Orwell's 1984: Did anyone READ it?

[Soup Bean]

I had to read that book in my sophomore year of high school, almost 20 years ago. I read it, but I can't say that they made me REALLY understand what he was talking about. I got the point when I reread it several years later, but Good Lord...

Didn't ANYBODY take it seriously?

[da_chimperor]

1. I did . . . it's too bad more of america didn't n/t

[irancontra]

2. I take it very seriously today... I read it years ago but couldn't even

imagine what he meant...now it's seems sadly real.

[barb162]

84. I remember taking it seriously but also thought it was extreme

and far out, that no society would ever get that way. SO here we are

[kcwayne]

3. I took it very seriously

and when Reagan was elected I thought that not only was Orwell prescient, he even got the year right.

[Tesibria]

4. i'm reading it right now...

... but it gets really depressing ...

~Tesibria
-----------------------
www.democracyiscoming.com
www.cafepress.com/tesibria (T-shirts, etc. - "Proud Member of Moral Minority"-"Hitler had a mandate"-What would Jefferson Think-Count the Votes-Great Quotes-much more)

[Birthmark]

5. It's the Bushista governmental model.

[Dogmudgeon]

6. Yes. I read it.

It was a satire on England in 1948. There was still a lot of hyped-up patriotism and suspiciousness going on then.

It's a great book on many levels, but it's not particularly prophetic.

--bkl

[JoshWatermanMN]

7. Just read it this year--very topical!

Understood and appreciated its message much more now, in 2004, as an adult--when I first read it in high school, my freeper English teacher tried to twist the rhetoric regarding language to be a statement on political correctness!

[yorkiemommie1]

8. war is peace

ignorance is strength
freedom is slavery.

i'm rereading it online and it's much more chilling than i remember. i ordered a bumpersticker w/ that on it but only half the voting pop. will get it.

i am starting to wonder, however, if BUshco has been using this as a manual of operations.

[CO Liberal]

9. READ It?? Aren't We LIVING It??

:tinfoilhat:

This is the DU member still known as CO Liberal.

[immoderate]

10. Read it? We're living it.

The theme is summed up in the party manual.

Also: check out Orwell's "Essay on Political Speech."

--IMM

[kayell]

11. KKKarl really, really liked it. He thought it had some great ideas.

The problem is that most Americans never read "It Can't Happen Here" and so they thought...well, you get the picture.

[donachiel]

12. It was a mandatory read for me as well.

I loved sci-fi back then and still do. We'll never be able to put a man on the moon. We'll never be able to be free of fossil fuel dependence. We'll never be able to make a parapalegic walk again. I could go on and on. Who knows? I like to keep thinking that anything can happen!

[CanuckAmok]

13. Yes...

...and that's the whole point of the book, I think, is that you can plainly tell the Masses that you're going to enslave them for their own good, and they will cheer you on.

That power is only satisfied by the acquisition of more power, for power's sake.

He was brilliant. I've read all of his books. "Coming Up For Air" is my favourite.

[mopinko]

14. it is being performed

here in chicago. steppenwolf, i think. randi told everyone to read it.

[Madame X]

15. Reading and understanding are two entirely different animals

As with any piece of literature, the people it's aimed at either never read it or read it and don't understand it. I think some particularly adept pupils actually used it as a blueprint.

[neomonkey]

16. I read it in 1983

It frightened me in that abstract, "wow, that can never happen" way. Now I'm struck by its amazingly prescient take on where modern society is headed.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. Who i s George Orwell and waht is this 1984 you speak off

that is what many of the people who don't know will ask you.

I swar he did not write sci fi, but prophecy

[proud patriot]

18. The movie was scary enough

:scared: I was 15 when I saw it for the first time
I rented it after sept 11th and it scared me all over
again .

[jean]

19. the Right uses Orwellian language constantly and it's a weakness

we need to exploit! Check out what one of OUR think tanks says about this issue:

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/research/rockridge/orwellian

The radical Right is acutely aware of cases where the general public has progressive values and would ordinarily reject their agenda. The Right’s approach to such cases is deception, often through the use of Orwellian language — language that means the opposite of what it says.

