Sunday, April 29, 2012

I Am Finally Reading 1984

I'm very familiar with this book even though I've never read it.  I'm finally getting around to it.  Orwell would truly understand why it is so hard to counteract today's prevailing government, PC rhetoric.

The best quote so far:

Talking to her, he realised how easy it was to present an appearance of orthodoxy while having no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy meant.  In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it.  They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening.  By lack of understanding they remained sane.  They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass unigested through the body of a bird
Winston's rebellion is more ideological than Julia's.  She just wants to enjoy her life and the party wants to stop her.  So, she rebels by doing things like have forbidden sex, while, he rebels against the entire apparatus of the Party.  She can't care less that the news spouted through the telescreens is complete nonsense or that history is nonexistant.  Outwardly, she is able to appear completely in line with the orthodoxy of the Party line because it just doesn't matter to her.  While Winston cannot hide his deeper resentment for Big Brother because he understands how truly insidious it is and is easily picked out by Julia and later by O'Brien as not conforming.

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