Showing posts with label Nineteen Eighty Four. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nineteen Eighty Four. Show all posts
Saturday, 2 October 2010
Thoughtcrimes
Well, I've messed around again with the posts I wrote for the blog on Nineteen Eighty Four. I've revised, added and expanded them up to 21000 words and published them on Lulu. So if you're interested, follow the link at the side. It's all pretty basic in presentation but then I always was crap at art.
Thursday, 4 June 2009
The Disappearance of Syme
This is an interesting moment in the book. Winston foresees it over lunch in the cafeteria - demonstrating a stronger grasp of the principles of Ingsoc than O Brien gives him credit for - but the lingering question is: why does this lover of Ingsoc disappear?
Winston's fear was that he was "too intelligent" - meaning that he understood what he was doing with the Newspeak dictionary, and why, but also that he spoke too clearly about the aim of the project: to narrow the range of thought by narrowing the range of vocabulary. Syme obviously thought - if he did at all - that his obvious goodthinking and his clear bellyfeeling of Ingsoc would keep him safe.
This is where he went wrong. He failed to exercise doublethink appropriately. In his conversations with Winston he should have made it clear that the aim of the reduction in words was to expand the range of goodthinkful ideas and to enable fuller discussion of the principles of Ingsoc, but instead he describes it in entirely oldthink terms: reducing the range of thought. As an Outer Party intellectual he should know that expressing truth can only be done with lies. Syme could have been promoted to the Inner Party, had they wished it; but instead, his open use of oldthink suggests that he is merely a cynic, and a genuine oldthinker. Remember that the greatest fanatics are the Inner Party members.
It kind of begs the question whether, in this case, it was necessary to have "the heretic here at our mercy", in the words of O Brien. What possible kind of re-education could Syme have needed? Apart from the obvious training in doublethink, it seems more likely to me that Syme, not in fact being guilty of an incorrect thought, would simply have been shot, no questions asked.
Could it be, however, that a clear understanding of the true principles of Ingsoc does itself constitute crimethink - when voiced by a member of the Outer Party? If this knowledge spread, then discontent and rebellion could follow throughout the Outer Party, leaving O Brien and his mates (of whom there are few) could be overthrown. The Party is a hierarchy, designed to freeze history with one group permanently in control - the Inner Party. Syme is not of the Inner Party, although one might question why such an intelligent character is not. It might be that Syme is not quite cynical enough, though his language does suggest it.
Most likely, the understanding of Ingsoc is crimethink when not tagged on to doublethink. Without that the danger of falling into contempt for BB is great. O Brien, being a fanatic, is in no danger at all: his doublethink strategies are excellent. Even here, though, O Brien is as clear as possible to Winston: "The object of power is power." O Brien seems to be able to face and discuss the evil at the heart of Ingsoc, and recognise it as evil, and know that he wants evil. Syme does not recognise that you need to hold this knowledge of evil and also to know it as good at the same time, in order to be truly goodthinkful. His words leave too much open to interpretation, too much that could make a Party member wonder or worry...
On the other hand, we know that Syme frequented the Chestnut Tree Cafe, and that he was too open in his conversations. It is possible that in fact, despite his instinctive goodthinking, he knew he was in danger and killed himself (as Winston knows that many disappearances are suicides).
In the main, however, the disappearance of Syme provides Winston (and the reader) with proof of the evil of Ingsoc; they even murder their own faithful. There were always excuses for the purges of the Soviets - that they needed to secure the revolution - but if you murder your own, you do that in a display of power only. I wonder in fact if it was meant to be another part of the game O Brien was playing with Winston: that Syme's death was nothing to do with Syme, or little to do with him, and everything to do with the thought-criminal, Winston? Clearly when he first speaks to Winston he mentions it deliberately, even teasingly.
The Inner Party like playing games with humanity. That is what they mean by pure power, which is their sole motivation. The games are fun, exciting, rewarding, like hunting. But instead of just killing, first you turn the quarry into whatever you want it to be.
Syme is not really a quarry: more of a diversion. He stands for the wholly contingent nature of humanity and life under Ingsoc. He doesn't even get to stay on the chess team.
While we are on this subject, we could read Parsons as a sort of obverse of Syme. His devotion to Ingsoc is clear, his energies are directed solely towards it. He is a stereotype (more properly a comic stereotype) of the stupid fat man, whereas Syme is thin, weedly, and wiry. Parsons, unlike Syme, who is vaguely solitary (although he does hang around with slightly undesirable elements) has a traditional family. Syme disappears while Parsons is seen in the cellars of the Ministry of Love, before a rapid despatch to Room 101. Parsons will presumably either be re-arrested later, or his strength and stupidity will be put to use in a labour camp. The problem for Parsons is that he has clearly spent his entire sublimating his hatred for Ingsoc into love of it. His rebellion runs deeper than Winston’s because it manifests itself when his conscious mind is not available. Indeed, one could speculate that Parsons has shut down his conscious mind to be rid of it – this of course would be an extreme example of crimestop. “It’s just a matter of reality control,” says Syme. Parsons will probably be rapidly re-arrested and executed, because his story is more fun than Winston’s. Winston was never really a Party man, while if someone as clearly devoted as Parsons could be a thought criminal, well....The Inner Party would love that, and the Outer Party would be terrified. Parsons is also the way that Orwell demonstrates the control of the family: his children are ideologically aggressive, suspicious and most of all, love only the Party. Mrs Parsons is a sort of standing satire – as it does not seem right to Winston to call her “comrade” because she is the last old style “wife and mother” – a type that would be more recognisable to Orwell’s intended audience than to us.
But that is by the by. Syme and Parsons are opposites and complements, in their intelligences and apparent devotion to Ingsoc. Typically enough, Syme’s crimethink is suggested, or implied, by a subtlety of depiction that matches his fluidity of mind (his discussion of the project in Oldspeak terms – see The Disappearance of Syme), while Parson’s crime is the cry of the idiot who does not know how to articulate his feelings: in his sleep, he simply shouts “Down with Big Brother”. Incidentally, one would have thought that Mrs Parsons would have noticed this....Can’t be long before she is arrested too.
Winston sees Ampleforth arrested, Syme disappearing, Parsons arrested: with Julia, that means that almost everyone he has a conversation with during Parts One and Two is arrested (except Mrs Parsons). The thought occurs: are these people really arrested for their own thoughtcrimes, or are they all, like Syme, meant as amusing ways of making Winston even more afraid of the power and ruthlessness of the Party?
Winston's fear was that he was "too intelligent" - meaning that he understood what he was doing with the Newspeak dictionary, and why, but also that he spoke too clearly about the aim of the project: to narrow the range of thought by narrowing the range of vocabulary. Syme obviously thought - if he did at all - that his obvious goodthinking and his clear bellyfeeling of Ingsoc would keep him safe.
This is where he went wrong. He failed to exercise doublethink appropriately. In his conversations with Winston he should have made it clear that the aim of the reduction in words was to expand the range of goodthinkful ideas and to enable fuller discussion of the principles of Ingsoc, but instead he describes it in entirely oldthink terms: reducing the range of thought. As an Outer Party intellectual he should know that expressing truth can only be done with lies. Syme could have been promoted to the Inner Party, had they wished it; but instead, his open use of oldthink suggests that he is merely a cynic, and a genuine oldthinker. Remember that the greatest fanatics are the Inner Party members.
It kind of begs the question whether, in this case, it was necessary to have "the heretic here at our mercy", in the words of O Brien. What possible kind of re-education could Syme have needed? Apart from the obvious training in doublethink, it seems more likely to me that Syme, not in fact being guilty of an incorrect thought, would simply have been shot, no questions asked.
Could it be, however, that a clear understanding of the true principles of Ingsoc does itself constitute crimethink - when voiced by a member of the Outer Party? If this knowledge spread, then discontent and rebellion could follow throughout the Outer Party, leaving O Brien and his mates (of whom there are few) could be overthrown. The Party is a hierarchy, designed to freeze history with one group permanently in control - the Inner Party. Syme is not of the Inner Party, although one might question why such an intelligent character is not. It might be that Syme is not quite cynical enough, though his language does suggest it.
Most likely, the understanding of Ingsoc is crimethink when not tagged on to doublethink. Without that the danger of falling into contempt for BB is great. O Brien, being a fanatic, is in no danger at all: his doublethink strategies are excellent. Even here, though, O Brien is as clear as possible to Winston: "The object of power is power." O Brien seems to be able to face and discuss the evil at the heart of Ingsoc, and recognise it as evil, and know that he wants evil. Syme does not recognise that you need to hold this knowledge of evil and also to know it as good at the same time, in order to be truly goodthinkful. His words leave too much open to interpretation, too much that could make a Party member wonder or worry...
On the other hand, we know that Syme frequented the Chestnut Tree Cafe, and that he was too open in his conversations. It is possible that in fact, despite his instinctive goodthinking, he knew he was in danger and killed himself (as Winston knows that many disappearances are suicides).
In the main, however, the disappearance of Syme provides Winston (and the reader) with proof of the evil of Ingsoc; they even murder their own faithful. There were always excuses for the purges of the Soviets - that they needed to secure the revolution - but if you murder your own, you do that in a display of power only. I wonder in fact if it was meant to be another part of the game O Brien was playing with Winston: that Syme's death was nothing to do with Syme, or little to do with him, and everything to do with the thought-criminal, Winston? Clearly when he first speaks to Winston he mentions it deliberately, even teasingly.
The Inner Party like playing games with humanity. That is what they mean by pure power, which is their sole motivation. The games are fun, exciting, rewarding, like hunting. But instead of just killing, first you turn the quarry into whatever you want it to be.