For example, the term compassionate conservatism is used because leaders on the Right have traditionally been considered mean and lacking in empathy toward people who are needy, poor or oppressed. The term compassionate suggests that conservatives do care about such people, although their policies go in exactly the opposite direction.

snip

Progressives commonly wring their hands in despair when conservatives use Orwellian language. They shouldn't. The use of Orwellian language signals to us where conservatives are weak. Forget that their deceptiveness is immoral. The point is that they are weak and are revealing their weakness. If they had public support, they could freely call their initiative the Dirty Skies Act.

Progressives can use the Right’s Orwellian weaknesses to our advantage. We can focus the public’s attention on it by highlighting the discrepancies between what the radical Right says and what it does. Do not hesitate to rename their Orwellian legislation. For example:

• Do not call it the “Clear Skies initiative.” Call it the “Dirty Skies initiative.”
  
  
• Do not call it “Healthy Forests.” Call it “No Tree Left Behind.”
  
  
• Do not call it “Compassionate Conservatism.” Call it “Callous Conservatism".
  

[Soup Bean]

26. "The Dirty Skies Act"

LOL

Just like the "Moral Majority" is neither moral, nor a majority.....this is a fun game...

Too bad it hurts so many people. Kind of like Russian Roulette.

[pilgrimm]

20. 1984 never existed

George Bush is double plus good brothers!

[PretzelWarrior]

21. apparently, some took it as a blueprint

so...what can I say?

[Steely_Dan]

22. Read It at 14

Probably the most important book I read up to that time.

-Steely

[sonias]

23. Great book

It just goes to show that we as a people have always had trouble with dictator types. Big brother is real. What I remember most about the novel was the thought police and re-writing of history. Doesn't that sound familiar? The enemy keeps changing from Eurasia to Eastasia, just depends on which one the government wants to use for the moment. Iraq, Iran, Al Qaeda; you know how it goes. The book was a warning about government's power.

What is really scary to me now, is that we the people don't learn from our collective mistakes. I can fully believe that sometime in our lifetime there will be another attempt to commit genocide to "cleanse" the world for the ruling race. We have already accepted the genocide happening in South Africa, we have approved torture, we have accepted the killing of at least 100,000 innocent Iraqis and we are letting Israel build a wall. We (US) are responsible for this because this is our government.

Ignorance is Strength - indeed.

On-line version of 1984
http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/

Sonia

[DireStrike]

24. BRAVE NEW WORLD. Second component. Both of these are necessary!

Foreword from
Amusing Ourselves to Death
by Neil Postman

We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.



(Well, they were both right, says me anyway.)

[orpupilofnature57]

30. Don't forget (greening of America) also relevant. eom

[Redleg]

25. Yes- I got it the first time. I REALLY get it now.

EOM

[glitch]

27. Of course they took it seriously - they're using it as a howto manual. nt

[SouthPasadenaDem]

28. Yes, read it in high school

but we all assumed it was dystopian fiction, not a how-to manual.

[USA_1]

29. Orwell's 1984

I have read it five times. It is undoubtedly a book of prophecy.

1) WAR IS PEACE = Bush's war has been committed supposedly to promote peace. But, the wages of this sin is death.

2) "Hate week" = today, it's hate every week

3) "they were talking about the lottery" = we do this every day!

4) "the Ministry of Plenty" = corporate welfare, the sqeezing of the middle class, the growth of the poverty class today, all said to be for your good and signs of Bush's "success".

5) "intellectual surrender" = just like the Faux network!

6) "we are at war with East Asia - we have always been at war with East Asia"

no,no! "we are at war with Eurasia - we have always been at war with Eurasia"

Bush = "Saddam is our friend - he has always been our friend"

no, no! "Saddam is our enemy. He has always been our enemy."

7) "our (civilization) is founded upon hatred" = self explanatory

8) "GOD IS POWER" = Christian Coalition



Need I say more?

