1984
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The aim of The Party is not simply to crush dissent - which may create martyrs, but to break the individual body and soul, so that in the end, whatever their punishment, they love Big Brother. This is the reason for the confessions. In letting Winston and Julia entertain thoughts of victory, they are able to more fully crush their spirits when it is revealed that their dissent had merely been briefly tolerated, in allowing them to fall in love The Party could prove that nothing was unbreakable, 'Do it to Julia!' would not be so harrowing a cry for the reader or for Winston, were his feelings for Julia not allowed to deepen. That's how I saw it anyway.
Possibly like many police states this was done to see if there was a network involved.Observe one and map their connections, review for sedition and then close for the kill.
But lifting the initial suspect too soon would potentially scare away co-conspirators.
D.L. wrote: "The aim of The Party is not simply to crush dissent - which may create martyrs, but to break the individual body and soul, so that in the end, whatever their punishment, they love Big Brother. This..."Actually that makes perfect sense. O'Brien says as much at the end of the book, but for some reason I didn't really put two and two together. Cheers!
Maybe the party is not that all-seeing. No Authoritarian system ever is. It gives the appearacne of being omni-competent but in fact it makes mistakes and it cannot be everywhere all the time. The Secret policemen are human after all, well, sort of human.The lower orders of the party such as Winston have to believe that the party is everything and always right. It is enough for keeping them in line that they believe that.
Anyway the Thought Police also need to observe a possibly traitor. Maybe they have to be absolutely sure of his 'crime' and to have the 'evidence'. Winston showed himself to be able to hide the diary and so other things cleverly from the eyes of the authorities so they were not so clever.
In addition it would be unusual for all but a dedicated few to suddenly become disillusioned. That sort of process takes time. The authorities need also to know the associetes, if there are any so they too can be arrested at the proper time.
Genericpie is right too about what D.L. wrote. An authoritarian state has to make people agree with it. If a man or woman goes to the grave having resisted torture and still believing in their own ideas rather than those of the party then the party has failed. Why else would our government be constantly tinkering with school curricua and forbidding the teaching of any other science than Darwinism?
Roger wrote: "Why else would our government be constantly tinkering with school curricua and forbidding the teaching of any other science than Darwinism?"I smell troll...
If only one idea is allowed to be taught in schools then that is totalitarianism. If children are not taught and encouraged to think rationally then we are in danger of being well down the road to totalitarianism. Rationality looks at all points of view. O.K. so I am interested in Ancient Greek philsophy that does not mean that I believe Aristotle to have the last word. Nor Plato for that matter The modern thinkers closest to him were Hitler, Mussolini and before them Nietzsche. Try Michael Behe why not. He is not a Christian yet he thought seriously about intelligent design. I do not consider Dawkins's rants to have any intellectual merit and I am quite prepared to discuss with everyone who disagrees. Try J.S. Mill. You know the quote. "If all the world but one...."
We were discussing Orwell and I do believe that we are moving dangerously to the dystopia he prophesied. However Orwell was too much obsessed with Stalinist Communism. We need to add Huxley and 'Brave New World'. We are living in a Fascist Cloud Cuckoo Land dumbed down and drugged by electronic 'panem et circenses'. Would you not agree? Our hope is in the poet and the playwright, the novellist and short story writer. Aristophanes got it all right, but he did not manage to stop the war, however hard he tried. Nor are people listening to Orwell or anyone else.
Thank you for disagreeing with me but grant me the right to be a rational person and to hold and publish my opinions. If they be wrong then show me and I will change those opinions. And grant me the respect to have those opinions of mine with which you disagree to be seriously considered. Just calling me a troll does not contribute anything to a rational discussion.
D.L. GreetingsYou comment that my Creationist/Christian position is 'demonstrably false' and that you, Dawkins and others therefore are demonstrably rigtht clearly demonstrates that you have not understood that the evidence may be interpreted in various ways according to your world view. Yours is, I assume, materialism, in that you argue that there is nothing more than the material universe. If that is so then the every thing came into being by chance over time out of nothing. We are moral beings with no basis for morality. Marcel Duchamp and the Dadaists were right to say that everything was ridiculous and so Dawkins is right when he said there is no meaning nor any purpose. He afterwards contradicts himself when arguing for morals. Then of course you might like to explain how Anthony Flew changed his mind from Atheism to Deism. He gives some very good reasons for this.
Your mind is closed, not mine. I am telling the truth when I say that I will follow the evidence wherever it leads. Even if it leads me to Atheism. It is you who dare not look at the evidence and be willing to consider other interpretations of that same evidence. Finally I might add that you should consider how it is that we are moral beings with no basis for morality except nature 'red in tooth and claw'. Then how it is that we are beings who look for meaning and for purpose when according to your chosen guru there is none.
Sorry, wasn't this supposed to be about 1984?Can you not go somewhere else to discuss this Roger?
Not everything has to devolve (sorry) into an atheist vs religious discussion.
Oh, wait...it's the internet...maybe it does...
Note: By singling out Roger in my post above I do so only due to the fact that he was the one that somehow managed to bring the validity of evolutionary theory into an unrelated discussion.
Roger wrote: "Anyway the Thought Police also need to observe a possibly traitor. Maybe they have to be absolutely sure of his 'crime' and to have the 'evidence'. ..."I agree, somehow O'Brien knew that Winston had dissenting views, he needed to have proof. That's why he set Winston up to implicate himself to the point where there would be no doubt at all of his guilt.
