The Terrifying Ideology of 1984

if you want to picture the future

imagine a boot stamping down on a human

face forever there are few books as

famous and Infamous as George Orwell's

1984 it was banned in the US for being

communist and in the USSR for being

anti-communist it is a biting critique

of everything from authoritarianism to

censorship to Plato and it is one of the

most frequently mentioned books by

politicians across the globe the Spectre

of all world's nightmare looms large

over public Consciousness and will do

for many years to come but for all of

this significance we rarely stop to

examine Orwell's novel In Depth what is

it that makes the villainous party so

destructive and what makes living under

their brutal regime so unbearable well

this is just what we will explore today

we will uncover Orwell's terrifying

genius in designing a state that chips

away at every layer of the human psyche

slithering through our innermost

machinery and turning us into dull man

ible slaves here we'll learn how memory

is key to personal identity how power

can reshape the definition of Truth

itself and why helplessness is so

important if you want to become a

dictator of course I'll be unable to

cover every aspect of 1984 here because

it's such a deep novel so I do encourage

you to read it for yourselves and let's

start with a brief recap of the story

and world of 1984 just so we're all on

the same page going into our analysis

spoilers ahead one 1984 a brief synopsis

George Well's novel opens on a dystopian

totalitarian state named Oceania

comprising what used to be the British

Empire and the United States our

protagonist is Winston Smith an employee

and minor member of the party which is

the government ruling Oceania headed up

by their Messianic leader Big Brother

oceanian Society is split into three

strict classes the inner party who wield

pretty much all the power the outer

party about 13% of the population who

live under constant surveillance and

Carry Out orders from above and the PRS

the remaining 85% of the population who

are sharply policed and are kept

ignorant of current affairs but largely

left to their own devices considered too

stupid and uninformed to be a threat all

outer party members are kept underw

watch by telescreens digital devices

that have cameras and microphones

attached to them to survey their every

move Winston's job is at the ministry of

Truth correcting records each day he

files into work and Alters documents so

they reflect what the government wants

them to say of course he's unable to

admit to anyone else that this is in

fact his job description funnily enough

this was probably partly inspired by

Orwell's own experiences making

propaganda during World War I propaganda

which included Praise of Stalin in

Oceania one crime is treated more

seriously than any other thought crime

that is harboring treasonous ideas that

would undermine the party there was no

clear definition of thought crime and

you could be hauled Away by the thought

police for such varied indiscretions as

unsuitable facial expressions or sleep

talking Winston for his part secretly

Harbors a deep hatred for the party and

our Story begins in Earnest when he

decides to write down his private

thoughts in a secret journal knowing

that if this was ever found out he was

as good as dead over time Winston

becomes acquainted with a young woman

named Julia and they begin an elicit

Affair Julia is everything that Winston

finds lacking in his own life she is

passionate naturally rebellious against

the party and irresistibly attractive to

Winston they slowly fall in love and

Winston rents a private room above a

shop where they can meet and share

stolen hours together without raising

party suspicions in Oceania unions

between party members without explicit

permission was strictly forbidden and

sex and relationships in general were

disparaged and looked down upon

meanwhile Winston catches a suspicion

that one of the members of the inner

party O'Brien Harbors similar rebellious

sentiments to himself one day obrien

asks Winston to visit him at his address

under the pretense of providing him with

a new government issued language gu

Winston goes there bringing Julia and

O'Brien reveals himself to be a member

of the Brotherhood a secret organization

hellbent on overthrowing Big Brother

they agree to join the Rebellion on one

condition that they never be separated

O'Brien arranges for Winston to be

provided with the key text of the

Brotherhood which explains the inner

workings of the party and why it must be

overthrown this work describes numerous

aspects of the totalitarian state

including how the country is kept in a

Perpetual state of war in order to waste

resources and have the populace accept

terrible hardship all so they are kept

more loyal and dependent on the party

Winston is reading this book to Julia

and bed when all of a sudden the thought

police descend on their hiding spot the

owner of the shop from whom Winston was

renting his room is revealed to be a

member of the thought police all along

as is O'Brien and both Winston and Julia

are whisked away to the ministry of love

the ominous House of the party's Twisted

justice system Winston is brutally

tortured again and again by O'Brien with

the aim of breaking his spirits and

remaking him in the image of the party

O'Brien explains that external truth is

a delusion held by the insane since the

party has destroyed any evidence that

doesn't parrot their narrative the only

reasonable thing to do is to believe

that what they say is true any other

perspective was woefully out of line

with the evidence and reflected a flawed

and outdated philosophy O'Brien also

reveals the party's motives it wants

power for its own sake in the same way a

militarian places happiness as the end

goal of all action the party places

power as the Supreme good of existence

O'Brien explains that they don't just

want power over your behavior they want

power over your mind and they will not

rest until Winston's psyche is reshaped

entirely eventually Winston is tormented

to the extent that he truly believes

anything O'Brien tells him even

affirming that 2 + 2 equals 5 without

question but in his cell he becomes

agitated and in a nervous fit cries out

for Julia O'Brien realizes that

Winston's heart is still his own and so

he takes him to Room 101 to face his

ultimate fear Winston has a terrible

phobia of rats and O'Brien hooks him up

to a machine which will allow rats to

eat his face unless he gives in in his

Terror Winston screams that O'Brien

should do this to Julia instead if only

it would let him go free O'Brien knows

that at this moment he has dominated

Winston's entire soul and so he lets him

go we flash forward to see Winston

sitting in a cafe robbed of all feeling

he met up with Julia but they both know

that they've betrayed one another to the

party or else they would not have been

released and so now they feel only faint

disgust for one another having nothing

left to give his life meaning Winston

fully gives in to the party ethos and

has a quasi religious experience

proclaiming in ecstasy that he loves big

brother it is one of the most depressing

stories you could ever read but it's

also perhaps one of the richest in

meaning post analyses focus on the

political themes of the novel and we

will of course cover those but I also

want to take a more personal approach I

want to show how every aspect of the

state of Oceania is tailor made to break

the psychology of its citizens and turn

their lives into a living hell starting

with how it distorts one of Humanity's

most precious abilities if you want to

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description two the impersistent of