Syme is not really a quarry: more of a diversion. He stands for the wholly contingent nature of humanity and life under Ingsoc. He doesn't even get to stay on the chess team.
While we are on this subject, we could read Parsons as a sort of obverse of Syme. His devotion to Ingsoc is clear, his energies are directed solely towards it. He is a stereotype (more properly a comic stereotype) of the stupid fat man, whereas Syme is thin, weedly, and wiry. Parsons, unlike Syme, who is vaguely solitary (although he does hang around with slightly undesirable elements) has a traditional family. Syme disappears while Parsons is seen in the cellars of the Ministry of Love, before a rapid despatch to Room 101. Parsons will presumably either be re-arrested later, or his strength and stupidity will be put to use in a labour camp. The problem for Parsons is that he has clearly spent his entire sublimating his hatred for Ingsoc into love of it. His rebellion runs deeper than Winston’s because it manifests itself when his conscious mind is not available. Indeed, one could speculate that Parsons has shut down his conscious mind to be rid of it – this of course would be an extreme example of crimestop. “It’s just a matter of reality control,” says Syme. Parsons will probably be rapidly re-arrested and executed, because his story is more fun than Winston’s. Winston was never really a Party man, while if someone as clearly devoted as Parsons could be a thought criminal, well....The Inner Party would love that, and the Outer Party would be terrified. Parsons is also the way that Orwell demonstrates the control of the family: his children are ideologically aggressive, suspicious and most of all, love only the Party. Mrs Parsons is a sort of standing satire – as it does not seem right to Winston to call her “comrade” because she is the last old style “wife and mother” – a type that would be more recognisable to Orwell’s intended audience than to us.
But that is by the by. Syme and Parsons are opposites and complements, in their intelligences and apparent devotion to Ingsoc. Typically enough, Syme’s crimethink is suggested, or implied, by a subtlety of depiction that matches his fluidity of mind (his discussion of the project in Oldspeak terms – see The Disappearance of Syme), while Parson’s crime is the cry of the idiot who does not know how to articulate his feelings: in his sleep, he simply shouts “Down with Big Brother”. Incidentally, one would have thought that Mrs Parsons would have noticed this....Can’t be long before she is arrested too.
Winston sees Ampleforth arrested, Syme disappearing, Parsons arrested: with Julia, that means that almost everyone he has a conversation with during Parts One and Two is arrested (except Mrs Parsons). The thought occurs: are these people really arrested for their own thoughtcrimes, or are they all, like Syme, meant as amusing ways of making Winston even more afraid of the power and ruthlessness of the Party?
After Room 101
Winston, purified, is supposedly filled with "ourselves" - meaning the desires and wishes of the Inner Party. He drinks, he gets up late, he hangs out in Chestnut Tree Cafe, he has a sinecure. He meets Julia and their meeting is awkward, punctuated by a lack of emotion, and precisely the inner hardness and separation that O Brien wanted and that Winston sought to escape from before the moment he first wrote in his diary.
In fact it is not quite the same, for Winston is now no longer aware of that isolation. He drinks heavily and he plays chess, and he worries about the news. His anxious thoughts are gone, but whether O Brien's confident statement that never again would Winston be capable of "ordinary human feeling" is correct is debateable. Take the drinking. He drinks heavily, freely, just like Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford, and countless others while waiting to be re-arrested and executed. But why the drink? If you were full of the Party following Room 101 there would be no need. Is Winston trying to hide something from himself - disgust? anxiety? Julia? Is he completely capable of those thoughts but merely repressing them? That is not quite what the Party wanted, of course. But the prevalence of “synthetic gin” in Oceanic society suggests that this is another area, like prostitution, where the Party knows that is ideology cannot sustain itself in purity for long – because humanity has not been crushed, not been stamped on, only repressed, and will survive. Sex is necessary, alcohol essential to hide the experiences, to fill the emptiness of the Party (and it is, “fear, rage triumph and self abasement”) an emptiness, just like it is in real life.
O Brien highlighted "fear, rage, triumph and self-abasement." He mentioned love of Big Brother and loyalty to the Party - but "everything else we shall destroy - everything."
From the final lines of the book, which contrast with an earlier segment, before he was arrested, Winston, in the bliss of the news of military triumph, imagines the "longed for bullet entering his brain" - he delights in this vision, this fantasy of his own death, "his soul white as snow".
With his tears of love for BB and his joy at the news, together with his conquest of the "false memory" that comes to him there of a happy moment of his childhood, Winston has been hollowed out. O Brien has his wish, and Winston finally belongs to the Party.
And so he wants to die: because the Party want him to die, because they have engineered him to desire death at the point of his "perfection" - which is now, the very end. It is a reaction to his self-discoveries here: there is no self. Only the internalised Party and that, as intimated here and throughout the book, is a kind of living death. But O Brien does not look or sound dead, you might argue. No, but then he is a power-mad loony (c Private Eye), and so his type, as we have seen for the last million odd years, flourish in societies which destroy normal human beings.
Incidentally, the final point of the novel is made: the love of the Party is death. The theme of the novel has been "thoughtcrime is death" - as a totalitarian warning; but now we learn that it is this evil and hollow Party that is death. It is a re-statement of the vital values of civilisation and freedom. As readers we knew this already, as Winston used to know - but the point is made with the self-sacrifice of the hero, who gives up, finally, any hero status he had, even in the physical act of survival (which was intended and controlled by the Party of course) - and is scooped out, once and for all.
There is nothing left to do except fulfil the dream, which, we must imagine, would take place at any point of the Party's choosing following this moment.
In fact it is not quite the same, for Winston is now no longer aware of that isolation. He drinks heavily and he plays chess, and he worries about the news. His anxious thoughts are gone, but whether O Brien's confident statement that never again would Winston be capable of "ordinary human feeling" is correct is debateable. Take the drinking. He drinks heavily, freely, just like Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford, and countless others while waiting to be re-arrested and executed. But why the drink? If you were full of the Party following Room 101 there would be no need. Is Winston trying to hide something from himself - disgust? anxiety? Julia? Is he completely capable of those thoughts but merely repressing them? That is not quite what the Party wanted, of course. But the prevalence of “synthetic gin” in Oceanic society suggests that this is another area, like prostitution, where the Party knows that is ideology cannot sustain itself in purity for long – because humanity has not been crushed, not been stamped on, only repressed, and will survive. Sex is necessary, alcohol essential to hide the experiences, to fill the emptiness of the Party (and it is, “fear, rage triumph and self abasement”) an emptiness, just like it is in real life.
O Brien highlighted "fear, rage, triumph and self-abasement." He mentioned love of Big Brother and loyalty to the Party - but "everything else we shall destroy - everything."
From the final lines of the book, which contrast with an earlier segment, before he was arrested, Winston, in the bliss of the news of military triumph, imagines the "longed for bullet entering his brain" - he delights in this vision, this fantasy of his own death, "his soul white as snow".
With his tears of love for BB and his joy at the news, together with his conquest of the "false memory" that comes to him there of a happy moment of his childhood, Winston has been hollowed out. O Brien has his wish, and Winston finally belongs to the Party.
And so he wants to die: because the Party want him to die, because they have engineered him to desire death at the point of his "perfection" - which is now, the very end. It is a reaction to his self-discoveries here: there is no self. Only the internalised Party and that, as intimated here and throughout the book, is a kind of living death. But O Brien does not look or sound dead, you might argue. No, but then he is a power-mad loony (c Private Eye), and so his type, as we have seen for the last million odd years, flourish in societies which destroy normal human beings.
Incidentally, the final point of the novel is made: the love of the Party is death. The theme of the novel has been "thoughtcrime is death" - as a totalitarian warning; but now we learn that it is this evil and hollow Party that is death. It is a re-statement of the vital values of civilisation and freedom. As readers we knew this already, as Winston used to know - but the point is made with the self-sacrifice of the hero, who gives up, finally, any hero status he had, even in the physical act of survival (which was intended and controlled by the Party of course) - and is scooped out, once and for all.
There is nothing left to do except fulfil the dream, which, we must imagine, would take place at any point of the Party's choosing following this moment.
Humph
As no-one bought my Thoughtcrimes on 1984 book off of Lulu I've taken it off and I'll publish the original stuff here!
So here's a possible timeline for the novel.
1944 – Winston Smith born (probably). At this point the timeline has run more or less exactly the way ours has. Imperialism, the growth of socialist theory in the nineteenth century, World War I, the Russian Revolution, the Nazi seizure of power, World War II and later the atomic bomb on the two Japanese cities.
1945 – End of World War II. Winston remembers several years of peace in his childhood, because the atomic raid on Colchester came as a surprise. This (presumably) is a non-Marshall Plan Europe with heavy Soviet influence across the continent. It could be assumed that this period was hungry and tense until around 1950, when a few years of plenty set in: the ones Winston remembers as a child. Lemons were probably available in shops by then, for example.