[kiki]

56. Don't forget

Emmanuel Goldstein, the constantly vilified and re-vilified author of all dissent, intellectualism and other depraved acts. Perhaps he's hanging around here somewhere...

[Dogmudgeon]

71. Michael Moore = Emmanuel Goldstein?

Barbra Steisand, Bill Clinton, and George McGovern could also substitute.

--bkl

[CanuckAmok]

76. No, Bin Laden is obviously Goldstein...

The whole thing about Goldstein is that his inability to be captured/defeated elevates him to nearly mythical status, and is an excuse to forever wage war against him, at the cost of the people.

The whole war with Eastasia was manufactured solely to divert wealth from production to the pockets of the elite/government. War without end.

I've even met people who believe, in the context of the book, that there IS no East Asia, that the entire planet is Eurasia.

Also, the implied anti-semitism in the character of Goldsteing can be transferred to an encouraged xenophobia against "the mud races", i.e. Arabs and Africans.

I agree that this Administration read 1984 and is using it as a how-to manual.

[kiki]

77. Hmmm...

Don't know who George McGovern is, but I'd say it would be someone who takes it a bit more seriously than Michael Moore (I don't mean that in a bad way - he is a comedian after all) and a bit more analytically than Clinton (Streisand I'm not even going to mention, apart from just then). Chomsky or Pilger or someone like that.

[Dogmudgeon]

82. George McGovern!

He was the 1972 Democratic candidate who ran against Richard Nixon.

The Conservatives blamed him for everything imaginable from 1972 until 1992, when they got Bill Clinton to kick around.

You absolutely MUST run a Google search on the guy!

--bkl

[donheld]

31. Not when i read it in high school

but i re-read it recently. I think 1984 has arrived.

[AtlantaBob]

32. It's all about how the government uses shame...

The scene I remember was the flashback where Winston Smith, the main character, steals the chocolate from his sickly little sister and runs away. As an adult, he is wracked by guilt and self-hatred for this.

I find myself thinking about this when traveling by air, watching everyone hasten to comply at the security checkpoints.
We make a show of how willing we are to be treated like prisoners, peeling off clothing in public, offering up our belongings for search by strangers, abdicating any right to dignity.

Only people with low self-esteem have this attitude toward authority.

Any REAL philosophers out there to respond?

[llmart]

40. I find myself thinking about how unquestioning people are.....

not only at airports, but everywhere. We just do as we're told but never question it. My parents taught me to question everything and I'm a royal pain in the ass because of it. Here's my "for instance": in a store the clerk at the cash register asks each person what their telephone number is and 99.9% of the time the customer just reels it off without questioning why they even need it. I always say "unlisted" even though it isn't. They never give me any problem with that. I figure I'm doing them a favor by spending my hard earned money at their store; that's all they need to know. There are so many examples I could go on forever. We truly are sheeple. And if you're like me and my siblings, you alienate a lot of people along the way because they are uncomfortable with anyone who doesn't just give in to the status quo. What boring lives! I know my husband gets tired of me always bucking the system too, but screw him. I don't intend to change. I tried to "fit in" once but I dealt with some major dissonance - it happens when you aren't true to yourself.

[AtlantaBob]

85. Here, Here!

[Party_like_its_1984]

33. I did. You get get it on the web for free

.

[AlinPA]

34. We are squarely in the middle of it now.

[NEDem]

35. MUST READ: "It Can't Happen Here" Sinclair Lewis

I've read 1984 and Brave New World. If you want something that really hits closer to home than either of these, read "It Can't Happen Here" the bad guys are Dems in the book, but that really doesn't matter. I'm only 1/3 of the way through it, and its freaking me out page by page.

[jean]

69. read "It Can't Happen Here" here - - -

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/l/lewis/sinclair/happen/

[Dogmudgeon]

70. I love this quote:

"Buzz" is Bresilius Windrip, the dictator of America. This quote is attributed to the time of his rise to power:

The Reverend Dr. Egerton Schlemil, dean of St. Agnes Cathedral, San Antonio, Texas, stated (once in a sermon, once in the slightly variant mimeographed press handout on the sermon, and seven times in interviews) that Buzz’s coming into power would be “like the Heaven-blest fall of revivifying rain upon a parched and thirsty land.” Dr. Schlemil did not say anything about what happened when the blest rain came and kept falling steadily for four years.