memory this might sound like an odd

question but what makes you you after

all your body regenerates most of its

cells every s Years yet you remain in

some way the same person how can this be

so when no physical part of you is the

same well one of the most popular

philosophical answers is that the

continuity of our memories grants us our

identity the philosopher John Lock used

to say that it is our interlocking chain

of recollection stretching far back into

the past that ties us to our previous

selves without it we would be UNM

floating in a continuous present with no

stable personal identity so it is

telling that Orwell places so much

emphasis on the way the party undermines

the memories of its citizens Winston is

in a conston state of questioning his

own recollection of events because of

his job at the ministry of Truth he is

in a uniquely distressing epistemic

situation he knows what has actually

happened he's seen the old unaltered

record of events but all the evidence of

that truth has long been destroyed so he

can only rely on his own scattered idea

of the past much of the first half of

the book follows Winston's desperate

attempts to find out what life in oania

was like before the party rise to power

he questions one of the elderly PRS

about this but all he can remember are

irrelevant details and even that is hazy

try as he might Winston just cannot get

an idea of either his history or the

history of his Society he has some vague

idea of who his mother and sister were

before they were disappeared by big

brother but that too is a blur he can't

even be certain of what happened a

single day in the past because the

records of the party are constantly

being altered big brother might deliver

a speech only for its contents to be

changed on all official documentation

the very next day it was dangerous to

even speak to a colleague about past

events because they might say something

that contradicted the party line and be

vaporized as a result that is arrested

tortured killed and wiped from all

official records as if they had never

existed unperson

all of this means that Winston and the

rest of the populace live in a state of

Perpetual confusion they see reality as

if it's through a thick fog they can't

be sure if their memories are correct or

if they're slowly going mad or horror of

all Horrors that the party has made a

mistake it is gaslighting on a

Monumental scale and it means no one can

pin down a consistent idea of what is

true Aristotle once famously claimed

that if a proposition is true it is true

for all time if John went shopping on

the 11th of March 1996 is true today

then it is true forever no one can

change it but in the world of 1984 such

an idea is ridiculous the past Alters at

the whim of the party higher ups and

since there's no one around to

contradict them their narrative wins by

default after all we normally check what

happened in the past by looking at the

evidence but all of the evidence here is

centrally controlled hence the party

saying who controls the present controls

the past but if if we take John Lock's

theory of identity seriously then the

situation is actually much worse than

this it is not just that Winston cannot

make sense of the past he can't even

make sense of himself his memories have

to change along with party policy if he

talked to someone yesterday who has

since been unpersoned then that

recollection can only be maintained on

pain of death in loan terminology he has

to a certain extent become a different

person worse still he is constantly

becoming different people each and every

day with each memory encroached upon by

big brother he loses a little sliver of

his personal identity sacrificing it at

the altar of the state only to have to

do the same thing the next day crafting

new memories to replace the ones that

are now criminal of course like almost

everything else in the novel this

confusion is by the design of the party

if the populace can't even decide on the

past then they'll have no idea what to

do about the future they cannot even

spot causal relationships in the world

the ability to observe Trends discover

weak es in the party apparatus and

assert their own view of reality is

completely taken away one of the famous

slogans of the party is ignorance is

strength but it is more than just that

their strength comes not just from the

ignorance of the population but from

their sheer bafflement as they spin out

of control alienated from themselves and

from reality forced to question the

evidence of their own senses against

mountains of artificially constructed

documents a hole opens up in their minds

they begin to Crave answers to have have

any small crumb of certainty in their

model of the world and this is something

the party is all too eager to provide

this is what I take to be the first

brick in both the wall of Big Brother's

power and the misery of Oceania the

party presents its subjects with an

impossible choice either submit to the

state's view of the past sacrificing

their very identities in the process or

give into a whirlwind of bewilderment

that will prevent them from resisting in

any case here we see the emergence of a

theme that will become Central to our

analysis the party constructs reality so

there are truly no good options but the

least bad of the bunch is always to tow

their destructive line but this is only

one aspect of the party's vice likee

grip on the minds of its populace and

there is far worse yet to come three

language and thought if you had never

known the word elephant how would you

talk about them you might describe them

by their properties but what if I then

took away the words for trunk or big

flappy ear or gray you might still be

able to get your thought across but it

would be much much more difficult if I

continued this process for long enough

it would be almost impossible to come up

with sensible ideas about elephants our

thoughts often follow the same Contours

that language carves out for them and

what we can speak about has a huge

bearing on what we can think about the

neuroscientist Lisa felan Barrett has

applied this insight to emotions looking

at how our concepts of our feelings

shape how we then subsequently feel so

if we have a given idea of happy and we

ascribe it to ourselves then that will

actually affect FF our mood and so on

arguably part of the value of things

like existential philosophy is giving

voice to extreme or difficult emotions

we might otherwise be unable to make

sense of so it is telling that one of

the party's main AIMS in 1984 is to

limit the language that the inhabitants

of Oceania could use so that in turn

they can limit their thoughts one way

they do this is just by punishing

dissident speech by torture and death

but everyone knows about that I want to

talk about the subtler more Insidious

way that big brother captures the mind I

want to talk about newp new speak is the

official language of Oceania and its

vocabulary is entirely controlled by the

party in our world languages can roughly

evolve through a process akin to supply

and demand people want to express

something but they cannot quite do it so

a word is crafted that roughly fits what

they want to say Shakespeare wanted to

express the idea that something could

not be heard so he coined the term

inaudible from existing components of

the language people wanted a new word

that would give them time to think

during breaks in a sentence so a brand

new meaning was constructed for the word