1954 -55 Atomic Wars are fought between Europe, USA and USSR. Many major cities are devastated. This war Orwell clearly envisions as being fought with weapons of around 20kilotons – Hiroshima size. Small enough to leave some infrastructure intact, but large enough to devastate societies. These wars lead directly to Civil Wars, between the establishment (ie in the case of Britain the liberal democracy) and radical parties inspired by either the Nazis or the Bolsheviks or both (which is clearly the case with the Party). During the course of the Civil Wars, starvation becomes routine, the mess left over from the wars is not really dealt with, and the different sides begin the process of exterminating enemies (Winston’s memory of the ever present sound of machine gun fire). The wars lead politically to radicalisation (already far enough advanced to cause an atomic war), and perhaps psychologically to a deepening of the “hardening of outlook that set in around 1930” – as the desperation of survival would have been so much more intense after the radioactive aftermath of an atomic war. This could even be true physiologically: damaged psyches and minds could be the progenitors of true Party philosophy more than the ideology of the Nazis or Bolsheviks. The rearrangement into pan-continental power blocs begins to happen during the recovery period (ie probably almost as soon as the last bomb is dropped). It might be this struggle and psychological damage that causes O’Brien, probably in his early twenties at the time of the atomic wars, to carry the old, worn look that Winston notices so keenly. By the end of the wars, strong, radical parties of left and right are the only serious political movements. The Party is the strongest of these. It is probably an offshoot of a powerful pre-atomic war Communist Party.
1955-57 – The Civil Wars and the struggle for supremacy within the emergent Party and between different radical elements. The Party almost certainly possesses a strong paramilitary group as well as fearsome orators. Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford are leading lights in the struggle and eventual takeover. Rutherford’s cartoons inflame popular opinion. During periods of stability there are furious speeches and propaganda from the Party (and, one assumes, other radical parties – hence the “unintelligible proclamations...and gangs of youths in shirts all the same colour”). Starvation intensifies as no real recovery efforts are made. During this period the “confused street fighting in London itself” Winston remembers would probably have taken place. The Party takes sporadic control and begins eliminating opposition. Winston’s mother disappears, along with his sister, in 1954 or 1955. The latest possible date is 1956. His father had disappeared sometime earlier. Winston is removed to a “Reclamation Centre” – orphanages which grew up because of the Civil Wars).
1958-60 – The period of the Revolution. The Party defeats its enemies and takes control, though inconsistently at first and fighting continues. The Party then strengthens in control and eliminates the remnants of its enemies, begins purging itself and the population. Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford reach the peak of their power.
1958-59 – The Party already rewriting history, claiming in school textbooks to have invented the helicopter (by 1968-69 this has extended to the aeroplane). Winston is at school. Julia is born in either 1957 or 1958.
1958-59 (Assuming the dates in The Book are correct) - The Pan Continental Wars begin, to continue without interruption until 1984.
1960 - First development of Newspeak. The probable first mention of the word “Ingsoc” dates from this time. It could be that either the original radicals become secure enough to pursue their project more openly, or that idealists within the Party have been ousted by more cynical elements (ie in an analogue to the Left’s traditional view of the Russian Revolution). Most likely, Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford have simply tightened their grip and become extremely keen on power as a result.
1960-63 – First mention of totemic leader Big Brother.
1963 – Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford photographed at a “Party function in New York”. This date is significant because the three later confess to being on Eurasian soil at this time.
1965 – The second wave of Purges, led by the ideological associates of O’Brien. Last of the original Party leaders purged. Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford arrested. This is probably the time meant by The Book, when it says “...after the revolutionary period of the fifties and sixties, society regrouped itself, as always, into High, Middle and Low”. Namely, the defeat of the original, probably more idealistic leaders (idealistic in the O’Brien sense of not wishing to admit to their true motives- and hence the successors of the Bolsheviks and Nazis).
1966-67 – Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford re-appear. Winston sees the three in the Chestnut Tree Cafe. Rutherford’s cartoons still appear in The Times.
1968 – Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford are re-arrested and executed, the Party is now controlled by the same elite in perpetuity. Progress towards 2050 (total adoption of Newspeak and elimination of the past as an immutable object) commences in earnest.
1972-73 – Winston’s brief marriage to Katharine.
1973 – Winston holds the photo of Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford.
1977 – Winston dreams of a man saying “we shall meet in the place where there is no darkness”: the beginning of O Brien’s games with Winston, which he does not realise until he is arrested. Winston must therefore have already been identified as a thought-criminal.
1981 – Winston visits the Proletarian prostitute.
April 1984 – Everything kicks off.
Summer 1984 – Winston released.
March 1985 – Winston and Julia meet for the last time.
So here's a possible timeline for the novel.
1944 – Winston Smith born (probably). At this point the timeline has run more or less exactly the way ours has. Imperialism, the growth of socialist theory in the nineteenth century, World War I, the Russian Revolution, the Nazi seizure of power, World War II and later the atomic bomb on the two Japanese cities.
1945 – End of World War II. Winston remembers several years of peace in his childhood, because the atomic raid on Colchester came as a surprise. This (presumably) is a non-Marshall Plan Europe with heavy Soviet influence across the continent. It could be assumed that this period was hungry and tense until around 1950, when a few years of plenty set in: the ones Winston remembers as a child. Lemons were probably available in shops by then, for example.
1954 -55 Atomic Wars are fought between Europe, USA and USSR. Many major cities are devastated. This war Orwell clearly envisions as being fought with weapons of around 20kilotons – Hiroshima size. Small enough to leave some infrastructure intact, but large enough to devastate societies. These wars lead directly to Civil Wars, between the establishment (ie in the case of Britain the liberal democracy) and radical parties inspired by either the Nazis or the Bolsheviks or both (which is clearly the case with the Party). During the course of the Civil Wars, starvation becomes routine, the mess left over from the wars is not really dealt with, and the different sides begin the process of exterminating enemies (Winston’s memory of the ever present sound of machine gun fire). The wars lead politically to radicalisation (already far enough advanced to cause an atomic war), and perhaps psychologically to a deepening of the “hardening of outlook that set in around 1930” – as the desperation of survival would have been so much more intense after the radioactive aftermath of an atomic war. This could even be true physiologically: damaged psyches and minds could be the progenitors of true Party philosophy more than the ideology of the Nazis or Bolsheviks. The rearrangement into pan-continental power blocs begins to happen during the recovery period (ie probably almost as soon as the last bomb is dropped). It might be this struggle and psychological damage that causes O’Brien, probably in his early twenties at the time of the atomic wars, to carry the old, worn look that Winston notices so keenly. By the end of the wars, strong, radical parties of left and right are the only serious political movements. The Party is the strongest of these. It is probably an offshoot of a powerful pre-atomic war Communist Party.
1955-57 – The Civil Wars and the struggle for supremacy within the emergent Party and between different radical elements. The Party almost certainly possesses a strong paramilitary group as well as fearsome orators. Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford are leading lights in the struggle and eventual takeover. Rutherford’s cartoons inflame popular opinion. During periods of stability there are furious speeches and propaganda from the Party (and, one assumes, other radical parties – hence the “unintelligible proclamations...and gangs of youths in shirts all the same colour”). Starvation intensifies as no real recovery efforts are made. During this period the “confused street fighting in London itself” Winston remembers would probably have taken place. The Party takes sporadic control and begins eliminating opposition. Winston’s mother disappears, along with his sister, in 1954 or 1955. The latest possible date is 1956. His father had disappeared sometime earlier. Winston is removed to a “Reclamation Centre” – orphanages which grew up because of the Civil Wars).
1958-60 – The period of the Revolution. The Party defeats its enemies and takes control, though inconsistently at first and fighting continues. The Party then strengthens in control and eliminates the remnants of its enemies, begins purging itself and the population. Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford reach the peak of their power.
1958-59 – The Party already rewriting history, claiming in school textbooks to have invented the helicopter (by 1968-69 this has extended to the aeroplane). Winston is at school. Julia is born in either 1957 or 1958.
1958-59 (Assuming the dates in The Book are correct) - The Pan Continental Wars begin, to continue without interruption until 1984.
1960 - First development of Newspeak. The probable first mention of the word “Ingsoc” dates from this time. It could be that either the original radicals become secure enough to pursue their project more openly, or that idealists within the Party have been ousted by more cynical elements (ie in an analogue to the Left’s traditional view of the Russian Revolution). Most likely, Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford have simply tightened their grip and become extremely keen on power as a result.
1960-63 – First mention of totemic leader Big Brother.
1963 – Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford photographed at a “Party function in New York”. This date is significant because the three later confess to being on Eurasian soil at this time.
1965 – The second wave of Purges, led by the ideological associates of O’Brien. Last of the original Party leaders purged. Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford arrested. This is probably the time meant by The Book, when it says “...after the revolutionary period of the fifties and sixties, society regrouped itself, as always, into High, Middle and Low”. Namely, the defeat of the original, probably more idealistic leaders (idealistic in the O’Brien sense of not wishing to admit to their true motives- and hence the successors of the Bolsheviks and Nazis).
1966-67 – Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford re-appear. Winston sees the three in the Chestnut Tree Cafe. Rutherford’s cartoons still appear in The Times.
1968 – Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford are re-arrested and executed, the Party is now controlled by the same elite in perpetuity. Progress towards 2050 (total adoption of Newspeak and elimination of the past as an immutable object) commences in earnest.
1972-73 – Winston’s brief marriage to Katharine.
1973 – Winston holds the photo of Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford.
1977 – Winston dreams of a man saying “we shall meet in the place where there is no darkness”: the beginning of O Brien’s games with Winston, which he does not realise until he is arrested. Winston must therefore have already been identified as a thought-criminal.
1981 – Winston visits the Proletarian prostitute.
April 1984 – Everything kicks off.
Summer 1984 – Winston released.
March 1985 – Winston and Julia meet for the last time.
Monday, 13 April 2009
Love And Pride
I now have very little of either: adult life seems to be a gradual stripping of pretensions. I see, in the light of the monitor, the creases in my skin, the folds of my ageing hands, the scars of accidental and deliberate wounds taking me back from the late nineties to the early eighties. The early eighties. John Nathan-Turner (dec'd) once wrote that he wanted to take Doctor Who "into the Eighties" and what he did was to cut the humour, cut the vagueness, cut Douglas Adams' Oxbridge surreal humour, bring in sharp and bright design, synthesised music, stories that made little or no sense but sounded cool or seemed cool on a first 25 minute week by week (no video initially) viewing, and a lead actor whose ridiculous vulnerability in no way fitted a trans-dimensional superhero.
