In the 1940s, George Orwell published a novel that illustrated a dystopian future for that time. In the year 1984, the world has taken an unrecognizable shape. All remnants of what used to be, now destroyed, as the twentieth century took a horrendous turn.
Orwell imagined a world where totalitarianism reined, individualism was dead, and reality and history was simply a matter of opinion. Of course, this never happened as it was just fiction, but the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four has seen a resurgence in popular culture because many have made connections between this dark society and our own.
<div class="pull-left"><center><img src="https://i.imgsafe.org/90/905c8ef9e5.jpeg"/><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/entertainment/three-1984-quotes-that-are-eerily-relevant-in-2017-and-explain-trump/2017/01/30/95f8e14a-e40a-11e6-a419-eefe8eff0835_video.html?noredirect=on"><br></br>Big Brother Is Watching You</a></center></div>
Orwell never saw the rise of the internet or the policies of the 21st-century but his novel has been treated by some as almost a foreshadowing of the future, with constant surveillance of every citizen by INGSOC and constant surveillance by every government against its own citizens. As more compared this dystopian society in his book with our own, his popularity has continued to grow.
This post isn't meant to compare our society with the fictitious world created by Orwell. This post is simply a summary of the politics, history, and world in the scenario Orwell crafted.
## Let's Start With Some History. ##
In Orwell's novel, the twentieth century is one long tragedy. The potential of humanity and this great path of civilization is entirely squandered in just a few decades.
Since the novel was published in 1949 it's not surprising this is where the future begins to go downhill. It all started after world war 2 and the dawn of the cold war. The precursor division of the world already has begun to be seen.
For us, in the 21st-century we know how it ends. The Soviet Union falls, nuclear war never happens, etc., etc. But in Orwell's timeline, there is no decades-long tension of the cold war between the U.S. and Russia. Instead, sometime in the early 1950's World War 3 breaks out. Nuclear bombs were used on major cities around the world and we know that London was nuked multiple times around 1954.
During the bombings, the Soviet Union invaded all of mainland Europe as its armies swept even into the Iberian peninsula. The British Isles became the last bastion on the continent.
In the aftermath of the war, the west unified as the United States and the British Commonwealth untied into a single country. The United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Britain formed to create Oceania. Oceania then went on to annex Latin America and after this history gets a little bit fuzzy.
What we do know is that because of the traumatic events of the war, unrest occurred in Oceania and the Soviet Union. Sometime after 1954 Oceania fell into civil war between capitalism and a new homegrown ideology. This war, by 1984, is referred to as *The Revolution*.
This new ideology won and under this victory formed itself under a single party, INGSOC. We'll talk about that more soon, but first, let's discuss the rest of the world.
> ### The English Socialist Party, better known as Ingsoc (Newspeak for English Socialism), is the fictional political party of the totalitarian government of Oceania in George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingsoc)
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Sometime in the 1960s simultaneous revolutions occurred in the USSR and China. Neo-Bolshevikism united Europe and Russia into Eurasia while China, after fighting amongst itself for a decade, finally formed as Eastasia under the nicely named ideology called *Obliteration of the Self*.
## Rewriting History ##
This history that you just learned is something that no citizen in Oceania would know about which is a good way to introduce you to this dystopian world.
By 1984 the world is divided between these three nations; Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, all in a state of perpetual war over an area called the Equatorial Front, (North Africa, through the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia) and is constantly fought between these three superpowers. We'll get back to that later.
Even though the history of the early 20th-century, by 1984, would only be decades ago, they might as well have been thousands. The nations, history, people before INGSOC are simple myths and exists is a society that is totalitarianism to its extreme.
First, welcome to Britain, except if you're a citizen you've never known it as Britain. You know it as Airstrip 1. For many Britain is a distant memory. The Party's grip on the mind is so powerful that what once was an unquestionable fact, like a name, is similar to a faint dream. You question if it even happened if it was ever even real at all. You forget about it.