like we even do this on the Fly for

certain suffixes so adults can become

adulting and self can become selfing and

so on such organic evolution of language

allows us as speakers to slowly push the

boundaries of what we can express until

perhaps one day the limits of our

language will equal the genuine

limitations of our mind but new speak is

different the party periodically

releases a new newe dictionary with the

set of words that are considered

acceptable one member of the party

proudly boasts that it is is the only

language whose vocabulary gets smaller

with each passing year the reason for

this is simple new speak is carefully

constructed to prevent you from

expressing any thought against the party

so if they find a word that can strike

against the values of the state or

challenge them in any way then it will

be dispensed with the aim is that one

day everyone will chat discuss and

indeed think in you speak and as a

result conspiracy against the party will

become completely impossible the average

citizen would not even be able to

formulate the phrase I want to overthrow

Big Brother instead of letting language

flow outwards to the limits of possible

thought the party is using it like a

shrinking cage to trap the growth of our

ideas new speak also involves the

careful construction of words that

suggest certain forms of behavior are

good and others inherently bad for

instance the new speak word for

preventing yourself from having a

dissident thought is Crim stop who could

be against Crim stop it's basically

telling you it's a good thing by its

mere appearance but in doing so it

incentivizes citizens to keep their

minds well chained up so that they too

can be Crim Stoppers another good

example is thought crime by the very

construction of the word it professes

that thoughts can be against the law and

constitute criminal Behavior if you use

it in a non-ironic way then you've

already bought into the party's

worldview without even realizing it when

you're reading 1984 you get the sense

that the very idea of opposing big

brother is becoming gradually

inexpressible and it's not just this

that the party wants to to eliminate one

of the party members in charge of the

new speak dictionary says that

eventually they should be able to

challenge basic human instincts like the

drive to have sex he paints a dark

picture where the very fabric of your

thoughts and feelings are controlled by

the party and any imagination or

contemplation can only be had within its

strict limits existentially this is also

a terrifying Prospect because of the

high premium placed on authenticity for

our fulfillment it is hardly

controversial to say that believing one

thing and feeling another can cause

someone immense distress in lady

chatterly's lover DH Lawrence explores

the painful inner conflict that a

married woman feels when she both

desires to have an affair and also

believes she has a sacred Duty towards

her husband and most of us know on a

smaller scale how upsetting it can be

for our feelings or desires to be out of

step with our beliefs Simone DEA argued

that it was almost impossible to feel

fulfilled and happy in the long term

unless we are in some sense true to

ourselves so the concept of new speak is

not just politically horrify it would

also plunge us into an emotional hell we

would walk around with the Deep feeling

that something was wrong that we had

instinctual thoughts we cannot express

but we would never be able to put these

ideas into words or conceptualize them

in the novel Winston is often upset at

how he will never know how many other

party members share his hatred for big

brother but if new speak catches on the

situation will become even worse we

would be constantly pining after

something but be unable to communicate

or even formulate it we often tell

toddlers to use their words because we

understand that the ability to express

our emotional needs is vital for our

long-term happiness but if the party had

their way we would spend our entire

lives like toddlers with holes cut out

of our minds and a gaping void in our

emotions that we cannot put into words

maybe we will assume that this is just

the human condition to be subtly empty

in a thousand different ways I think

this is perhaps one of the most

frightening images in all fiction and it

is all Well's genius to be able to put

it into words but now that we've looked

at thought control we're going to go one

step deeper and ask how the party would

manipulate our feelings four punishing

passions in Shakespeare's great tragedy

Hamlet we get one of the greatest

explorations of passion in the whole of

the English Cannon Hamlet's emotional

outbursts and eventual Madness make him

intensely charismatic able to influence

the people around him through his energy

and his intense speeches at points we

see him soore into ecstasy only to fall

back down into despair be the very next

moment and his passion eventually leads

to the deaths of almost everyone in the

lead cast for Better or For Worse

throughout history philosophers have

viewed such intense feelings as powerful

drivers of action but ones that are

incredibly difficult to handle it might

lead us to Greatness but we also might

be consumed by it it is no wonder then

that the party will do everything in its

power to control and direct the passions

of its citizens the first major Link in

this particular psychological chain p is

the demonization of any sexual impulse

the party promotes an organization

called The anti-sex League which

encourages people to take vows of

celibacy and the only kind of relation

looked upon favorably by big brother is

between party approved married couples

specifically chosen for their lack of

attraction to one another in the novel

this is explained as a way of

redirecting all that passionate energy

instead of feeling intense desire for

one another it will be repurposed in

service to the party and Oceania and it

is not just AOS this goes for pretty

much all forms of love children of

Oceania are taught to watch out for any

infringement on the party program by

their parents and as a result the bond

between parent and child is filled with

mistrust and suspicion the loving mother

or doting father is always cautious of

their tiny Watchmen and the children

essentially view their parents as

potential traitors to the state which

they value above everything else Big

Brother is like a controlling lover in

constant fear of your attachments to

others another reason to demonize love

is that if you value someone else above

the party that means you would betray

Big Brother for their sake this is a

clear thought crime so just like Plato

alluded to the party must do everything

in their power to discourage passion and

private love entirely but there is

another aspect of this repression that I

find fascinating since very few people

can get rid of this need for human

connection entirely the demonization of

these emotions places almost every

inhabitant of Oceania in a permanent

state of guilt and shame if if they have

felt passion for another person an iota

of sexual desire or even innocent

familiar love then they have walked the

first steps to committing a thought

crime and thus they now have something

to hide it keeps everyone in a state of

underlying subtle Terror where they know

if the thought police came knocking at

their door then their secret would be

uncovered and this fear can be a

paralyzing Force against any anti-party