"Winston showed himself to be able to hide the diary and so other things cleverly from the eyes of the authorities so they were not so clever." They knew about the diary. They knew everyhting. They watched every move Winston and Julia made -yes even that - they let it play out. When the time was right they stepped in, and when the crushed his spirit they had more to work with. Like the throwing acid on a babies face trap.
D.L. wrote: "The aim of The Party is not simply to crush dissent - which may create martyrs, but to break the individual body and soul, so that in the end, whatever their punishment, they love Big Brother. This..."I totally agree with you. I was about to write the same answer down here when I saw your comment.
Genericpie wrote: "Having read this brilliant book again recently, I was left with one nagging question at the end. Why did O'Brien allow Winston and Julia to carry out their affair and their sedition for so long? At..."I think it's just another way of showing the power Big Brother had: he let them have an affair and desire each other, growing fond of each other so that the way of changing his thoughts towards Big Brother was more painful, difficult. I think it was a simple, although very tough, punishment.
All of these comments make perfect sense from an ideological perspective (completely crushing his spirit, his soul etc), but, if I'm being pedantic, there's a lack of consistency with the way Winston describes the Party dealing with other dissidents.For example, Winston describes how people who inadventently speak ill of Big Brother in their sleep are instantly whisked away by the Party. Based on this internal logic, why would the Party grant Winston the liberty of fostering his sedition? Why bother to create this intricate web of illusions for Winston in particular? They seem content to crack down hard and fast on other dissentors, so what makes Winston worthy of this special treatment?
As I said in my initial post, it would completely alleviate all dramatic tension and ruin the story if the Party caught Winston straight away, so I have no qualms with the way Orwell handled it. I simply think that there's a tiny flaw in the internal logic of the book.
Genericpie wrote: "All of these comments make perfect sense from an ideological perspective (completely crushing his spirit, his soul etc), but, if I'm being pedantic, there's a lack of consistency with the way Winst..."It's a good question. And I agree with it, since I too reread it recently and felt that this angle felt like a bit of a contrivance. But as was repeatedly mentioned in Part III, Winston repeatedly felt a connection to O'Brien simply because he could relate to him and his desire to know the truth. Even though he was administering torture and trying to break him, Winston drew comfort from the knowledge that the one doing it understood him.
And I think that this worked both ways. I believe O'Brien wanted to assist Winston in his quest to understand why things were the way they were, if only for the purpose that showing it to him would crush his spirit all the more. I think he truly believed that Winston was "the last human on Earth", who's dissent was born of intellectual curiosity and a free mind, not impulse or sheer defiance.
Given that, I think he wanted to satisfy Winston's curiosity, knowing that it could only lead to his inevitable defeat and demise. The Party was nothing if not sadistic, and breaking Winston intellectually was just as important as breaking him physically and emotionally.
Matthew wrote: "Genericpie wrote: "All of these comments make perfect sense from an ideological perspective (completely crushing his spirit, his soul etc), but, if I'm being pedantic, there's a lack of consistency..."That's an interesting idea. Perhaps O'Brien and the Party identified Winston as a different beast, as the "last human on earth", and took a more long term approach to his 'breakdown'. Maybe they realised that, while other dissenters could be easily 'fixed', the only way to truly break Winston down was by first giving him hope and allowing him to indulge his intellectual curiosity.
Genericpie wrote: "Matthew wrote: "Genericpie wrote: "All of these comments make perfect sense from an ideological perspective (completely crushing his spirit, his soul etc), but, if I'm being pedantic, there's a lac..."Bingo! And Winston and O'Brien were essentially the same kind of creature, except that O'Brien was willing to sacrifice the truth and all traces of morality for the sake of the Party. And of course, O'Brien knew the things Winston did not, but desperately wanted to.
Genericpie wrote: "For example, Winston describes how people who inadventently speak ill of Big Brother in their sleep are instantly whisked away by the Party. Based on this internal logic, why would the Party grant Winston the liberty of fostering his sedition? Why bother to create this intricate web of illusions for Winston in particular? They seem content to crack down hard and fast on other dissentors, so what makes Winston worthy of this special treatment?"That was how Winston believed the Thought Police worked. Remember that he used to put a speck of dust on his diary when he hid it so that if the Thought Police found it and put its back in it place, he would know. After his torture but before room 101, he reflects on how the Thought Police had through enough to replace that speck of dust when they had found his diary.
Winston underestimated the Thought Police. He thought that he was one step ahead of them but in truth they had been monitoring him for several years.
The Party (or rather the Thought Police, which is the core of the party) has one single goal, power. By crushing anyone who displays any form of independent thought they gain their victories. And the more the victim is rebellious the greater the kick they get when he is crushed. I really doubt that they had been as hard on Parsons for speaking in his dreams as they were on Winston. Parsons probably learned his lesson very fast after a few days torture and was then killed, he probably didn't give them as good a fight as Winston and therefore that victory was much smaller.
Crushing dissidents is not a means to an end, it is the end. They allowed Winston and Julia to do what they did not to gather evidence or detect their worst fear (they most likly knew everything about them by the time they started their relationship) but to let them soar higher so when they cought them the fall would be worse and the victory greater.
Obviously it wouldn't make for a good story if Winston got caught the minute he started writing his diary, but storytelling and dramatic tension aside, it seems like a glaring plot hole to me. The thought police demonstrably arrest people for the slightest hint of independent thought, yet they allow Winston to write, to badmouth the party, to have an illicit affair for months on end before they finally bring him in. I don't get it.