JN-T got the 80s. He got them quick: The Leisure Hive Part One went out on 30 August 1980. It still looks pretty good today, apart from the Foamasi. I think if JN-T's Who had unlimited money, it would have been the definitive artistic expression of the British 1980s. JN-T got it, he saw it, he just never had the cash. Hence after The Caves of Androzani and drastically after Revelation of the Daleks, that vision was curtailed and abandoned. Oddly enough, just as the 80s began to generate money Doctor Who collapsed in an orgy of violence (Lytton's hands....), and nothing was ever the same again, instead becoming a fusion of outdated hippiness and slavering irony. But, there, in 1980, JN-T got it.
JN-T even got the dark turn of the 80s in 1984. Colin Baker was even cast and designed as an anti-Doctor, with his ghastly, evil costume and his character, which would weep over a dead sparrow but walk over a dead man (as JN-T put it at the time or in similar words). Season 22 was a fine cultural expression of Britain in the mid-80s: nasty, cynical, sexist and violent. Resurrection of the Daleks is the turning point here. But JN-T had seen it coming in 1982, with Eric Saward's script for Warhead - following that there was the turn of the sharp-edged coin - the children's show with the crushed hands, the suffocation, the cannibalism, the stabbing, the eating of the dead, the casual acid-bath murders, the drunk on his way to kill a man using the dying to make Daleks ("You forget, I am a doctor, when they torture me I'll know the name and function of every organ that pops out"), the presentation of violence-for-entertainment, the endless killing, killing, killing. Season 22 knows that dying is an art, like everything else: it does it exceptionally well.
And it did it at 1720 or 1745 on a Saturday: hardly adult viewing time. I remember Revelation of the Daleks Part One. I remember - the one and only time of my childhood - hiding behind the sofa. After Jim'll Fix It: mutated bodies, human protein, a vile boss of a funeral parlour, a lame and awful woman trying to impress this callous and selfish bastard. And a cynical businesswoman, a failed warrior, and bodies all over the place.
All good, family viewing.
It's not good and it's not funny. It's Doctor Who and it's 1985.
Also on tv in 1985: EastEnders, Threads (rpt), The A-Team.
The A-Team.
The A-Team.
I see the A-Team.
JN-T got the 80s. He got them quick: The Leisure Hive Part One went out on 30 August 1980. It still looks pretty good today, apart from the Foamasi. I think if JN-T's Who had unlimited money, it would have been the definitive artistic expression of the British 1980s. JN-T got it, he saw it, he just never had the cash. Hence after The Caves of Androzani and drastically after Revelation of the Daleks, that vision was curtailed and abandoned. Oddly enough, just as the 80s began to generate money Doctor Who collapsed in an orgy of violence (Lytton's hands....), and nothing was ever the same again, instead becoming a fusion of outdated hippiness and slavering irony. But, there, in 1980, JN-T got it.
JN-T even got the dark turn of the 80s in 1984. Colin Baker was even cast and designed as an anti-Doctor, with his ghastly, evil costume and his character, which would weep over a dead sparrow but walk over a dead man (as JN-T put it at the time or in similar words). Season 22 was a fine cultural expression of Britain in the mid-80s: nasty, cynical, sexist and violent. Resurrection of the Daleks is the turning point here. But JN-T had seen it coming in 1982, with Eric Saward's script for Warhead - following that there was the turn of the sharp-edged coin - the children's show with the crushed hands, the suffocation, the cannibalism, the stabbing, the eating of the dead, the casual acid-bath murders, the drunk on his way to kill a man using the dying to make Daleks ("You forget, I am a doctor, when they torture me I'll know the name and function of every organ that pops out"), the presentation of violence-for-entertainment, the endless killing, killing, killing. Season 22 knows that dying is an art, like everything else: it does it exceptionally well.
And it did it at 1720 or 1745 on a Saturday: hardly adult viewing time. I remember Revelation of the Daleks Part One. I remember - the one and only time of my childhood - hiding behind the sofa. After Jim'll Fix It: mutated bodies, human protein, a vile boss of a funeral parlour, a lame and awful woman trying to impress this callous and selfish bastard. And a cynical businesswoman, a failed warrior, and bodies all over the place.
All good, family viewing.
It's not good and it's not funny. It's Doctor Who and it's 1985.
Also on tv in 1985: EastEnders, Threads (rpt), The A-Team.
The A-Team.
The A-Team.
I see the A-Team.
Thursday, 13 November 2008
Party Defeated by Mule?
I've been thinking this week about re-arranging posts into a short book (an idea I stole from DK). But most of my output is nonsense: drunken, sweary and self-pitying, it says little of permanent interest.
I did think, however, that I could make something of my posts on the subject of the book.
So I've been re-reading them, and particularly one in which I suggest that a Mule would be the only person who might defeat Ingsoc. A Mule whose mental powers were capable of affecting others directly - not just through torture or fear.
The problem would be that such a character would be obvious from early on in their life. The Thought Police would surely see this child who has an effect on the children around him and either harness him, or destroy him, before he is old enough to act against the Party.
He might act a little like the central character in the fascinating Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which would certainly cause him to be hauled in by thinkpol.
But if he didn't, protected by parents or proles; if he grew to maturity keeping his powers secret, and if he were eventually hauled in for something like facecrime - it would be interesting to see his encounters with the Inner Party....
I did think, however, that I could make something of my posts on the subject of the book.
So I've been re-reading them, and particularly one in which I suggest that a Mule would be the only person who might defeat Ingsoc. A Mule whose mental powers were capable of affecting others directly - not just through torture or fear.
The problem would be that such a character would be obvious from early on in their life. The Thought Police would surely see this child who has an effect on the children around him and either harness him, or destroy him, before he is old enough to act against the Party.
He might act a little like the central character in the fascinating Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which would certainly cause him to be hauled in by thinkpol.
But if he didn't, protected by parents or proles; if he grew to maturity keeping his powers secret, and if he were eventually hauled in for something like facecrime - it would be interesting to see his encounters with the Inner Party....
Monday, 10 November 2008
After Room 101
Winston, purified, is supposedly filled with "ourselves" - meaning the desires and wishes of the Inner Party. He drinks, he gets up late, he hangs out in Chestnut Tree Cafe, he has a sinecure. He meets Julia and their meeting is awkward, punctuated by a lack of emotion, and precisely the inner hardness and separation that O Brien wanted and that Winston sought to escape from before the moment he first wrote in his diary.
In fact it is not quite the same, for Winston is now no longer aware of that isolation. He drinks heavily and he plays chess, and he worries about the news. His anxious thoughts are gone, but whether O Brien's confident statement that never again would Winston be capable of "ordinary human feeling" is correct is debateable. Take the drinking. Is Winston trying to hide something from himself - disgust? anxiety? Julia? Is he completely capable of those thoughts but merely repressing them - not quite what the Party wanted.
O Brien highlighted "fear, rage, triumph and self-abasement." He mentioned love of Big Brother and loyalty to the Party - but "everything else we shall destroy - everything."
From the final lines of the book, which contrast with an earlier segment, before he was arrested, Winston, in the bliss of the news of military triumph, imagines the "longed for bullet entering his brain" - he delights in this vision, this fantasy of his own death, "his soul white as snow".
With his tears of love for BB and his joy at the news, together with his conquest of the "false memory" that comes to him there of a happy moment of his childhood, Winston has been hollowed out. O Brien has his wish, and Winston, finally belongs to the Party.
And so he wants to die: because the Party want him to die, because they have engineered him to desire death at the point of his "perfection" - which is now, the very end. It is a reaction to his self-discoveries here: there is no self. Only the internalised Party.
Incidentally, the final point of the novel is made: the love of the Party is death. The theme of the novel has been "thoughtcrime is death" - as a totalitarian warning; but now we learn that it is this evil and hollow Party that is death. It is a re-statement of the vital values of civilisation and freedom. As readers we knew this already, as Winston used to know - but it is made with the self-sacrifice of the hero, who gives up, finally, any hero status he had, even in the physical act of survival (which was intended by the Party of course) - and is scooped out.
There is nothing left to do except fulfil the dream, which, we must imagine, would take place at any point of the Party's choosing following this moment.
In fact it is not quite the same, for Winston is now no longer aware of that isolation. He drinks heavily and he plays chess, and he worries about the news. His anxious thoughts are gone, but whether O Brien's confident statement that never again would Winston be capable of "ordinary human feeling" is correct is debateable. Take the drinking. Is Winston trying to hide something from himself - disgust? anxiety? Julia? Is he completely capable of those thoughts but merely repressing them - not quite what the Party wanted.
O Brien highlighted "fear, rage, triumph and self-abasement." He mentioned love of Big Brother and loyalty to the Party - but "everything else we shall destroy - everything."
From the final lines of the book, which contrast with an earlier segment, before he was arrested, Winston, in the bliss of the news of military triumph, imagines the "longed for bullet entering his brain" - he delights in this vision, this fantasy of his own death, "his soul white as snow".
With his tears of love for BB and his joy at the news, together with his conquest of the "false memory" that comes to him there of a happy moment of his childhood, Winston has been hollowed out. O Brien has his wish, and Winston, finally belongs to the Party.
And so he wants to die: because the Party want him to die, because they have engineered him to desire death at the point of his "perfection" - which is now, the very end. It is a reaction to his self-discoveries here: there is no self. Only the internalised Party.