With the exception of the news-like factoids Sinclair uses for atmosphere, the book holds up very well.

I first read it in 1977, 41 years after its publication. Today, 27 years after that, it has gained a disturbing amount of relevence.

--bkl

[Vickers]

36. Wanna get freaked out all over again? Read "The Handmaid's Tale"

I'm about halfway through it. It speaks about things like:

"it was after the catastrophe"

"the Army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time."

"That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it was temporary. There wasn't even rioting in the streets."

"They said that new elections would be held, but that it would take some time to prepare for them. The thing to do, they said, was to continue on as usual."

Talks about the "Homeland." Lot of religious whackos controlling the baby-making process. Women have no rights.

Etc. etc.

[donachiel]

41. Awesome Vickers

Thanks for the excerpts. I may have to pick up a copy of that one. :)

[Taxloss]

42. Whoa!

See my post below ...

[libertad]

49. I agree, you've all got to read The Handmaids Tale as well as 1984.

If you haven't read The Handmaid's Tale, it is about America after the fundies completely take over. Women are completely subjugated and everyone who is not a fundie is exiled or killed.

[AlinPA]

65. The Handmaid's Tale, 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, if taken as a whole

cover much of what is going on now. Fahrenheit 451 intrigues me the most since it follows so closely the culture of stupid TV instead of books and a steady erosion of the thought process.

[Taxloss]

37. What about "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood?

Every bit as relevant. A future America as an environmentally ruined theocracy, people being shot as they run for the Canadian border, concentration camps, rampant racism and misogyny.

Link.

Atwood was mocked as being a leftie feminist loon when this came out in the 1980s. She imagines the thing that catalyses the coup by the religious right as being an enormous terrorist attack on American soil. Sound loony to you?

It's a brilliant book.

[theorist]

48. I can't remember if it was a nuke or mass dirty bombs.

I recall that most of the women were left barren by radiation, and hence, the need for "handmaids". This book is every bit as chilling as 1984, but more poignant because it more closely resembles our own situation. It's also written from a female's perspective, and that's always great.

[Taxloss]

52. It's referred to as the "Presidents' Day Massacre".

I think it was the slaughter of the government and the destruction of Washington DC.

[pa28]

38. Moral Majority = Junior anti-sex league n/t

[NightTrain]

39. I did, about eight years ago.

That's why the Bush Junta frightens me so much! :scared:

[neohippie]

43. read it, why I am living it right now

war is peace, freedom is slavery, george is president

You have to check out the online searchable version, here is the link
http://www.online-literature.com/booksearch.php

[LiberalPersona]

44. Yes I did

And it's looking increasingly more like a real life prediction than fiction.

[Artemis Bunyon]

45. No. Nobody on the planet has read it. Not one person.

And nobody took it seriously, either. Ever. Nuh-uh. It never gets mentioned. Orwell is forgotten.

[vinnievin777]

46. Although I am an Aldous Huxley fan 1984 which came out

over a decade later along with Animal Farm are great books which are pretty accurate.

Vinnie Vin
http://www.vinnievin.com

[theorist]

47. Orwell thought that it would take a nuclear war to get to 1984.

Maybe he thought that it would be too difficult to let it "creep in" as it is doing now. In this sense, he had a less than favorable view of world leaders in how he underestimated the will of people to not decimate each other. I don't think he could have imagined a theocratic regime being installed in one of the great democracies in history. Hindsight....

[kiki]

54. You should all read

'V For Vendetta' by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. It's like Nineteen Eighty-Four, but with a good guy... should be very inspiring for DUers. Choice quote:

"Did you think to kill me? There's no flesh and blood inside this cape to kill. There's only an idea. Ideas are bullet-proof."