action after all if you know you're

guilty it's good to be on your best

behavior of course the party uses a

whole host of methods to secure this

control of their citizens emotions they

have a vast and sophisticated propaganda

machine to turn to but I want to explore

the methods of the thought police

themselves and how they twist some of

our most benevolent Concepts to their

own ends when Winston is being tortured

he describes the worst part as not the

beatings or the electrocutions but the

questioning by O'Brien Orwell presents a

twisted version of psychoanalysis where

O'Brien repeatedly insists that Winston

is sick and that in fact the party is

just helping him get better all the

torture all the abuse it's actually for

his own good O'Brien rarely calls

Winston anything approaching evil or

immoral and instead refers to him as if

he is simply defective it is not

Winston's fault that he has become so

delusional and this is the only Shire

way to correct his broken brain have you

noticed what the party has done here

they have morphed the very definition of

Health to include compliance with Big

Brother's regime in his book The the

ethical visions of psychotherapy Kevin

Smith argues that our concept of mental

health comes Laden with certain ethical

values for instance whereas Aristotle

thought that it was the mark of a

healthy mind to wish to die for one's

Community we might now refer to this as

a form of death ideation and

understandably wonder what this meant in

Oceania therapeutic ethics has defined

good mental health as supporting the

party they view this as self-evidence

just like we view many of our

definitions of Health but this in turn

has disturbing implications it defines

out of of existence the idea that

anything could ever be wrong with party

Doctrine because anyone who questions or

Rebels against it is not just a

dissident not just evil but actually mad

and why would we listen to a Madman in a

work of dystopian genius big brother has

made opposition to himself conceptually

impossible it can't be that someone has

been brought to the brink of Despair by

the way the party has run Oceania they

must instead have some neurological

defect or a twisted psyche anything that

allows regular law-abiding syst citizens

to dismiss their pain out of hand and

let's Big Brother claim that if you find

any fault with his brutal regime the

cause for this lies with you it is an

extreme version of a criticism some

philosophers and psychologists have

leveled at our conception of mental

health today if someone's life is

genuinely terrible are they depressed is

it a private problem or are they simply

reacting to a truly awful situation in

his Memoir the diving bell and the

Butterfly Jean Dominique Bobby describes

the pain and despair he felt after

having become almost completely

paralyzed only able to move one of his

eyelids is this a mental illness or an

understandable reaction to What sounds

like unbearable torment this framework

also allows big brother to deal with

dissidence while presenting it as a

kindness he is not torturing the

innocent he is curing the sick he is not

blasting people's retinas with

propaganda he is protecting them from

dangerous and contagious ideas he is not

a cruel dictator but a loving father who

some times just has to take a firm hand

with his unruly Offspring it's only

logical they're just children but this

parental Dynamic has a further

implication one which reduces every

aspect of a person's life to a single

stultifying Dimension five the abolition

of privacy in dov's the house of the

dead he gives a semi-fictional account

of his time in a Russian prison for

conspiring against the saris regime and

he said the hardest part of his

experiences there was not the cold or

the lack of food or the prison guards it

was instead the fact that he was never

alone the prisoners were cramped

together in communal barracks and dovi

would not have a single moment to

himself for 4 years can you imagine that

not having a solitary second where

someone is not watching judging or

interacting with you your entire life in

the public sphere with nothing that you

can call nobody else's business well

this describes the existence of almost

everyone in 1984 for any member of the

outer party their life is lived under

total surveillance telescreens keep

watch on their every move while nobody's

telescreen would be observed at every

time anyone's could be at any time there

is always the possibility of being

examined and this has the chilling

effect of essentially abolishing private

life philosophers Jeremy benam and

Michelle Fuko both talked about the

panopticon this was a prison designed so

that one guard could keep watch on any

individual prisoner from a central

position the idea that if there is the

constant possibility for observation

backed up by the threat of a physical

punishment then we would be forced to

act as if there is always an eye on us

we will slowly become Our Own Prison

officer and eventually we'll be so used

to keeping our behavior in check that we

won't even need the thought police

anymore a great many ancient Greek

philosophers used to talk about the

importance of Education from a young age

so that people became good citizens who

would promote virtue in their state but

these same tools of Education

indoctrination and observation can just

as easily be used to make someone tow an

arbitrary party line as we've already

mentioned the party promotes a culture

of handing over your friends neighbors

or even your family if they're seen to

be disobedient and this only further

entrenches The panoptic Experience now

you don't just have to watch out for

telescreens and listening devices you

have to watch out for your own children

and your friends too any private opinion

is totally subsumed within the political

sphere and this unsurprisingly promotes

great anxiety amongst the populace a

lesser appreciated privilege that many

of us have in more free and tolerant

societies is the ability to play with

ideas you see teenagers do this a lot

they will take a position experiment

with it and see if it holds water and

then drop it or maintain it depending on

whether it works adults do this too just

often less chaotically and this whole

system only functions if the stakes for

expressing an incorrect or frowned upon

opinion are relatively speaking quite

low as much as well that's just my

opinion is a god- awful argument the

fact that it's a sensible statement is a

Hallmark that we're not living Liv in a

totalitarian state this ability is

something completely denied to the

inhabitants of Oceania Winston mentions

that it's dangerous to explore even the

ideas that agree with the party since in

doing so you demonstrate an independence

of thought and an intelligence that

could become dangerous were you to ever

change your mind in the middle of the

book one of The academics working on the

new newp speak dictionary is

unceremoniously vaporized seemingly for

being too zealous in his party support

the only safe option is to keep your

head down and not think under any

circumstances even about things entirely

irrelevant to politics the internal

policeman has been fully installed

behind the eyes of the citizen and their

mind is now the property of the state in

the words of Italian dictator Bonito

melini and his fascist philosopher

jaavan Gentile the fascist State

interprets develops and potentates the

whole life of a people the phrase the

personal is political was coined by