Incidentally, the final point of the novel is made: the love of the Party is death. The theme of the novel has been "thoughtcrime is death" - as a totalitarian warning; but now we learn that it is this evil and hollow Party that is death. It is a re-statement of the vital values of civilisation and freedom. As readers we knew this already, as Winston used to know - but it is made with the self-sacrifice of the hero, who gives up, finally, any hero status he had, even in the physical act of survival (which was intended by the Party of course) - and is scooped out.
There is nothing left to do except fulfil the dream, which, we must imagine, would take place at any point of the Party's choosing following this moment.
Saturday, 8 November 2008
The Disappearance of Syme
This is an interesting moment in the book. Winston foresees it over lunch in the cafeteria - demonstrating a stronger grasp of the principles of Ingsoc than O Brien gives him credit for - but the lingering question is: why does this lover of Ingsoc disappear?
Winston's fear was that he was "too intelligent" - meaning that he understood what he was doing with the Newspeak dictionary, and why, but also that he spoke too clearly about the aim of the project: to narrow the range of thought by narrowing the range of vocabulary. Syme obviously thought - if he did at all - that his obvious goodthinking and his clear bellyfeeling of Ingsoc would keep him safe.
This is where he went wrong. He failed to exercise doublethink appropriately. In his conversations with Winston he should have made it clear that the aim of the reduction in words was to expand the range of goodthinkful ideas and to enable fuller discussion of the principles of Ingsoc.
It kind of begs the question whether, in this case, it was necessary to have "the heretic here at our mercy", in the words of O Brien. What possible kind of re-education could Syme have needed? Apart from the obvious training in doublethink, it seems more likely to me that Syme, not in fact being guilty of an incorrect thought, would simply have been shot, no questions asked.
Could it be, however, that a clear understanding of the true principles of Ingsoc does itself constitute crimethink - when voiced by a member of the Outer Party? If this knowledge spread, then discontent and rebellion could follow throughout the Outer Party, leaving O Brien and his mates (of whom there are few) could be overthrown. The Party is a hierarchy, designed to freeze history with one group permanently in control - the Inner Party. Syme is not of the Inner Party.
Most likely, the understanding of Ingsoc is crimethink when not tagged on to doublethink. Without that the danger of falling into contempt for BB is great. O Brien, being a fanatic, is in no danger at all: his doublethink strategies are excellent. Even here, though, O Brien is as clear as possible to Winston: "The object of power is power." O Brien seems to be able to face and discuss the evil at the heart of Ingsoc, and recognise it as evil, and know that he wants evil. Syme does not recognise that you need to hold this knowledge of evil and also to know it as good at the same time, in order to be truly goodthinkful. His words leave too much open to interpretation, too much that could make a Party member wonder or worry...
On the other hand, we know that Syme frequented the Chestnut Tree Cafe, and that he was too open in his conversations. It is possible that in fact, despite his instinctive goodthinking, he knew he was in danger and killed himself (as Winston knows that many disappearances are suicides).
In the main, however, the disappearance of Syme provides Winston (and the reader) with proof of the evil of Ingsoc; they even murder their own faithful. There were always excuses for the purges of the Soviets - that they needed to secure the revolution - but if you murder your own, you do that in a display of power only. I wonder in fact if it was meant to be another part of the game O Brien was playing with Winston: that Syme's death was nothing to do with Syme, or little to do with him, and everything to do with the thought-criminal, Winston? Clearly when he first speaks to Winston he mentions it deliberately, even teasingly.
The Inner Party like playing games with humanity. That is what they mean by pure power, which is their sole motivation. The games are fun, exciting, rewarding, like hunting. But instead of just killing, first you turn the quarry into whatever you want it to be.
Syme is not really a quarry: more of a diversion. He stands for the wholly contingent nature of humanity and life under Ingsoc. He doesn't even get to stay on the chess team.
Winston's fear was that he was "too intelligent" - meaning that he understood what he was doing with the Newspeak dictionary, and why, but also that he spoke too clearly about the aim of the project: to narrow the range of thought by narrowing the range of vocabulary. Syme obviously thought - if he did at all - that his obvious goodthinking and his clear bellyfeeling of Ingsoc would keep him safe.
This is where he went wrong. He failed to exercise doublethink appropriately. In his conversations with Winston he should have made it clear that the aim of the reduction in words was to expand the range of goodthinkful ideas and to enable fuller discussion of the principles of Ingsoc.
It kind of begs the question whether, in this case, it was necessary to have "the heretic here at our mercy", in the words of O Brien. What possible kind of re-education could Syme have needed? Apart from the obvious training in doublethink, it seems more likely to me that Syme, not in fact being guilty of an incorrect thought, would simply have been shot, no questions asked.
Could it be, however, that a clear understanding of the true principles of Ingsoc does itself constitute crimethink - when voiced by a member of the Outer Party? If this knowledge spread, then discontent and rebellion could follow throughout the Outer Party, leaving O Brien and his mates (of whom there are few) could be overthrown. The Party is a hierarchy, designed to freeze history with one group permanently in control - the Inner Party. Syme is not of the Inner Party.
Most likely, the understanding of Ingsoc is crimethink when not tagged on to doublethink. Without that the danger of falling into contempt for BB is great. O Brien, being a fanatic, is in no danger at all: his doublethink strategies are excellent. Even here, though, O Brien is as clear as possible to Winston: "The object of power is power." O Brien seems to be able to face and discuss the evil at the heart of Ingsoc, and recognise it as evil, and know that he wants evil. Syme does not recognise that you need to hold this knowledge of evil and also to know it as good at the same time, in order to be truly goodthinkful. His words leave too much open to interpretation, too much that could make a Party member wonder or worry...
On the other hand, we know that Syme frequented the Chestnut Tree Cafe, and that he was too open in his conversations. It is possible that in fact, despite his instinctive goodthinking, he knew he was in danger and killed himself (as Winston knows that many disappearances are suicides).
In the main, however, the disappearance of Syme provides Winston (and the reader) with proof of the evil of Ingsoc; they even murder their own faithful. There were always excuses for the purges of the Soviets - that they needed to secure the revolution - but if you murder your own, you do that in a display of power only. I wonder in fact if it was meant to be another part of the game O Brien was playing with Winston: that Syme's death was nothing to do with Syme, or little to do with him, and everything to do with the thought-criminal, Winston? Clearly when he first speaks to Winston he mentions it deliberately, even teasingly.
The Inner Party like playing games with humanity. That is what they mean by pure power, which is their sole motivation. The games are fun, exciting, rewarding, like hunting. But instead of just killing, first you turn the quarry into whatever you want it to be.
Syme is not really a quarry: more of a diversion. He stands for the wholly contingent nature of humanity and life under Ingsoc. He doesn't even get to stay on the chess team.
Friday, 7 November 2008
The Gift of O Brien
A subtext of the great book is that Winston, despite his love for Julia, and his endemic thoughtcrime, is in some way in love with O Brien. The brutal, fleshy monster seems to be a kind of father figure. In a way of course, he is. O Brien is a teacher, not just of facts, or even of modes of thought, but of life. Without O Brien's instruction, Winston can have no life at all. He is completely dependent on the Inner Party fuckhead for his entire worldview - with the emphasis on "view", for Winston, weakened by torture and the demonstration of the fallibility of reality, has nothing to cling on to at all, not sight, not thought, not Party - only the avuncular evil of the man who wishes to save through total control. Through this dependence - which is a dependence of living, an instinct like that of the warrior in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, faced with the chopping block - he comes to see O Brien as a more or less positive force, even as he decries and hates the aims of the Party ("pure power...what we mean by pure power you will understand presently").
O Brien's gift is the perversion of love. The manipulation of the most human of feelings for the ends of power. O Brien knows how to create love: you begin with some kind of admiration (built of fear, and intimidation, and mystery), then you leave little traces (glances and looks), then you strike, and you show your quarry that you are the desired object: unobtainable, mysterious, promising, caring of you, as an individual.
Of course, Winston should have spotted this straight away: that the indicators of love from an Inner Party member suggested his own death. Instead he sublimated them into dreams and fantasies ("We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness"), from where O Brien was only too happy to use his feelings. As Julia points out, it was obvious from his face: "...as soon as I saw you I knew you were against them").
O Brien needs Winston's love to make the emptying of his soul possible. Although he calls Winston "a difficult case", this is only true insofar as the ideology of Ingsoc is hateful to Winston. O Brien is not, could never be: so all it takes is a little torture, and the assurance of love, which O Brien knows Winston lost when his mother disappeared, never had with Katharine, and has only just found illegimately with Julia.
Winston, if the truth be told, is an easy case: he can love BB very easily, because he loves O Brien. His love for O Brien is what makes the final scene ("He loved Big Brother") possible: and indeed, it is not BB he loves, but O Brien. His mentor, his confidant, his torturer, his saviour.
We always love those who destroy us.
O Brien's gift is the perversion of love. The manipulation of the most human of feelings for the ends of power. O Brien knows how to create love: you begin with some kind of admiration (built of fear, and intimidation, and mystery), then you leave little traces (glances and looks), then you strike, and you show your quarry that you are the desired object: unobtainable, mysterious, promising, caring of you, as an individual.
Of course, Winston should have spotted this straight away: that the indicators of love from an Inner Party member suggested his own death. Instead he sublimated them into dreams and fantasies ("We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness"), from where O Brien was only too happy to use his feelings. As Julia points out, it was obvious from his face: "...as soon as I saw you I knew you were against them").
