gigantic story that encompasses religion, politics, psychology, environment, myth, you name it, Herbert's got it there quite elegantly. So prescient for the mid-1960s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members CTB Posted April 27, 2006 Members Share Posted April 27, 2006 1984 - one of my all-time favorite books. Not that I read much, but I read that one twice, I believe, and loved it. And we've always been at war with Oceana... (might have the name wrong...been a while) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members packrat Posted April 27, 2006 Members Share Posted April 27, 2006 Let's not forget Fahrenheit 451, either. B> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kooki_sf Posted April 27, 2006 Members Share Posted April 27, 2006 the giver is pretty great too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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