Reading Orwell's 1984
58: Part 4 of 6
Welcome back, friends! We’re reading George Orwell’s 1984. Thanks for sticking with me. For those just joining, you can catch up on parts one, two, and three of the discussion.
In the last installment, Winston and Julia’s relationship has blossomed. He is eating well and they have a stable hideaway. We delved deeper into their thoughts on the world and how different their perspectives were. At the end of the reading, Winston gets a glimmer of hope from Inner Party member O’Brien.
Chapters’ Summary
Pages 159-224 (end of Part II) or listening from 5:54:52 to 8:05:16 on the audiobook.
Winston goes to see O’Brien and Julia arrives by a separate route. Once in his study, O’Brien shuts off the telescreen (a privilege granted to Inner Party members for up to a half hour) and they speak freely. O’Brien’s servant Martin joins them as a conspirator. Winston says he is an enemy of the Party and wants to know how he can be used to fight in the resistance.
O’Brien obliges, asking a battery of questions to gauge their loyalty. He also says they may have to assume new identities or alter their appearance with surgical procedures, among other changes. Winston and Julia pledge their allegiance to the cause without hesitation.
He tells them he will give them a book to read that on completion will grant them membership to The Brotherhood, an underground resistance group. It’s not a traditional organization in that it is virtually structureless, with very isolated cells operating ignorant of one another. If caught, each member is on their own.
You understand, that you will be fighting in the dark. You will always be in the dark.
O’Brien
Winston is struck with admiration for O’Brien, not only for his thoughts but his physique. Winston notes his shifts in posture, pacing, and breadth of his shoulders. He is a powerful figure which makes an impact on Winston just with his presence.
As the meeting winds down, O’Brien says “We are the dead. Our only true life is in the future.” O’Brien’s words are a repetition from Winston’s diary and his conversations with Julia. They toast to the past and Julia departs. While the two are alone, Winston reveals his hiding place at Charrington’s and O’Brien details an arrangement for him to receive Emmanuel Goldstein’s book. Winston will learn about the society they live in and the plans to destroy it.
“We shall meet again—if we do meet again—”
Winston looked up at him. “In the place where there is no darkness?” he said hesitantly.
O’Brien nodded without the appearance of surprise. “In the place where there is no darkness1.”
Winston works a staggering 90-hour week as the result of a single Party shift in target. During a speech at the climax of Hate Week, an Inner Party official is handed a note. Without missing a beat, Eurasia becomes the ally and Eastasia, the enemy, which is the opposite of what all propaganda has read for four years. Banners within the square are torn down and the mistake attributed to Goldstein. After that momentary interruption, the campaign continues and the people are as riled up as before, despite the change in enemy.
The Ministry of Truth is then tasked with the grueling task of rectifying years of propaganda in all distributed media. They camped out and were fed onsite to scrub all traces of the war with Eurasia and alliance with Eastasia within a week. No detail was overlooked.
The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism by Emmanuel Goldstein details the history of the formations of the three major superstates. In it, Goldstein explains the Party slogans “war is peace” and “ignorance is strength”.
”War is Peace”
The main reason for war is dominion over cheap labor. The superstates were comprised of large, self-sustaining land masses which battled over control of African, Middle Eastern, South Asian and Indonesian archipelago labor. Control passes from hand to hand which is why they’re always fighting. Borders fluctuate as one superstate conquers a region. The labor feeds an elaborate war machine. It is war for the sake of war and preparation for the next war. There is no value added by the laborers’ struggle and death.
The war machine is fed by the surplus of industrialization which would otherwise be distributed to the masses and make them comfortable. At a certain point, however, industrialization gave way to automation, which raised the standard of living for everyone and reduced hierarchy. Even with wealth equitably distributed, power is not. People who are well fed and cogent may find little need for a privileged class. Hierarchy depends on poverty, so in order for the hierarchy to remain, people must remain in a constant state of want, hence the need to destroy the fruits of their labor. The privileged class remains relatively intact.