American philosopher Carol heish to

describe the ways in which some of the

so-called personal problems of women in

20 Century America were caused and

exacerbated by wider political factors

at its best this is a fantastic Insight

it tells us that the overworked mother

suffering from pervasive despair might

not just require therapy but also a

change in the material management of

child care duties or the male loneliness

epidemic we have today might not just be

a matter of men pulling themselves up

individually by their bootstraps it

might also require a wider shift in how

we view men in our communities when used

benevolently this can be a wonderfully

affirming message about societies

pulling together to help out their most

vulnerable members all for one and one

for all but in 1984 you have a

totalitarian perversion of this idea

rather than the personal having a

political Dimension or being affected by

political facts it is instead eaten by

the political in Oceania the only

relevant qualities of a citizen's life

are those which relate to the party and

the suggestion that anything else

matters or even exists is seen as

subversive and criminal Orwell

repeatedly emphasizes the fact that

there are no official laws in Oceania

and instead the thought police are

essentially able to arrest people at

their pleasure but let's examine the

significance of this in detail if there

are laws that implies that there are

limits to the power of the state if

someone can point to legislation

outlining what you did wrong you can

also point to it to justify when you're

innocent if you're charged with murder

and you can demonstrate that you've

never killed anyone then in theory you

can be set free the presence and

limitation of codified laws outlines

where the state's power ends and when

your own private power begins so in 1984

the absence of formal law sends a clear

signal everything you do is the state's

business and the idea of ungoverned

behavior just doesn't exist this is part

of what allows big brother to make

thoughts themselves a crime it also

means everyone has to be even more alert

to their own behavior further

strengthening that internal Watchman we

were talking about earlier they don't

just have to avoid committing a

welldefined crime but anything that

could possibly be seen as a crime under

the worst possible interpretation of

their thoughts and actions it is a

terrifying image and it comes with a

dire warning the personal may be

political and we ought to recognize this

but we cannot let this Insight lead to

the abandonment of the personal entirety

but something I very rarely hear people

talk about when they discuss 1984 is

what the thought police and the upper

echelons of the party actually get out

of their Arrangement what do they have

to gain by serving big brother and the

answer to this question is both

philosophically sophisticated and deeply

surprising six the deathless drive the

American Anthropologist and philosopher

Ernest Becka speaks of an instinctive

human Drive known as death denial this

is a complex concept and Becca has a

whole book explaining it but for our

purposes it basically does what it says

on the Tim it is our inability to accept

our own mortal lives and how we try to

escape them in numerous ways

specifically Becca looks at the many

ways that humans have tried to make

themselves symbolically Immortal for

instance he would say that the wish of

Napoleon or Julius Caesar to to make

their mark on history is at least partly

an attempt to become so Grand that a

small smidgen of them would remain when

their physical form had passed on

similarly Freud spoke of our religious

Instinct and how it soothed our death

anxiety by presenting a greater

structure that we could become one with

after we're dead and the character of

O'Brien is a wonderful example of how

this drive can grant us the potential to

do great evil in our pursuit of a slice

of the immortal it's not often that

O'Brien gets a thorough treatment in

analyses of 1984 Beyond his role as a

villain and as Winston's torturer but I

think that that is a shame he is one of

the only members of the thought police

we get a proper look at and he's also

part of the inner party one of the 2%

that live in relative luxury and power

while the rest of us fight for scraps

and in his conversations with Winston at

the ministry of love we get to see what

his motivations for serving Big Brother

truly are and how his Twisted philosophy

functions O'Brien starts from

deceptively plausible premises people

alone are weak and fr agile but together

we can become stronger but O'Brien

twists this quite life affirming aspect

of the Human Condition into something

deeply disturbing he notices that while

an individual person can die an

organization or Collective can live on

without them the body of O'Brien will

one day wither away into dust but the

party the thought police the ministry of

love these will all be still there they

are greater than any one person more

permanent more real dayart might say one

of Plato's fundamental philosophical

ideas years was that of the forms these

were Eternal metaphysical objects that

were instantiated in our world so while

we have individual physical horses Plato

abstracts from that the metaphysical

idea of a horse with each actual horse

being a dim reflection of that if any

physical horse was to die this

metaphysical horse form would still

remain we still use a version of this

concept in our working ideas about

mathematics whether I have three sticks

or three bricks or three Bloks named

Nick I still have the number three if I

burnt the sticks the idea of three would

live on without them and O'Brien seems

to think the same about the party if he

refuses to entertain any thoughts

against big brother if he simply becomes

a reflection and instantiation of the

party and nothing more then in a sense

he can no longer die all of his

essential properties will live on

without him he has conquered death at

the cost of his own soul and O'Brien

here is performing an exaggerated

example of quite an everyday maneuver we

may not subsume our entire identities

into a group but most of us feel this

pull to be a part of something greater

than ourselves the human wish to belong

is immensely powerful and it can drive

us to do terrible things in his book

ordinary men Christopher Browning

describes the horrific actions carried

out by a German police Battalion in

occupied Poland during World War II and

one of the things Browning focuses on is

how the members of this murderous crew

outsourc their sense of morality to the

state or to a commander that is

something they perceived as high higher

than themselves there is this

undercurrent of deindividuation taken to

unbearable ends and O'Brien is willingly

participating in just the same sort of

process he tortures Winston mercilessly

and maybe one of the reasons he can

justify this to himself is that it's not

properly him doing it he is just a

manifestation of the party's will an

amoral functioning of Ruthless tyranny

his is not to reason why and perhaps the

most disturbing thing about O'Brien is

that this same capacity to subsume our

individuality into a wider hole

justifying actions we would normally

consider evil in the process has been

repeatedly observed in perfectly normal

people from historical examples like the

one we just talked about to the

initially flawed but since reliably

replicated mgrm experiments we too have

