George Orwell’s 1984

This has got to be the most bleak and depressing book ever written. Orwell, real name Eric Blair, describes from page one life in a totalitarian society, a country where one party rules, where any dissent is not tolerated, where fear rules everyone’s lives, and where life is cheap and death is just around the corner.

He must be talking about some Communists dictatorship or third world country, this could not happen is a free western democracy, right! Well contemplate this; the United States under the Bush NeoCon administration made torture part of it policy. Things that we condemned when they where done to our servicemen our government now uses against others as a matter of policy. You can get anyone to confess to anything under torture so it is always useless, everyone knows this yet the NeoCons did it anyway. Orwell describes how ‘Big Brother is watching’ through the use of a television that not only sends you information but watches your every move simultaneously and without your consent. Well here we are in 2009 AD and if you use the Internet your every move is recorded; your computer has a special number that is kept along with the information on the web-sites you visit by Microsoft and search engines like Google. This information is also imbedded inside your computer in several places, it is difficult to find and delete and no one will tell you that it is there or where to find it. If any government from your local village up to the Federal monster wants to they can go to Microsoft or Google and retrieve that information long after the fact. They will then use that information to prosecute you, never mind what the Constitution says about self incrimination. Orwell describes how the Party snatches people in the middle of the night and they just disappear and now we know that our government has been eliminating its own citizens who have fallen afoul for many years. If you present a danger to the ruling elect you can and will be murdered. If you ever find yourself in the court system you had better hope you just won the lottery because Big Brother will use his unlimited resources to prosecute you and you will be expected to pay for your own defense. Only the rich can afford justice.

Orwell describes how constant warfare allows production to remain high without allowing the working class to become prosperous. In the last one hundred years we have had the First World War, the Great depression, WW2, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and now the War on Terror against the Moslem world back to back without pause. Yet the poor are still poor and the working class still hangs on by a tread. We have seen the existence of the State of Israel cause trouble all around the world yet we could not find peace since 1968.

Orwell clear back in 1948 describes a society without love between the sexes and today we have over half of marriages ending in divorce. Our society allows women to be demanding screws with endless instruction in magazines, television shows, and movies. The divorce laws are 100% biased against the male side and a double standard exists on every subject driving men to hate the one thing they desire most.

Orwell goes on page after page describing the horrendous tortures inflicted on people with an almost sadistic pleasure. If you are an observer of the average man and woman you know that most people delight in others suffering. They smile with glee when thinking about someone they dislike being subjected to abuse while in a prison, they would flock to public executions as they did in the past, they would pay money to watch people being tortured. I thought we had advanced beyond all that but I now know it is thanks to a small minority that the masses are held in check. Mankind is far from civilized. In 1984 it is not clear why the Party would bother with torture when they could just eliminate you until you understand that eliminating all opposition will not satisfy them they must break your spirit; after Winston is completely broken he is turned loose and given a good job. It is also not clear why they are so obsessed with altering history when no one is going to check up on them anyway but self satisfaction is its own reward.

The book ends the way it started and the way it ran throughout, bleak, depressing and without any hope. I was very glad to finish it.

I don’t think it is a very good book. Orwell has one writing technique that is maddening. He jumps from present to future then back to past with each chapter. You get the facts then much later you get the explanation, I do not understand why he does this it adds nothing but frustration to the read. First Winston is alone and writing an illegal diary, then he is meeting a girl, then without explanation he is in jail. Only much later are we told why he is in custody. He repeats this technique far to often; it is as if he took the chapter numbers and thrown them up in the air and the order in which they landed is the way he published them. Orwell also has the villain, Obrien, toy with Winston without explanation; Obrien gives Winston Goldstein’s Book to read so that we will also read it. All to often we are given information, we want and need an explanation, but none is forthcoming.

Orwell does bring up one fact that is all too true. In any social system the people that take control while expecting you to live as they tell you, without any comforts, but do not treat themselves the same way. Orwell’s common citizens (85%) live in poverty, the party faithful (13%) live bleak lives while the big shots live in luxury. This is true in capitalist society and in all the totalitarian regimens including the egalitarian communist countries.

Orwell was a disgruntled communist, actually a Trotskyite. Like so many others in the 1920s and 1930s he believed the propaganda from the Russian commies. British Capitalism was a rotten system where the rich got everything so communism had its appeal. I don’t know why people can’t think for themselves, they always join, and they join one group or another instead of having independent thoughts. Why we can not have a capitalist system where the workers are paid decent wages and the capitalists are not allowed excess I do not know. I would institute a system of “Luxury” taxes that could not be escaped then the rich could still be rich they would just pay a lot of tax when they spent their money.

The book 1984 is Orwell’s way of stating his opinions. He does this by putting his thoughts into the mouth of “Goldstein” the rest of the story is filler to make a manifesto into a novel. The things Orwell wanted to say he said as Goldstein. The trick he used of putting chapters ahead of themselves is to keep the reader confused and ignorant of his true objective: to state his opinions about society.