O Brien needs Winston's love to make the emptying of his soul possible. Although he calls Winston "a difficult case", this is only true insofar as the ideology of Ingsoc is hateful to Winston. O Brien is not, could never be: so all it takes is a little torture, and the assurance of love, which O Brien knows Winston lost when his mother disappeared, never had with Katharine, and has only just found illegimately with Julia.
Winston, if the truth be told, is an easy case: he can love BB very easily, because he loves O Brien. His love for O Brien is what makes the final scene ("He loved Big Brother") possible: and indeed, it is not BB he loves, but O Brien. His mentor, his confidant, his torturer, his saviour.
We always love those who destroy us.
Thursday, 6 November 2008
Why The Photo Was Important
A reader recently got here by googling "Why was the photo of Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford so important?"
Easy. The photo is used by O Brien to prove to Winston the power of doublethink and the impotence of traditional approaches to "the past". Winston, under pain of torture, can do nothing but tell the truth - he saw the photo, O Brien held it in his hand - and O Brien, with one sentence, announces the arrival of a far more powerful mode of thought: "I do not remember it."
Freed from the slavery of truth, the Party mind can be as flexible as the situation demands, and it can forget anything it needs to, whenever it needs to, even to forgetting the act of forgetting. The photo demonstrates that nothing exists apart from what the Party calls into existence and destroys, and that lunacy really is being a minority of one. The photo's destruction and forgetting is a brutal display of power over reality, in a way Winston does not come to understand fully until later.
Easy. The photo is used by O Brien to prove to Winston the power of doublethink and the impotence of traditional approaches to "the past". Winston, under pain of torture, can do nothing but tell the truth - he saw the photo, O Brien held it in his hand - and O Brien, with one sentence, announces the arrival of a far more powerful mode of thought: "I do not remember it."
Freed from the slavery of truth, the Party mind can be as flexible as the situation demands, and it can forget anything it needs to, whenever it needs to, even to forgetting the act of forgetting. The photo demonstrates that nothing exists apart from what the Party calls into existence and destroys, and that lunacy really is being a minority of one. The photo's destruction and forgetting is a brutal display of power over reality, in a way Winston does not come to understand fully until later.
Sunday, 19 October 2008
Not An..Oh Fuck It I Suppose It Is...
It is official.
The Book is indeed an instruction manual.
DK's campaign is well-intentioned but doomed. You see, the people who matter loathe and despise liberty. The people in parliament and in the universities, the people who actually think of, draft, vote on and implement laws, they do not see liberty as anything worth discussing at all. They love control and they mask it in all those fluffy words like "equality", "social justice", "social harmony" and now, "choice-editing". Oh, of course they love some freedoms, the ones that use cocks and cunts particularly, and sometimes arses, but show them a freedom of words, of movement, of belief, of association, of a fair trial, of non-execution; and they become jittery, adducing imaginary terrorist atrocities that will come if we do not all have our wrists stamped. An individual is a danger, because it carries the potential to think other things, things we do not like, things we do not understand. And if we do not understand then it must be made illegal.
Well fuck you lot, yes i am going to have my wrists stamped. With "Ingsoc" and "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever."
So fuck you: every time I wipe my arse, every time I take a wank, every time I stick two fingers up at a fuckwitted agent of the evil state, every time I pick my nose and eat it, every time I drink, there it will be, the reminder of your essential evil, your desire to control every part of me, the fact that you satirise me by your very existence, and by the fact that I hate you with everything I have now and will ever have. All the love I will ever have I hate you with, I hate you with everything good in me, all the respect and tolerance and compassion in me, I hate you with it.
I hate you. And the more that this convinces the enemies of liberty that I am a lunatic, the better. Here it is again, fuckwads:
I hate you.
Now I come to think of it:
It's odd, actually, how often the word "social" comes into excuses for denying people basic liberties.
The Book is indeed an instruction manual.
DK's campaign is well-intentioned but doomed. You see, the people who matter loathe and despise liberty. The people in parliament and in the universities, the people who actually think of, draft, vote on and implement laws, they do not see liberty as anything worth discussing at all. They love control and they mask it in all those fluffy words like "equality", "social justice", "social harmony" and now, "choice-editing". Oh, of course they love some freedoms, the ones that use cocks and cunts particularly, and sometimes arses, but show them a freedom of words, of movement, of belief, of association, of a fair trial, of non-execution; and they become jittery, adducing imaginary terrorist atrocities that will come if we do not all have our wrists stamped. An individual is a danger, because it carries the potential to think other things, things we do not like, things we do not understand. And if we do not understand then it must be made illegal.
Well fuck you lot, yes i am going to have my wrists stamped. With "Ingsoc" and "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever."
So fuck you: every time I wipe my arse, every time I take a wank, every time I stick two fingers up at a fuckwitted agent of the evil state, every time I pick my nose and eat it, every time I drink, there it will be, the reminder of your essential evil, your desire to control every part of me, the fact that you satirise me by your very existence, and by the fact that I hate you with everything I have now and will ever have. All the love I will ever have I hate you with, I hate you with everything good in me, all the respect and tolerance and compassion in me, I hate you with it.
I hate you. And the more that this convinces the enemies of liberty that I am a lunatic, the better. Here it is again, fuckwads:
I hate you.
Now I come to think of it:
It's odd, actually, how often the word "social" comes into excuses for denying people basic liberties.
Monday, 13 October 2008
Dystopian Dinner Party Schmooze
*You know what fits in between these stars*
Well it is 10pm and i am in bed, as is usual, but finding it difficult to wind down properly so I thought I would blog, which is less usual. Not so much in the hope of anyone paying the slightest bit of attention, but more in the expectation of opening a new line of thought. This is unlikely but not impossible.
I have a long and complicated relationship with 1984. It was my first literary love, and although I have had passionate affairs with other novels, notably The Information and Crime and Punishment, as well as an immensely satisfying fling with Middlemarch and something of a powerful one-nighter with Birdsong (and a less satisfying, drawn out affair with Atlas Shrugged), in addition to various flirtations here and there, it is to 1984 I return whenever I have a spare few minutes. As readers of this blog will now know, I have thought about it endlessly - and in the main, more for political reasons thab literary ones. In some ways I am only coming to appreciate the artistry of the novel, since as a bog standard novel, it fails (lacklustre characters, slightly jarring prose, curious plotting - check out the semi-magical transformation of Charrington, for example).
I don't make a secret of the fact that I think we are heading vaguely into the direction of a type of Ingsoc: a surveillance driven, penalty oriented kind of technocracy, in which rationing, reduced services, increased obligations and conformity will be the order of the day. Our rulers are not taking the same road as the Inner Party, though, they are dressing up their control in clothes of compassion: cameras to save lives, DNA databases to catch rapists, terrorism laws to save the country, draconian environmental laws to save the planet. Our authorities behave as just that, with little regard for any notion of service.
And so on.
But that aside, which is contentious and possibly (hopefully) wrong, the book deserves to be read as the work of art it is. Not a conventional one, to be sure. But there are little elements of literary substance that deserve to be picked up on.
For example: the theme of repetition that runs through the book: Julia sometimes repeats Winston's words, Charrington does, O Brien does, the fatal telescreen does. These are intimations of connection, of the kind of spirit which Winston attempts to invoke during his long torture. They are hints of a common humanity.
And the fish Julia describes during their first assignation, which makes Winston feel that he is being brought to the Golden Country of his dreams: living, gloriously ignorant of the Party, life surviving, outside the Party, regardless of its claims to absolute control over matter. Yes, if the Party want to believe that stuff about inventing reality, it can: but the fish and the river are still there, and life does survive.
Incidentally, mentioning Charrington's transformation (not an original idea of mine, but I can't remember where i read it - the reference has slipped my memory for a moment). There are hints of magic throughout the novel: the Party could not control with its technology without some kind of supernatural involvement; the insight O Brien has into the very words of Winston's thoughts is too clear for surveillance alone to have given him (and he claims to "always detect a lie"); the interpenetration of O Brien and Winston's very mind.
You could, I suppose, argue that these mean that the novel should be taken as a fable, or as a magic-realist novel, or even as a lazy satire. To me this latter is more likely: I think a subtext of the novel is that the Party is the direct inheritor of the Catholic Church, and these hints of supernaturalism are sly references to Catholic doctrine. O Brien certainly could be read as a kind of twisted confessor. I don't even need to mention the Party's sexual ethics.
I ought to leave you be now, as I can see you staring into your drink and longing to catch the eye of that rather attractive blonde woman you have been eyeing up for a while. No, it's ok, really. "It was nice to talk to you and everything but I must be-excuse me - Ah, Julia...how are you?"
Well it is 10pm and i am in bed, as is usual, but finding it difficult to wind down properly so I thought I would blog, which is less usual. Not so much in the hope of anyone paying the slightest bit of attention, but more in the expectation of opening a new line of thought. This is unlikely but not impossible.
I have a long and complicated relationship with 1984. It was my first literary love, and although I have had passionate affairs with other novels, notably The Information and Crime and Punishment, as well as an immensely satisfying fling with Middlemarch and something of a powerful one-nighter with Birdsong (and a less satisfying, drawn out affair with Atlas Shrugged), in addition to various flirtations here and there, it is to 1984 I return whenever I have a spare few minutes. As readers of this blog will now know, I have thought about it endlessly - and in the main, more for political reasons thab literary ones. In some ways I am only coming to appreciate the artistry of the novel, since as a bog standard novel, it fails (lacklustre characters, slightly jarring prose, curious plotting - check out the semi-magical transformation of Charrington, for example).