something inside us that yearns to

abdicate our individual responsibility

to another in some situations this is a

great thing a society of truly

individual thinkers seems like it would

lack cohesion in but O'Brien serves as a

stark reminder of what we can become if

we totally give up our individuality to

a group or authority we get remarkably

vivid descriptions of O'Brien throughout

the novel and particular focus is given

on his heavy older-looking face Orwell

has chosen to deliberately describe him

in terms of his mortality I think this

is partly to remind us that he is after

all just a man one with immense power

within the party and certainly over

Winston but one that will still will

eventually die and despite all his

attempts to grasp at immortality one day

he will be no more just a footnote in

the history of the party whereas Caesar

wanted to escape death through

significance O'Brien has tried the very

same thing through insignificance as he

put it the individual is only a cell the

weariness of the cell is the Vigor of

the organism viewed through this lens

O'Brien becomes almost pathetic a sad

man desperately and vainly attempting to

escape the one human certainty this is a

deeply uninspiring inverse of Becca's

idea that a fear of death can create

heroism within us but this portrayal of

O'Brien as distinctly human also links

him back to us in much smaller ways it

is always available for us to make the

same fan bargain to sacrifice our

ability to think for ourselves to

protest or Rebel and slot in fully with

some greater ho many people including

myself have spoken about the danger of

nihilism the state of finding no meaning

in life whatsoever but this is a

wonderful Counterpoint to that fear here

we Face a warning about fully giving up

our fallible individual uniquely human

parts in service to some higher power

some greater meaning we live with the

stories of great Heroes who have given

their lives for their beliefs Christian

Saints Martyrs innocent political

prisoners and Noble soldiers of justice

but O'Brien has used this same

self-sacrifice in service to something

truly horrific and and I don't know

about you but I think that's worthy of

some reflection he is cruel he is evil

he is our worst nightman and he is human

but now we must return to the world of

Winston and take a look at what happens

to him in the final stages of his

interrogation after the state has

totally broken his mind seven empty Joy

or painful truth a famous thought

experiment in ethical philosophy is

called the pleasure machine or the

experience machine which sounds much

dodgier than it is it was formulated by

Robert nosik and it presents the reader

with a hypothetical situation and a

profound Choice imagine that I had a

machine that would simulate a new

reality for you one that was essentially

a wish fulfillment version of this world

you would experience only pleasurable

Sensations exist in a Heavenly State you

could live out your entire life there

and pass away peacefully never having to

leave the machine I would wipe your

memory before you were plugged in so you

wouldn't even know that it wasn't real

picture that you could be anything you

want to be a multi-billionaire a

religious leader a benevolent dictator

of a grateful and suppliant populace you

could be loved desired praised feared

and anything in between of course none

of it would exist except in the

simulation but would that really matter

nosic asks us if we would willingly

enter the pleasure machine would we want

blind happiness or do we prefer to live

in a world that is imperfect and

sometimes painful but is undeniably real

NOS implied that the answer most people

would give to this was no but I

personally think the situation might be

a bit more complicated than that sure I

wouldn't want to be plugged into the

pleasure machine but I have a reasonably

comfortable life I've got the standard

Human Social worries and a painful

chronic illness but my life is far from

a living hell if you were to lock me in

a basement and torture me for a few

weeks and tell me that this would be my

life forever more then I might

reconsider my decision if the pleasure

machine is still available I would

probably opt in during his stay in the

ministry of Truth Winston is essentially

in a much less Pleasant version of nok's

dilemma he can live with a minimal

amount of contentment a slightly cushy

promotion and a perfectly average

existence in this new world provided

that he wholeheartedly accepts a lie

that the party defines what is true thus

Winston is presented with one of the

most painful choices in fiction from a

principled standpoint we want Winston to

refuse to play ball with the party we

want him to have the strength to spit in

O'Brien's face continue to Bear the

torture and the questioning and become a

symbol for the

it would not bring Big Brother 1 mm

closer to defeat why not give in it

seems like the only way to make the best

of a bad situation this psychological

struggle within Winston's mind takes up

the whole final third of the novel and

at first this decision might seem

puzzling one of the dominant questions

in the book thus far has been what

Winston will ultimately do to resist big

brother will he topple the regime will

he join the rebellious Brotherhood and

start a revolution amongst the PRS when

he is arrested the answer to these

questions becomes are clear no but a

deeper personal one remains who will win

the fight for Winston's mind and this

becomes a conflict not just between

Winston and the party but between

Winston's ideals and a rational form of

pragmatism most of us have these two

elements in our decision- making in some

way there is what we would do in a

morally Ideal World and what is morally

speaking expedient to do in this one

this is not the same as a conflict

between a moral system and simple

self-interest but it is where our ideals

about per morality rub up against the

messy business of the actual world for

instance do we join an organization that

we think is evil with the hope of

reforming it from the inside on the one

hand in an Ideal World we would not and

if we become part of this organization

we will certainly be contributing

towards its immoral aims but on the

other hand we might be able to prevent

the organization from doing even more

harm if we were to rise through its

ranks and if we didn't do it someone

else would just take our place anyway do

we stick to our principles and keep our

soul clean at the cost L of a world that

might actually be worse or do we get our

own hands dirty in the hope that we can

make the best of a bad situation

Winston's predicament cuts to the heart

of this conflict his principles tell him

to commit to truth and love no matter

what this is the non-consequentialist

portion of his ethical system the part

of his moral compass that is concerned

with what his eternal Duties are and

want him to hold fast to his ideals in

every situation we could call this his

inner count it does not want him to

break under the stress of torture

because if everyone able to stick to

their guns in the face of the party then

there might be some hope of overthrowing

them similarly they don't want to

renounce Winston's personal love for

Julia because he gave his word to her

that he would never betray her on the

other hand you have the consequentialist

utilitarian side of Winston and I I

don't mean that as an insult this part

recognizes that sticking to his

principles just isn't accomplishing

