Orwell 1984 - Tumblr Posts
Reading 1984 for the first time and I think I'm in way over my head. Took four days to read the foreword. 😨We'll see how this goes.
Julia Scher: Surveillance Bed III (1994)
OK, I can't believe that I'm doing this but despite what the FUCKING DAILY MAIL will have you think George Orwell was a FUCKING SOCALIST. This does not necessarily make him a good person, but no one is trying to FUCKING CANCEL HIM. Also when has cancelling somebody ever actually worked, those on the right (yes that means you DAILY MAIL) just jump on the bandwagon to defend them. And you know what else Orwell was definitely against? Fake news. WONDER WHO THAT SOUNDS LIKE DAILY MAIL??
1984 (George Orwell)
nandapensa.wordpress.com
In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George Orwell (via pavorst)
George Orwell's vision of the future in 1984 compared to Aldous Huxley’s vision of the future in Brave New World.
1984 by George Orwell
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....are you sure that's n o t big brother watching and scrutinising your every move???
So one of the people on my street works for Sky TV and drives one of their vans. It has hannibal painted on one side which to be honest sets me on edge a little. It parks outside my house regularly as i don’t drive so don’t use that spot.Â
When i come down for work at 5am i usually open the curtains to see what the weather is like. Some days im open them to see the house across the road. Others i open them to see this particular van outside with Hannibal staring into my living room. Sometimes i forget to close the curtains at night and when i come down for work at 5am i see this.
It is terrifying and you can’t escape it. You either have to live in the dark or live with this staring at you while you try to watch TV.
I go to make a brew and it follows me. I watch TV and its there. I close the curtains and my dog cries because she wants to sit on the windowsill and stare at it.Â
I mean, is it reasonable to ask Sky to repaint a van because Mads Mikkelsen is staring me down when i try to eat my cornflakes?
I'm currently reading Julia (the 2023 retelling from Julia's perspective) and it's AWESOME
"Urban decacy proves a pervasive motif in 1984" you mean, the make-up brand? damn, I didn't know Winston was a drag queen
Doublethink
*Warning: this is a pretty long stream of consciousness. You may want a comfy chair and some time on your hands before reading. It's pretty pedantic but I wanted to get out my thoughts about the book because I just find it so interesting and wanted to start a discussion about it. Also, while I personally enjoy it, there are definitely moments that are uncomfortable or outright awful while reading, so reader discretion is advised. Potential spoiler alert, btw.* I'm currently reading George Orwell's "1984" and loving it. It's effort at world building and lore creation are commendable and extremely plausible when explained with context from the novel (or, horrifyingly, when one compares the fiction of Oceania with the reality of North Korea) and it's easy to find yourself engrossed in the story. I highly recommend it, and even though it's required reading it never feels like a chore or responsibility, at least in my opinion. As someone who is openly fascinated with language, however, one of the most interesting parts of the novel (to me) is the developing lexicon of Newspeak. Several parts in the book are directly dedicated to explaining and highlighting words, such as "blackwhite" (the forced acceptance of a lie and rejection that anything else had been true,) "crimestop" (best defined as a "guarding stupidity" to avoid thoughts that are treasonous when ANY thought is treasonous) and the ever-important "doublethink". I find this last one to be particularly interesting; it is defined as "the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, while accepting both as fact." It is such an important word, in fact, that my phone did not attempt to autocorrect it as it did with "blackwhite" or "crimestop"; doublethink is literally so important that whoever programmed this device thought to include it as a real word with real meaning. This may not seem interesting in the slightest if not closely inspected. After all, we don't have a grand "Party" with a Ministry of Love sending thought police after us at the slightest hint of humanity, or live in a society where individuality is a sin and not a virtue. It couldn't possibly apply to the real world... But in a certain way, it does. I was reading the passage about "doublethink" as I was talking to someone I used to have feelings for, and as I thought about the two in conjunction with each other I realized that I was actively committing an act of doublethink: I denied that I ever had feelings for this individual while simultaneously lamented the fact that my feelings were never returned. To deny the former would destroy the latter, while to consider the latter would concede the former. And as I thought about it I couldn't help but wonder what other facets of my mind had been clouded by "doublethink".... And as it turns out, many of them were. Relationships, experiences, feelings, opinions... all of these were subject to doublethink to some degree or another. To know someone doesn't have feelings for you while simultaneously holding out hope that the two of you will end up together: doublethink. To promise yourself that you'll start a diet when you know full well that you won't: doublethink. To read this essay and reject the ideas within it while simultaneously (and secretly) contemplating their plausibility and searching your mind for signs of doublethink: in itself, an act of doublethink. Does any of this matter, though? It seems harmless enough, it's not as though we are rejecting reality in favor of the propaganda of a totalitarian political machine, so is there any harm in having moments like this? The answer, of course, is still yes, because to deny the relevance is, you guessed it, another instance of "doublethink". By rejecting the reality that I am lying to myself, I've created a hole of circular logic. I KNOW the aforementioned individual does not, and has never reciprocated my feelings, though I reject this knowledge and use other scraps of evidence to accept ANOTHER form of reality, even though it has no *basis* in reality and has been altered extensively by my opinions, desires, and hope. In this way, I act as my own Ministry of Truth, my mind churning out lies and propaganda against the reality I perceive, tricking me even as I perceive it. To refuse to acknowledge doublethink is to commit doublethink; as long as we allow hope and our subjectivity to guide our perceptions and opinions we are constantly in a state of doublethink. Maybe that's why the word was important enough to add to the available lexicon for autocorrect... It has a basis in the real world; within each of us. We are all our own Party, lying to ourselves and creating our own realities based on our preferences in what we choose to perceive in the reality around us. While it seems impossible that any thinking, real human would ever be able to entrap themselves in a state of doublethink, we do it TO OURSELVES every time we choose to believe something without real evidence, or contrary to real evidence. Here's what's important about this stream of consciousness... If we can and already use doublethink to alter what we know, who can say that it is impossible for a society, or a government or any institution to use the same principle as a means of control? The dangerous part about this question is that it is difficult to answer... And let's all hope the world never gets close enough to totalitarianism for us to find an answer.
Recommendations
Not really done much of this before, but I do wanna recommend some media.
I just got done watching 12 Angry Men again and I love that movie, it truly stands the test of time after over 60 years. A simple Jury meeting with no bells and whistles, we see it all unfold in real time, a masterfully written discussion with twelve very different people and how minds can be changed in a dozen different ways. It's a majestic movie and you need to watch it.
In a different vein, I want to recommend 1984 by George Orwell, but not the actual book, but an original Audio Drama adaptation of it. We all know at least the basic plot of the novel, but here you can really feel what Winston is feeling, paranoia, love, defiance, sorrow, and loss. Andrew Garfield does an amazing job as Winston and there's so many more great actors involved. It's the Audible Original version, so idk if you can get it elsewhere, but at least it doesn't cost you a store credit to get it.
yes. he was born in british raj india, then his mom took him to london or something later. afterwards, he came back to india to serve on duty as an officer for the brit government.
fun fact: the stuff he saw on duty were one of the reasons he was so big on political allegory and social commentary and all. "all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others" (paraphrased from animal farm) ring a bell? sounds suspiciously similar, doesn't it?
(p.s.: anyone with more info, or if I've mentioned something wrong, feel free to correct it.)
tf do you mean george orwell was born in india