This is the most prominent attribute of Oceania; the control of information to such an extent that facts are not reality and reality can be changed simply on the whim of Big Brother and the party, INGSOC.
INGSOC controls all. INGSOC sees all. To say it changed society is an understatement. INGSOC destroyed society and remade it into something where only it can thrive. Western civilization is basically dead. Now it is only a civilization that exists purely for the Party to rule without question. How exactly it did this we don't know.
<center>https://i.imgsafe.org/90/906d103b7d.png</center>
<center>[source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak)</center>
## Let's Get This Party Started ##
Now when I say Party, INGSOC isn't a party like the Democrats, Republicans, or even Nazis. It's more like a society within a society. It has its own separate culture and rules from the majority of the population.
Oceania is split between three main classes.
1. The Inner Party - The secretive heads of state is only 2% of the population
2. The Outer Party - The bureaucratic but still devoted educated people which is 13% of the population
3. Proles - Everyone else, the uneducated, easy to manipulate, simpletons who live in poverty never knowing any better.
Think of it as the ruling classes of Westeros. They have their own issues and culture while masses are simply the mundane peasants nobody really cares about.
The Inner and Outer party is divided between our main sections. The Four Ministries.
1. Ministry Of Peace - who wages war against Eurasia or Eastasia depending on who it is at the time
2. Ministry Of Love - which shuts down the opposition and quells dissent
3. Ministry Of Truth - the propaganda arm of the party. Propaganda is to put it lightly. This purpose of the party is to rewrite, invent or destroy any conflicting bit of news or history that goes against the party. News stories tell of war heroes who, in actuality, don't exist.
4. Ministry Of Plenty - economics and rations. It decides who gets what and what resources must be cut back.
Every ministry is housed in pyramids that tower over the London skyline, 300-meters in the air, or roughly 1000 feet tall.
In Oceania the only one thing that matters in INGSOC. Since the Proles are too uneducated to matter and are easy to manipulate either by nationalistic pandering or by creating a fake crisis, the Party only really has to worry about its own stability to survive. Like a human body, it remains healthy by purging out the harmful educated elements and those not entirely loyal to the ideology.
Decades ago there were mass purges in the '50s and '60s inside the Party. INGSOC removed every threat of the old world to solidify itself among fanatic, new supporters. By cutting off the population of both the Party and masses from history INGSOC is able to have a monopoly on facts.
For example, the Party says it invented the airplane. This is simply a fact now and everyone believes it. The Ministry Of Truth rewrites and destroys any evidence of this not being the case. Those in the Party who openly question this simply disappear or are sent to the Ministry Of Love for re-education. This continues en masse until, at least for the most part, it's a fact among the population that the Party did invent the airplane.
This is a process. How Orwell describes this that simply through the progression of decades INGSOC was able to normalize attributes that haven't existed in the west for centuries. Class divide, un-education, mass atrocities by the State, censorship in large amounts; these are allowed to be commonplace because anyone who didn't agree with it is either too unimportant or dead to care.
Then solidified this base with youthful and nationalistic young adults and you've got a healthy future for your ideology. INGSOC's ideology runs so deep children are more likely to openly report their own parents for thought crimes. INGSOC recreated culture, crafted new terms to allow only it to exist.
## The Thought Police ##
> ### A thoughtcrime is an Orwellian neologism used to describe an illegal thought. To entertain unacceptable thoughts is known as crimethink (or wrongthink) in Newspeak, the ideologically purified dialect of the party. Crimestop is a way to avoid crimethink by immediately purging dangerous thoughts from the mind. [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime)
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A *thought crime* is anything that goes against the policy of the party. If you commit a thought crime you could be vaporized by the *thought police*. Simply disappear, and when I mean disappear I mean it is now a fact that you were never a person, an unperson. This isn't like kids giving Jimmy the silent treatment and more like everyone simply forgetting there ever was a Jimmy and forgetting that they forgot. The mention of your existence somehow by your family or coworkers is now a thought crime in itself. Documents are changed or destroyed so that there is no evidence you ever did exist. Not that you did Jimmy. This is how INGSOC is able to quell dissent.