Failed economic models or pitfalls are detailed along with what has led to the current state. Even within the Inner Party, in matters of war and sight of the enemy, members must be whipped into frenzies of hatred to the point of fanaticism. It is necessary, when directed, to believe there is a war and that Oceania will be the winner even if that is not practically possible. Oceania, Eastasia, and Eurasia are all so large and evenly matched that none can defeat the other.
Goldstein posits that the constant squabbles among nations produce a perpetual state of war. It does not take place in the heart of the superstates, but in disputed territory mainly occupied by the world’s labor. This is because the nature of war has changed. We no longer fight to declare a decisive winner or to capture significant territory and install new governments. Permanent war is a baseline state and would be the same as permanent peace.
”Ignorance is Strength”
There are kinds of people: the high, the middle, and the low. The pattern repeats and the classes have been called by many names over the ages, but the structure is the same. The high want to remain the high, the middle want to switch places with the high, and the low want to banish all hierarchy so people can live as equals. Goldstein details the methods by which the hierarchy remains, including the middle enlisting the help of the low to overthrow the high, then becoming the new cruel masters.
The high was prone to be ousted by the same weaknesses, whereas the Party strived to leave no stone unturned in their quest to remain perpetually as the high. Television made the process of harmonizing all public opinion and keeping people surveilled, a plausible reality. Add to that, a new Party tactic of owning as a collective rather than individuals made the transition to total power easier in the eyes of the public.
Goldstein goes on to explain the current hierarchy of the figment of Big Brother, the Inner Party, the Outer Party, and the proles. The Inner Party are the most stripped of their humanity, living their lives under the eye of the Thought Police, continually riled up by the Two Minutes Hate, and never permitted to deviate in thought, word, or deed from Party Doctrine.
Whereas masses are kept ignorant, Inner Party members employ doublethink to reconcile inconsistencies. Among them, there must be no doubt about their commitment to the cause of the Party and it must shift whenever the Party shifts. The knowledge that a certain thing has always been true is also essential. Black was always white until black is black. Then it has always been black. The past, must therefore always be altered, which occurs on a macro level through the Ministry of Truth and is enforced by the Ministry of Love.
Changing the past is a central tenet of Ingsoc or English Socialism, a misleading term meant to pacify the follower. The term accepts the name of a preceding ideology with none of its facets. In actuality, the purpose of Ingsoc is to once and for all, cement inequality, banish freedom, and hold social hierarchy intact. When the past is altered to reflect the truth put forth by the Party, they are seen as strong and infallible. The failures of past regimes to remain in power are therefore solved because no contradiction is ever allowed to remain. No admission of falsehood is ever made. Add to that, the fluidity of the past, as practiced by skilled doublethinkers, takes a certain level of controlled insanity the greater the understanding. These are all methods that the high employ to remain the high.
The two aims of the party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought.
Conquering the world involves the development of all manner of weapons including chemical. Eliminating independent thought involves the close study of body language, speech, and inflection. The evenly matched landmass powers cannot defeat each other and toil away to no avail. They hoard nuclear weapons in anticipation of war even though none will probably arise.
The Party maintain the lie that foreigners are different even though they may ethnically be similar or have similar lifestyles. The superstates’ ideologies are also similar, but the other doctrines are painted as virtually heresy. Thus far, Oceania’s only interaction with foreigners are prisoners so the lie is propped up.
We return to the idea of hierarchy and that war against citizens maintains it. The hierarchy also helps to achieve the directive of eliminating independent thought by keeping people ignorant and distracted so that any rebellion is impossible.
The best books he perceived are those that tell you what you know already.
Winston and Julia stand by the window and observe a prole woman singing and hanging out her wash. Winston comments that the woman is beautiful, someone who had a hard life but found a reason to sing. He thought about the fact that there were people like her everywhere living and finding some joy. They say to each other, “We are the dead.”
Suddenly another voice repeats the phrase. They turn and behind the photo of the statue at St. Martin’s, the one that prompted the conversation about the children’s rhyme, is a telescreen. They have been caught by the Thought Police. Mr. Charrington comes up to the room and we find out he was in a disguise. He is not an old man at all, but younger than Winston. He issues the arrest of the pair and Julia is carried away.