[jdj]

55. we read it in 82, 83, and 84. It was spooky in 84

kind of uneasy. It was Reagan time, so cold war, and the nuclear clock "5 minutes to midnight". I was blessed with a liberal school, (only black female principal in state of VA)and liberal teachers, but the part where they are mentally tortured and they betray each other was devastating to me.

And I was always a little upset about the way he portrayed the proletarians. But then again given how they just re-elected Bush, he must have been right.

[kiki]

78. Orwell was funny about the working class

He really wanted to do (and did do) all he could for them, but when you hear him talk, his attitude could often be seen as very patronising and out of touch, in a modern context. I think he did pretty well at the old tolerance and understanding thing, given where and when he came from.

[kiki]

79. Get the soundtrack

to the movie, by the Eurythmics. It's great if you like electro-pop kind of stuff. It's not really political - it's largely instrumental/non-verbal - but it makes some nice noises.

[JNelson6563]

75. Kinda like PNAC

Only they said that their goals would take a really long time to achieve unless we were to experience another Pearl Harbor type attack. Seems 9/11 fit the bill.

Curiouser and curiouser.

[acmavm]

50. Try reading some Upton Sinclair, particularly King Coal and The Jungle.

.

[Taxloss]

51. "[Newspeak]'s vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact

and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings ... This was done ... by eliminating undesirable words ... Newspeak was was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought"

- 1984

Does this sound like right-wing "talking points" to anyone else? Like how the media paints the words "liberal", "Massachusets", "terror", "freedom", "pro-life", "moral" ... etc, etc.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

53. Oceania...Winston Smith......

totalitarian society in which the government, referred to as "the Party", had complete control over evry aspect of you and your life.

BUSHWORLD! :scared:

[kohodog]

57. Clear skies, healthy forests, no child left behind, a peace president,

what more could anyone ask for?

I love Big Brother.

[Taxloss]

58. Ignorance is Strength, comrade!

War is peace.

"We're at war with evil terrorists, but we've never been safer thanks to Bush!"

Freedom is slavery.

[kohodog]

64. And to sum it up...We are FUCKED n/t

[AlFrankenFan]

59. I read it earlier this year....and yes, I took it seriously

and after re-reading "Animal Farm"...I see it all too clearly...

[knitter4democracy]

60. I re-read it when I had to teach Brave New World

I did this whole scary unit thing to prepare myself for teaching Brave New World, and while I don't kid myself that all of the kids read the whole book, I think some did and actually started thinking about this whole Brave New World we're in. Of course, that was back in the spring of 2000--so much has happened since then . . .

[Soup Bean]

61. TEACH IT AGAIN!

Tell us what happens.......

[orwell]

62. Umm...

I wrote it?

[Name removed]

63. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[seraph]

66. Are we that old... ? Oi Gevalt.... (nt)

[Soup Bean]

67. Heaven Forbid....

:)

[seraph]

68. I remember reading it...

Late 70's. Everyone made a big deal because "1984" was right around the corner, and no one wanted to believe what was happening right in front of their faces.

And now...


After all of the fighting, all of that work... Civil Rights, ERA, Roe, all of it...

What the fuck was it all for?

We all got fat and lazy. Never again.

[Samurai_Writer]

72. I'm re-reading it right now...

And it is scary how much of it is EXACTLY like America today.

[Dogmudgeon]

73. Jack London wrote a dystopian political novel, too

I don't recall the name, but it was about an abortive socialist revolution in the USA during the Depression.

Does anyone remember it?

--bkl

[Dogmudgeon]

74. Found it already

It's called The Iron Heel.

Philip Roth also has a dystopian political novel out right now -- The Plot Against America about a Nazi-like regime in the USA during the 1930s-40s. Here's an article on the book and others, like The Iron Heel and It Can't Happen Here -- http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/10/06/books.roadtodystopia.ap/

--bkl

[newportdadde]

80. I'm reading it now for the first time.

[mopaul]

81. KKKarl Rove certainly read it

i read it at age 16, and i got it. i believe it's the bushkkko handbook for the future

[UpsideDownFlag]

83. i read it a year ago or so...watched the movie last month. nt

[callous taoboy]

86. 2 + 2 = 5 n/t