Another example of this actually happening today in real life is illustrated perfectly by the term Big Brother. Big Brother is a fictional character and symbol in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and is where the term originated from. In the society that Orwell describes, Oceania, every citizen is under constant surveillance by the authorities, mainly by telescreens. The people are constantly reminded of this by the slogan "Big Brother is watching you": a maxim that is ubiquitously on display. That's what it has always referred to since 1949 when the book was written.
Fast forward to today. Google *Big Brother* and what you'll find is a reality TV show that has aired for 20 seasons now. 20 seasons!? That's a whole new generation of people who only think of that show when they hear the words big Brother. Now do the search on YouTube and you'll find the same results.
Is that show really that good? Or is this the slow reconditioning of an entire population to erase from their memory what the expression refers to, curiously timed for a generation who have only grown up with the internet and increasing surveillance in their daily lives. Curious timing indeed.
I know, I said I wasn't going to compare the ideas expressed in the book with modern times, but I just couldn't help myself, plus, this really does illustrate how INGSOC can rewrite history by controlling the message and doing so over decades of time. Back to the story.
<center>https://i.imgsafe.org/90/907b5ce9e4.jpeg</center>
<center>[source](https://www.davidicke.com/article/464238/london-police-now-firm-definition-thought-crime)</center>
This term comes from the official language of the party; *newspeak*. It's technically just news for short in English but it's entirely designed to control the use of words that may be threatening to the party.
> ### Newspeak is a controlled language, of restricted grammar and limited vocabulary, meant to limit the freedom of thought—personal identity, self-expression, free will—that ideologically threatens the régime of Big Brother and the Party, who thus criminalized such concepts as thoughtcrime, contradictions of Ingsoc orthodoxy. [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak)
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Simplistic terms like *duckspeak, crime think, black white* by limiting language to small bits it makes debate controllable or refutable. INGSOC simply has a monopoly on political discourse because it made the words up.
## Brainwashing The Public ##
In 1984 this goes deeper than a weird language. Brainwashing is a cultural manifestation that goes down to the personal level. War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength. Reality and history itself can be changed with the bureaucratic stroke of a pen and nobody thinks that that stroke ever happened.
This is *doublethink*, a newspeak term to hold two conflicting beliefs and hold both as equal. Neither are canceled out, both are believed. This is best emulated by the ongoing war in the book. The party tells the public that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia eve if just a few years ago the enemy was Eastasia. Eastasian bombs reined on the city but everyone believes it was Eurasia because Big Brother and the party said so.
Eurasia was always the enemy. Eastasia was always the ally. This can change on a whim. History and information would be rewritten by the party to reflect any new change. It's not a debate to the people, it was just always this way.
It would be like changing colors. The sky is blue, but the party now says the sky is red, so you believe it's red, not say or pretend, you know with all your heart for certain that the sky has always been red and never even consider the change happened. This is another newspeak tern called *black white*.
So why does this happen? Is everyone stupid? Well, if you go by demographics, yeah. It's not that simple though. This world is all these people have ever known. Think of North Korea, actually, just apply all of this to North Korea. Kim Jong-un must have just gotten inspired somehow. You could say whatever you want when you raise generations to worship you.
<center>https://i.imgsafe.org/90/909ebbb64d.jpeg</center>
<center>[source](https://michaelgriffith1.com/2018/10/03/george-orwell-politics-language/)</center>
## What Is INGSOC? ##
*So, what is INGSOC even? Is it fascist, socialist, totalitarian, green party?* Does it have specific policies? What are its views on states rights?
INGSOC, in itself, is a conundrum, a product of double think. Officially INGSOC is socialist. It teaches that the days before the revolution were horrendous as the average citizen literally bowed to the capitalists, even going so far as to say capitalists could choose any woman to sleep with and nobody could do anything about it. Then INGSOC came and forever made the world better.
But at the same time INGSOC hates socialists, despises socialist policies and this is openly admitted by everyone, yet, nobody sees anything wrong with it because that's the power of double think.