anything practical as we've already said

he cannot hope to do any damage to big

brother now to the outside world he has

ceased to exist and he can only be

brought back to to life at the consent

of O'Brien he can't do any wider good

anymore and why shouldn't he Grant

himself a small morsel of happiness

since a wish for anything more has now

become impossible if his suffering is

now pointless why can't he bring it to

an end on the other hand if everyone

behaved in this manner then the party

would certainly never topple unless

people cease to make the best of a bad

situation and dreamed of something more

Big Brother's Reign would last forever

in his lecture interpreting Jean Paul

SAS essay existentialism is a humanism

American philosopher Richard Roy puts

forward the idea that moral dilemmas are

to a large extent genuinely intractable

take the trolley problem where you have

the chance to kill one person to save

five do you pull the lever it is easy to

say yes but could you really live with

yourself having caused a person's demise

could you watch five people die knowing

that you could have saved them when the

chips are down either option seems

almost unlivable so Winston's dilemma

brings into Stark relief the difficulty

of making moral choices especially when

the penalties for those choices in

either direction are unspeakably harsh

it is all very well telling people to be

brave in the face of adversity but if

their resistance isn't achieving

anything isn't the best thing for them

to do to just give in they can go back

to living in a pale imitation of nok's

pleasure machine obtaining a tiny bit of

happiness in exchange for their

principles on the other hand could they

live with themselves afterwards it is an

impossible choice and that is what makes

it so comp Hing of course Winston does

eventually betray Julia and Falls

perfectly in line with the party in the

final lines of the novel we see Winston

sitting in a coffee shop while a report

from the front lines blares on a

telescreen Winston is roused by the

victory of the Brave Oceanic troops and

what they have accomplished he is filled

with a sense of ecstasy and pride he

imagines he is with crowds of ordinary

citizens cheering on their brave

Soldiers but then his mind shifts and he

is back at the ministry of love but now

he no longer views it as a place of

torture but instead one that helped him

win the final victory over his own mind

he realizes that all it had been doing

is teaching him how to be happy and

content in this world he starts to

recognize what happened to him as a

kindness freeing him from the cruel

trappings of his own ideals that kept

him so miserable for so long finally as

tears of joy run down his face he

declares that he loves big brother

Winston has made his choice and can we

really blame him but there is one

feeling that truly pervades 1984 and

it's one that we're all sadly familiar

with eight helplessness and hopelessness

a friend of mine who's a psychotherapist

once described helplessness as the most

dangerous human emotion they were almost

certainly being somewhat tongue and

cheek but there is a harsh glint of

reality behind their words it turns this

is a crap situation into this is a crap

situation and I can't do anything about

it it transforms what would be temporary

misery into an eternity of waste High

to Wade through with no end in

sight at least no end that you can bring

about Czech author France kfka is a

master at creating this atmosphere of

helplessness in the trial he famously

presents a world so absurd the

protagonist can't even make sense of it

yet he is totally at its Mercy he slowly

loses his mind and falls into despair

because he doesn't know when his trial

is going to end or how to fight it or

even how the court system works we now

have the term Kafkaesque to resp respond

to these dizzying situations but where

Kafka presents an almost spiritual form

of helplessness where logic itself seems

to break down the form Orwell focuses on

is depressingly down to earth one of the

most troubling things about the world of

1984 is the disempowerment of its people

the majority of the population which

form the prls are kept too poor

destitute and misinformed to ever have

the power or will to change things the

outer party knows enough that some of

them might develop the willingness to

Rebel but that is where the for police

and the surveillance State come into

play it is not even clear how much power

the average inner party member has we

know they're entitled to certain

privileges like servants and the ability

to turn their telescreens off but we

also know that certain members of the

inner party have been purged in the past

presumably Big Brother himself has the

ability to change things but we don't

even know if he exists except as an

abstract idea the only Power anyone has

is the ability to look at the class

beneath them with a form of vague

contempt so O'Brien views the outer

party as stupid and potentially

treacherous most of the outer party

consider the PRS as barely human and the

PRS don't even have the luxury of

noticing their own powerlessness and

this means there is not just

helplessness for the people of Oceania

but hopelessness as well not only can

they not affect change but it's not

coming from anywhere else either there

is no great liberatory force coming to

save the day nor is there the

possibility of a Revolt among the PRS or

the inner party members as O'Brien

famously puts it and as I quoted at the

beginning of this video if you want to

picture the future imagine a boot

stamping on a human face forever this

line refers not only to the

inevitability of the party's Victory but

also the thrill they experience as a

result the Sweet Taste of Triumph as it

exerts ever expanding control over those

under its rule but who is actually the

beneficiary of this so-called thrill

O'Brien hints that it is open to anyone

who buys into the idea of big brother

but is this really true isn't it instead

that there'll eventually be no victories

left to be one the party has near total

control and the people have no chance

for a better life and it's not clear

that this situation will end up being

good for big brother or the inner party

members either O'Brien yearns for the

day when new speak is the language of

thought and so no sedition can even be

contemplated but then even the party

will be deprived of hope they will have

nowhere left to extend their power the

idea of progress even progress in an

evil direction will become impossible

hope itself will become the final victim

of Big Brothers re

and there is good reason to think that

even the inner party should fear this

day philosophers Claudia bler and Titus

stall have argued that the feeling of

Hope is an integral part of what makes a

fulfilling life this is because it

provides us with our practical

identities that is our organizing

reasons for Action so if I hope to one

day be a good father then that sets

certain boundaries for my actions now it

means I have to set up my life so it

will eventually be a calm and happy

environment for a developing child for

bla and stal hope is an emotion of

existential import it is part of the

tapestry that makes our life seem

meaningful and furthermore it seems that

hope can only flourish at the

intersection of desire and uncertainty

we can't hope for what we already have

and we can't hope for something that is

certain to come our way but we also