My thoughts:
Goldstein’s book is frightening in that it so precisely outlines the present state. I don’t know if Orwell knew how right he was but it’s true of perpetual fights over certain regions for oil, precious metals, and other resources that are besieged with no respite. Millions of bodies have been sacrificed for the war machine and for power grabs. Meanwhile, mainlands exist in relative ignorance regarding the ravages of war, as it’s not on our doorsteps. We can, for long periods, just like Inner Party members, forget that a war is even taking place on our behalf.
Doublethink is fascinating and oddly comforting. It reminds me of when politicians talk about family values but introduce legislation to control people’s fertility, deny them living wages, deny early childhood funding, or cut maternity leave. It’s beyond the level of hypocrisy. It’s a conscious and unconscious level of insanity in which two opposite things can be true and the individual has no conflict about it whatsoever.
This helps us stop looking for things to make sense and realize they’re not supposed to. Policies are meant to squeeze us to the point of near suffocation so we can focus on nothing else. We cannot outright vaporize queer people en masse, but we will make it impossible for them to live and stir up hatred so lone wolves will handle the rest. It’s deliberate and yet unintentional. When they’re asked if they anticipated consequences, it’s not idiocy that keeps their answers vague, but a process of self-deception. In effect, it is an advanced mind that can play this trick in their own mind.
My heart dropped when I read that Mr. Charrington was part of the Thought Police. He provided this sanctuary for free thought, desire, and normalcy. It felt unimaginably cruel to use that safety as a pretext to trap them. Part of me thought there was something suspicious about it, though. How does a man selling antiques who has virtually no other customers, stay in business? I rationalized it with shops I’ve seen where it didn’t seem anything was ever purchased, just shuffled around. Especially in this environment, one so starkly divided and ravaged by bombs, it didn’t seem there was any market for antiques.
I also considered just how thoroughly embedded the Thought Police was in everyday life and the realization that their snares were everywhere. The first was the diary. It seems so small but if you’re on the other side, what would one feel compelled to write? In itself, buying these things leads to crime.
Think of Winston’s path. It began with his interest in the diary. He had independent thought so he was doomed for even having an interest. He knew this and accepted that fate, but as the audience, we didn’t see it at first. Winston migrated to denouncing Big Brother in those pages, fornication, becoming an accomplice in food theft, blowing off his Party obligations, joining a resistance group and pledging allegiance to it, reading a book from the Enemy of the People… the Thought Police were probably waiting for that point. They were waiting for him to be ready to act. Until then, he still was not a threat to the Party entirely. They probably knew Julia was having sex with Party members, but she stayed under the radar otherwise by being a vocal and (by appearances) obedient member. It was still just hopeless infatuation which could have fizzled out.
Just as we are capable of great strides that begin with thought, so are we capable of remaining in control. To maintain in absolute power, however, there can be no wavering and infractions like the ones Winston and Julia committed could not stand. It’s part of the grip of Big Brother. You are monitored absolutely everywhere you go and perpetually under his eye.
Under his eye
Winston didn’t finish. He came all this way and didn’t get to the why, which was his central question. Theory and Practice just crystallized what he already knew but couldn’t put into words. Had longer to cogitate on the little that he read, he may have extrapolated the why, but seeing it clearly spelled out would have made the difference. He would have at least gotten some peace inside. He thought there was time and that he was safe. It’s upsetting to think he may never know the why.
Discussion prompts:
Is it a coincidence that Winston was caught so quickly after meeting with O’Brien?
Where can we see beauty despite our circumstance? Are you inspired by the singing woman?
Would you like to have read more of Goldstein’s book? Why?
What’s next?
Part 5 of 6, pages 225-260 (up to Part III, at the end of chapter 2) or 8:05:20 to 9:57:10 in the audiobook
Something told me O'Brien wasn't what he seemed. I knew the book was not about Winston and Julia teaming up to rebel and leading people with a big action based moment etc so I figured something would go wrong for him. Also, this part had the pages from Goldstein's book and I thought they went on a little too long. Of course, the information was fascinating but it felt like supplementary material you'd buy to go with the main book because you are super into the world building.