I don't make a secret of the fact that I think we are heading vaguely into the direction of a type of Ingsoc: a surveillance driven, penalty oriented kind of technocracy, in which rationing, reduced services, increased obligations and conformity will be the order of the day. Our rulers are not taking the same road as the Inner Party, though, they are dressing up their control in clothes of compassion: cameras to save lives, DNA databases to catch rapists, terrorism laws to save the country, draconian environmental laws to save the planet. Our authorities behave as just that, with little regard for any notion of service.
And so on.
But that aside, which is contentious and possibly (hopefully) wrong, the book deserves to be read as the work of art it is. Not a conventional one, to be sure. But there are little elements of literary substance that deserve to be picked up on.
For example: the theme of repetition that runs through the book: Julia sometimes repeats Winston's words, Charrington does, O Brien does, the fatal telescreen does. These are intimations of connection, of the kind of spirit which Winston attempts to invoke during his long torture. They are hints of a common humanity.
And the fish Julia describes during their first assignation, which makes Winston feel that he is being brought to the Golden Country of his dreams: living, gloriously ignorant of the Party, life surviving, outside the Party, regardless of its claims to absolute control over matter. Yes, if the Party want to believe that stuff about inventing reality, it can: but the fish and the river are still there, and life does survive.
Incidentally, mentioning Charrington's transformation (not an original idea of mine, but I can't remember where i read it - the reference has slipped my memory for a moment). There are hints of magic throughout the novel: the Party could not control with its technology without some kind of supernatural involvement; the insight O Brien has into the very words of Winston's thoughts is too clear for surveillance alone to have given him (and he claims to "always detect a lie"); the interpenetration of O Brien and Winston's very mind.
You could, I suppose, argue that these mean that the novel should be taken as a fable, or as a magic-realist novel, or even as a lazy satire. To me this latter is more likely: I think a subtext of the novel is that the Party is the direct inheritor of the Catholic Church, and these hints of supernaturalism are sly references to Catholic doctrine. O Brien certainly could be read as a kind of twisted confessor. I don't even need to mention the Party's sexual ethics.
I ought to leave you be now, as I can see you staring into your drink and longing to catch the eye of that rather attractive blonde woman you have been eyeing up for a while. No, it's ok, really. "It was nice to talk to you and everything but I must be-excuse me - Ah, Julia...how are you?"
Sunday, 12 October 2008
The Internal Contradictions of Ingsoc
(see CBI's comment on the post below)
- There aren't any.
Ingsoc is a theory designed to secure total power for people who want, who know they want, and who forget that they want, total power. Total power includes, specifically, the power to destroy and remake human beings. Such naked evil, though of course we do it all the time, whenever we are able, sustains itself because it is having fun. It is spreading its wings and enjoying its creative potential on the bodies and minds of people. As O Brien acutely remarks, there is no reason why a civilisation founded on hate should be less vital than one founded on love.
The only possible internal contradiction is that, as O Brien points out, the human face "will be there forever". Namely, although the Party desires the existence of the heretic to maintain its power - ie it depends on the heretic, in a wholly predictable and foreseen way (this is part of the fun - watching the cowed Outer Party members try to make themselves believe we have always been at war with Eastasia, and that Goldstein is the enemy); but more than that, it means that the human, as Winston understands it, the "spirit of man", will always exist - the Party will never actually crush that spirit, even as it denies its existence, because if it did, the Party would cease to have any purpose, and would have nothing to act upon. The Party would die.
Other than that, it is a totalitarianism that commands beings in and out of existence, without those beings needing to be in any way physical entities. Comrade Ogilvy was a hero, but he never existed: Syme was an orthodox goodthinker, who was lifted out of time. He is the subject of O Brien's first visible piss-take of Winston ("His name has slipped my memory for a moment").
Power is a drug and the Inner Party are a group of men and women able to destroy the entire world for their fix.
No contradiction there. But we have a habit of seeing contradictions in things we think are evil, as a way of convincing ourselves they cannot work.
This is no criticism of CBI or of his comment: it just got me thinking.
- There aren't any.
Ingsoc is a theory designed to secure total power for people who want, who know they want, and who forget that they want, total power. Total power includes, specifically, the power to destroy and remake human beings. Such naked evil, though of course we do it all the time, whenever we are able, sustains itself because it is having fun. It is spreading its wings and enjoying its creative potential on the bodies and minds of people. As O Brien acutely remarks, there is no reason why a civilisation founded on hate should be less vital than one founded on love.
The only possible internal contradiction is that, as O Brien points out, the human face "will be there forever". Namely, although the Party desires the existence of the heretic to maintain its power - ie it depends on the heretic, in a wholly predictable and foreseen way (this is part of the fun - watching the cowed Outer Party members try to make themselves believe we have always been at war with Eastasia, and that Goldstein is the enemy); but more than that, it means that the human, as Winston understands it, the "spirit of man", will always exist - the Party will never actually crush that spirit, even as it denies its existence, because if it did, the Party would cease to have any purpose, and would have nothing to act upon. The Party would die.
Other than that, it is a totalitarianism that commands beings in and out of existence, without those beings needing to be in any way physical entities. Comrade Ogilvy was a hero, but he never existed: Syme was an orthodox goodthinker, who was lifted out of time. He is the subject of O Brien's first visible piss-take of Winston ("His name has slipped my memory for a moment").
Power is a drug and the Inner Party are a group of men and women able to destroy the entire world for their fix.
No contradiction there. But we have a habit of seeing contradictions in things we think are evil, as a way of convincing ourselves they cannot work.
This is no criticism of CBI or of his comment: it just got me thinking.
A Note on the Appendix
*Nineteen Eighty Four related vol-au-vent*
I'm afraid I can't share the optimism of some that the appendix suggests, through its use of the past tense, that Ingsoc was eventually defeated and that the narrator of the Appendix writes from a free society. I think the narrator might just have mentioned the defeat of Ingsoc and the public execution of O Brien (er, I'm guessing). It would have been a big enough deal, no?
I'm afraid I can't share the optimism of some that the appendix suggests, through its use of the past tense, that Ingsoc was eventually defeated and that the narrator of the Appendix writes from a free society. I think the narrator might just have mentioned the defeat of Ingsoc and the public execution of O Brien (er, I'm guessing). It would have been a big enough deal, no?
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
Winston and the Old Man
*Nineteen Eighty Four related vignette*
Although the narrator and Winston both seem to imply that his visit to the proletarian quarter and the strange beer-shop was wasted, the reason is not because the old man is talking nonsense: it is because the variations of ideological truth under the Party and the exigencies of Ingsoc have left Winston without any clear way to understand. Hence the conversation becomes a synecdoche for the entire theme of the novel: how, denuded of truth, an individual's links to the world around them collapse.
In particular, the old man refers to hearing a powerful speaker denouncing the Labour Party as "lackeys of the bourgeoisie! Flunkies of the ruling class!" This indication of radicalism, which would have told an educated Winston that the left was being assaulted from its fringes before the Revolution, bypasses Winston's sense altogether. In fact he knows nothing of the Labour Party at all (he is even vague as to whether Airstrip One was ever known as anything else: he thinks it might have been called England or Britain). As an aside, I wonder whether the speaker was one of the three bastards in the post below.
The old man then gives Winston, under heavy guidance, a narrative that chimes in almost exactly with the teachings of the Party: "They liked you to touch your cap to 'em". He talks about being insulted and threatened by exactly one of the ruling classes the Party complains about in its history books ("The chief of all the capitalists was called the King, and..."). It is at the point at which the old man is developing this narrative to a peak that the narrator says: "A sense of helplessness took hold of Winston." - which is odd, because the old man is making sense. It isn't what Winston wants to hear, and he isn't interested in the old man's life, just the past, the pure past.
Of course this is the problem. There is no such thing. The past - at least the kind Winston wants to know, human experience - is indeed filtered through minds, and can be located there and there only. To this extent the Party is right, and with Winston being a child of the Party, albeit a rebellious one, he has no time for or patience with the stories of people's lives (he tells Julia a lot more about his than he asks of hers).
Winston's failure to understand therefore has the fingerprints of the Party all over it, and strongly suggests that even in his act of crimethink he still belongs to them. Worse, you could argue that his failure is because he is hearing what the Party tells him anyway - and thereby opening up an even more pessimistic reading of the book than most of us already have.
At precisely this point of despair, he makes one last ditch attempt. But without any confidence, and phrasing it like a bureaucrat, indeed, like O Brien might do later on, "Perhaps I have not made myself clear. What I wanted to know was this", Winston loses the old man completely and he utterly fails to answer the question.
The fault is not the old man's, nor his mind; but the cracked, desiccated mind of Winston Smith.
Although the narrator and Winston both seem to imply that his visit to the proletarian quarter and the strange beer-shop was wasted, the reason is not because the old man is talking nonsense: it is because the variations of ideological truth under the Party and the exigencies of Ingsoc have left Winston without any clear way to understand. Hence the conversation becomes a synecdoche for the entire theme of the novel: how, denuded of truth, an individual's links to the world around them collapse.
In particular, the old man refers to hearing a powerful speaker denouncing the Labour Party as "lackeys of the bourgeoisie! Flunkies of the ruling class!" This indication of radicalism, which would have told an educated Winston that the left was being assaulted from its fringes before the Revolution, bypasses Winston's sense altogether. In fact he knows nothing of the Labour Party at all (he is even vague as to whether Airstrip One was ever known as anything else: he thinks it might have been called England or Britain). As an aside, I wonder whether the speaker was one of the three bastards in the post below.