can't hope for something impossible I

can't hope that I'll be able to fly

tomorrow because it's a scenario that I

cannot honestly entertain for Winston

and any other internally rebellious

members of the party they no longer have

hope because the prospect of Big

Brother's removal is as remote as me

flying if not more so but the inner

party will soon be deprived of Hope as

well as O'Brien said its ultimate goal

is power but it is nearing omnipotence

what will they do when they have finally

accomplished their goal and not a single

thought crime is committed in the whole

of Oceania well for starters O'Brien's

reason for being will go down the drain

without thought crimes who needs a

thought police and what will the inner

party members have to hope for anymore

their entire purpose is to extend the

influence of big brother they've done

that so now what then the party is like

the dog that has caught their own tail

and can no longer take pleasure or

meaning in chasing it they too are

deprived of Hope and their minds will

Wither on the vine just as much as the

outer party or the PRS they'll just have

a more comfortable chair to decay in

this is the ultimate contradiction at

the heart of Big Brother's lovecraftian

organization its very reason for being

is acing more and more power but power

is now reaching its limits and in its

continual success it is signing its own

death warrant not a physical death for

if there was a chance the state could

actually be defeated then the party

would have a reason to carry up but it

will face an existential one the inner

party will no longer have any meaning to

their lives and hopelessness will come

knocking at their door the very minute

it is finished at everyone else's

perhaps this is the reason the inner

party places such emphasis on the hatred

of thought criminals and political

dissidents Because deep down these

shadowy figures at the levers of the

state know that without these Brave

contemptible freethinking Souls they

would have no more reason to be they

depend on their doomed Rebels just as

much as they want to destroy them and

the day the final independent thought is

eliminated is the day nihilism will

infect Big Brother himself a quote often

apocryphally attributed to either

Vladimir Lenin and KL Marx but probably

said by neither is the last capitalist

we hang shall be the one that sold us

the Rope but in 1984 we get a spin on

this idea the last political dissident

the party hangs will leave only an empty

noose tailor made for Big Brothers Soul

the party May hate Winston they may want

to torture him and break him and they

will ultimately succeed in doing so but

they also don't want to face what for

them is the most depressing fact of all

they need Winston Winston's existence

lets them know that there are still more

places yet to conquer more mines yet to

destroy and they can all breathe a sigh

of relief knowing that the stench of

their existential crisis has been

covered by another rotting corpse the

final tragic figure of 1984 is not

Winston or Julia or obrien it is Big

Brother himself and now I want to leave

you with one final thought nine what's

the point of 1984 there is an inevitable

question that raises its head when we

read a book like 1984 and that is what

is dystopian fiction for obviously there

is no one right answer to this question

but most people's instinctive response

is something like it is a warning 1984

is a cautionary tale about what a

totalitarian government can become and

through its representation and sometimes

exaggeration of the properties of both

the USSR and the Nazi regime it alerts

us to how a nation can degenerate unless

its people are willing and able to keep

a close eye on it after all Orwell once

wrote that every line of serious work I

have written since 1936 has been written

directly or indirectly against

totalitarianism and for Democratic

socialism as I understand it as a result

most people focus solely on the overtly

political aspects of the book and

there's certainly a lot of value in this

the last thing we want to do is to strip

Orwell of his political Dimensions but

when we only focus on this we miss a

more complex aspect of Orwell's

Brilliance where he uncovers and

dissects a recipe for human misery both

at the state level and at the personal

by reflecting on what the party has

taken away from the inhabitants of

Oceania we can gain a deeper insight

into what truly matters to us the

freedom to be unobserved the sovereignty

over what goes on between the walls of

our skull the ability to forge

connection with others to craft our own

linguistic expression and to have a a

clear agreed upon definition of truth

that will not change dayto day dystopian

fiction can remind us of everything we

take for granted and put us on high

alert against anything that would

threaten these pillars of our joy at the

beginning of Plato's Republic the

character of socres argues that in order

to see what makes a virtuous person it

is helpful to ask what makes a virtuous

state so that we can examine these

purported virtues on a larger scale and

1984 can almost help us do the reverse

of this you may come away from the novel

with political Zeal and a sharp

vigilance against authoritarianism but

you might also discover where you have

unwittingly become your own Big Brother

Where do we self-censor not out of love

or politeness but out of fear where do

we chain up our emotions not because we

are following our own values but because

we fear societal shaming do we ever give

ourselves a break from the allseeing eye

of our inner Inquisitor where do we feel

the tendal limbs of hopelessness in

snare our minds in a similar vein

Aristotle used to say that the virtues

of the state and the virtues of a

citizen are inexorably linked if the

state is well-run then the people have a

greater shot at fulfillment and if the

people are virtuous then the state has a

greater chance of flourishing for him

the business of becoming a better person

went hand inand with protecting the

virtues of a society and weeding out its

vices and this is reflected in Orwell's

novel The Free Fall of the state into

tyranny goes handin hand with the

increasing complacency fear and

malleability of its citizens because the

horrors of 1984 are not just po itical

not just philosophical not just

existential but all three these themes

are so closely intertwined it is easy to

miss many of them but this only

recognizes the messy Business of Being a

human so if there is one call to action

in this video it is to go and read 1984

for yourself it is a work that holds a

rightful place of prominence in our

Collective Consciousness and you'll

almost certainly discover more about

what you value both in the political

sphere and in your private life the

thought that we might one day be

surrounded by the wreckage of all but we

held dear helpless and hopeless in the

face of an overwhelming force that none

can now stand to resist with only the

choice between nism and submission that

is the existential horror of 1984 and it

reminds us that nothing we value is by

necessity permanent or automatic it

could all be taken away in a moment this

might happen unwillingly like for

Winston or with our Express consent like

O'Brien either way our mind body and

soul will be laid waste for another's

Petty pursuit of Limitless power a

sobering message to be sure but one we

could all stand to hear now and again

thank you so much for watching and I

hope you have a wonderful day