INGSOC ideology, if you can call it that, isn't different at all than Eurasian Neo-bolshevikism or Eastasian Obliteration Of The Self. They're basically the same society. Technological and social differences are not that far apart between the three. This is something that may be recognized by all of them or simply ignored. We don't know.
## Waging Perpetual War ##
The relationship that continues between all of them is perpetual war. War is what runs this world, it's what allows all three nations to survive. It's a distraction that can rile up the uneducated masses with a constant, overshadowing force that *Big Brother* uses. INGSOC is the protector against the Eurasian hordes, or Eastasian, whichever.
*What are they fighting over?* Resources? Well, they have all the resources they need since they control so much territory. Power? No one can really overtake the other. This is already established.
Well, then what? Nothing. They're fighting over nothing. The Equatorial Front and Polar Front, as mentioned earlier, was never really anybody's territory. It's simply a giant fighting arena where the economic waste from an overloaded military buildup from all of the countries is shipped to. Almost like venting out steam.
Borders constantly shift, countless soldiers die fighting for territory which nobody wants, and the native people are enslaved and transferred between the three countries to work for the war machine which continues the cycle again.
All the nations have nukes and they could easily destroy each other; invade Britain or Europe, start wars in Russia and China, actually attacking the homelands, but that disrupts everything. It destroys the balance of power and these heads of state like their power. so, they constantly fight over the jungle and desert to keep what they have and keep nationalistic fervor up.
1984 is a twisted world. Whether it's realistic or not doesn't really matter. The consistent theme is *information is important* and the control of that information is most important. That's the biggest thing to take away from Orwell's world. Everything INGSOC did was to make sure the population was loyal and too stupid to realize its manipulation, going so far as to make those who did manipulate believe they weren't even manipulating in the first place.
<div class="pull-right"><center><img src="https://i.imgsafe.org/90/908f6d1f72.jpeg"/><a href="https://www.azquotes.com/author/11147-George_Orwell"><br></br>George Orwell</a></center></div>
*Does this tie into our current world?* One reads that book today and can’t help but notice the striking similarities between Orwell’s story and our reality in 2018. It definitely gives one food for thought comparing the political climate of today with some of the concepts presented in the book.
Here's what a recent article by the BBC had to say that I think is worth noting.
>Orwell understood that oppressive regimes always need enemies. In 1984 he showed how these can be created arbitrarily by whipping up popular feeling through propaganda. But in his description of the ‘Two Minutes Hate’, he also foresaw the way in which online mobs work. Obliged to watch the violent film, (as everyone is), Winston Smith [the main character in the book] observes “The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in…
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>A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledgehammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current”. Now political, religious and commercial organizations all trade in whipping up feelings. Orwell uncannily identified the willing collusion in hate that such movements can elicit: and of course, Winston observes it in himself. So, by implication might we, in ourselves. [source](http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180507-why-orwells-1984-could-be-about-now)
It's not to far for ones imagination to leap to see similarities in the book and the divisive politics of the day. MSM seems to play on the populations' emotions without any of us being any the wiser to their game. *But is there a systematic erasure of history being wiped from our collective memories and are we really being censored?* The blog CapitalistCreations.com made these comparisons.
>Ask a group of American university students when the Declaration of Independence was written and the majority won’t have a clue. Ask them what the Confederate flag represents and the majority will likely tell you racism. Ask university students who Thomas Jefferson was and many won’t know. Despite history always repeating itself, it’s ignored or erroneously taught in the public education system. This creates a gullible and dependent society.
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>Look at today… censorship and spying are out of control. From Net Neutrality to Facebook suppressing content, we are being muzzled. What’s worse, US Attorney General Loretta Lynch stated in March that the DOJ has discussed prosecuting climate change deniers! Imagine – right or wrong – being charged for an opinion. Don’t forget about the NSA spying on billions of emails, phone calls and text messages of ordinary Americans… free speech is under attack. [source]()
*What do I think?* I would love to hear your thoughts.
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