The old man then gives Winston, under heavy guidance, a narrative that chimes in almost exactly with the teachings of the Party: "They liked you to touch your cap to 'em". He talks about being insulted and threatened by exactly one of the ruling classes the Party complains about in its history books ("The chief of all the capitalists was called the King, and..."). It is at the point at which the old man is developing this narrative to a peak that the narrator says: "A sense of helplessness took hold of Winston." - which is odd, because the old man is making sense. It isn't what Winston wants to hear, and he isn't interested in the old man's life, just the past, the pure past.
Of course this is the problem. There is no such thing. The past - at least the kind Winston wants to know, human experience - is indeed filtered through minds, and can be located there and there only. To this extent the Party is right, and with Winston being a child of the Party, albeit a rebellious one, he has no time for or patience with the stories of people's lives (he tells Julia a lot more about his than he asks of hers).
Winston's failure to understand therefore has the fingerprints of the Party all over it, and strongly suggests that even in his act of crimethink he still belongs to them. Worse, you could argue that his failure is because he is hearing what the Party tells him anyway - and thereby opening up an even more pessimistic reading of the book than most of us already have.
At precisely this point of despair, he makes one last ditch attempt. But without any confidence, and phrasing it like a bureaucrat, indeed, like O Brien might do later on, "Perhaps I have not made myself clear. What I wanted to know was this", Winston loses the old man completely and he utterly fails to answer the question.
The fault is not the old man's, nor his mind; but the cracked, desiccated mind of Winston Smith.
Monday, 6 October 2008
Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford Were As Guilty As Hell
*Nineteen Eighty Four related post*
Let's be clear about this. Although the narrator suggests that Winston feels some sympathy for these three bastards, as they sit in the Chestnut Tree Cafe with broken noses, and the sympathy is even more blatant in the 1984 film; the fact is, they deserved what they got.
They were tried in about 1965 and finally executed in around 1968. They had clearly then survived "the great purges of the fifties and sixties" - in the main - and had maintained their high places in the Party, hence the famous photo that did not exist of the three of them "at some Party function in New York" taken in 1965.
In other words, they were complicit, from the beginning, in the distant drumming of machine gun fire, the purges, the adoption of Newspeak, the programme of pure power that motivated the entire Revolution, and that was, as O Brien put it, refining itself all the time.
It just refined itself on their asses. They deserved everything they got.
Let's be clear about this. Although the narrator suggests that Winston feels some sympathy for these three bastards, as they sit in the Chestnut Tree Cafe with broken noses, and the sympathy is even more blatant in the 1984 film; the fact is, they deserved what they got.
They were tried in about 1965 and finally executed in around 1968. They had clearly then survived "the great purges of the fifties and sixties" - in the main - and had maintained their high places in the Party, hence the famous photo that did not exist of the three of them "at some Party function in New York" taken in 1965.
In other words, they were complicit, from the beginning, in the distant drumming of machine gun fire, the purges, the adoption of Newspeak, the programme of pure power that motivated the entire Revolution, and that was, as O Brien put it, refining itself all the time.
It just refined itself on their asses. They deserved everything they got.
Monday, 25 August 2008
Miniplenty Malquoted, Rectify
Doubleplusungood: Eastasia blameful, BB unblamed. InPartyObs report BB todaywise: "ungood moneyfigures are Eastasia, Eurasia-crimewise."
But, comrades, porno-ration increases!!!! 500MB-daywise!!!! Comrades, the porno-prod of Ingsoc is worshipful. Ingsoc-porn doubleplusgood!!! Comrades, ingsoc is pornful because porn in relation to ingsoc is doubleplusgood: plentiful mans and womans unloving each other, untouching, unkissing, sexing powerwise. Comrades! Use Ingsoc porn!
Masturbation is strength!
Comrades, beer-ration to downgo, because unheartful goodwise. Beer is ungood and comrades should be waterwise. For an Ingsoc-Stella per comrade per day we could have a Floating Fortress!!! Destroy Eastasian criminals!!!
So comrades, undrink Stellas, think Ingsocvicwise: give to Ingsoc collections for Floating Fortresses, Abortions.
But, comrades, porno-ration increases!!!! 500MB-daywise!!!! Comrades, the porno-prod of Ingsoc is worshipful. Ingsoc-porn doubleplusgood!!! Comrades, ingsoc is pornful because porn in relation to ingsoc is doubleplusgood: plentiful mans and womans unloving each other, untouching, unkissing, sexing powerwise. Comrades! Use Ingsoc porn!
Masturbation is strength!
Comrades, beer-ration to downgo, because unheartful goodwise. Beer is ungood and comrades should be waterwise. For an Ingsoc-Stella per comrade per day we could have a Floating Fortress!!! Destroy Eastasian criminals!!!
So comrades, undrink Stellas, think Ingsocvicwise: give to Ingsoc collections for Floating Fortresses, Abortions.
Sunday, 24 August 2008
Room One Oh One
The worst thing....
Which differs from person to person; it could be something trivial, something threatening, or something deadly. It doesn't matter. The point is, the individual cannot cope with it, however brave they are.
The worst thing...
In your mind: they are in your mind, they know you better than you know yourself. They have watched you more carefully, thought of you more, tried to understand you more. They care about you more than you do. They want you. They want you like no-one else ever wanted you. Deeply, essentially, they need you so that they can survive. The intimacy is in no way sexual, in every way psychological, spiritual (it takes over all spirituality), ideal (it is every idea you might have).
The worst thing...
They grow like a fungus in your head, until even a thought not about them is about them (Ingsoc in relation to chess - how parasitic is that). Every word is them, every inclination, desire, cumulation, is them. Because they want you so much.
And you open your eyes, and there they are: Room One Oh One.
Which differs from person to person; it could be something trivial, something threatening, or something deadly. It doesn't matter. The point is, the individual cannot cope with it, however brave they are.
The worst thing...
In your mind: they are in your mind, they know you better than you know yourself. They have watched you more carefully, thought of you more, tried to understand you more. They care about you more than you do. They want you. They want you like no-one else ever wanted you. Deeply, essentially, they need you so that they can survive. The intimacy is in no way sexual, in every way psychological, spiritual (it takes over all spirituality), ideal (it is every idea you might have).
The worst thing...
They grow like a fungus in your head, until even a thought not about them is about them (Ingsoc in relation to chess - how parasitic is that). Every word is them, every inclination, desire, cumulation, is them. Because they want you so much.
And you open your eyes, and there they are: Room One Oh One.
Friday, 8 August 2008
The Orwell Diaries
Tomorrow these go online, published as a blog at The Orwell Diaries. If nothing else, they will be a masterclass in tight, clear expression. I would rather read Orwell on chickens than modern academics on the major issues of the day.
Read 'em.
Read 'em.
Saturday, 2 August 2008
BB DayOrder No.42
Comrades, why does ingsoc require reality-control? Ingsoc needs reality-control because of crimethink.
Comrades, BB is loveful party-wise, but BB is ungoodfeeling when InParty Comrades fail history-wise. Comrades, remember that history is partythink, and so history is changeful; days are onetime sunny and onetime rainy: this is needful. Why is it needful? It is needful because comrades are plusforgetful. Comrades crimethink weatherwise doubleplusdayful!! So, comrades, you must blackwhite weatherwise, and recall fullwise and speedwise doublethink. Some days, comrades, exist hotwise and coldwise. It is BBthinkwise, comrades - no weather exists outside BBthink.
Some oldthinking comrades say "a day is hotful" - these comrades are plusungood and must be unpersoned. But, comrades, needfulwise, a day may be hotful and coldful, if BB decides weatherwise.
No reality outBBwise, comrades!!!! Goodthink thiswise. Goodthink leads BB-wise and BB-wise thinks lead life-wise, comrades!
BB
ps - BB thinks are drawn drinkwise by plusungood reports of Outparty members falling floor-wise, vomiting, and crimespeaking BB. Comrades, remember fullwise that alcohol causes oldthink, sexcrime and unbellyfeeling Ingsoc, alcohol also causes unbellyfeeling food and drink, which ungoodwise shows Outparty members. Comrades! Crimedrink is activity unpersonwise!!! Be Fullminded thiswise!
pps- BB attention is also drawn cricket-wise. This is crimesport, comrades. Cricketspeak is death. Let no Partyman or Partywoman cricketspeak. Cricket is an unsport.
Comrades, BB is loveful party-wise, but BB is ungoodfeeling when InParty Comrades fail history-wise. Comrades, remember that history is partythink, and so history is changeful; days are onetime sunny and onetime rainy: this is needful. Why is it needful? It is needful because comrades are plusforgetful. Comrades crimethink weatherwise doubleplusdayful!! So, comrades, you must blackwhite weatherwise, and recall fullwise and speedwise doublethink. Some days, comrades, exist hotwise and coldwise. It is BBthinkwise, comrades - no weather exists outside BBthink.
Some oldthinking comrades say "a day is hotful" - these comrades are plusungood and must be unpersoned. But, comrades, needfulwise, a day may be hotful and coldful, if BB decides weatherwise.
No reality outBBwise, comrades!!!! Goodthink thiswise. Goodthink leads BB-wise and BB-wise thinks lead life-wise, comrades!
BB
ps - BB thinks are drawn drinkwise by plusungood reports of Outparty members falling floor-wise, vomiting, and crimespeaking BB. Comrades, remember fullwise that alcohol causes oldthink, sexcrime and unbellyfeeling Ingsoc, alcohol also causes unbellyfeeling food and drink, which ungoodwise shows Outparty members. Comrades! Crimedrink is activity unpersonwise!!! Be Fullminded thiswise!
pps- BB attention is also drawn cricket-wise. This is crimesport, comrades. Cricketspeak is death. Let no Partyman or Partywoman cricketspeak. Cricket is an unsport.
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