Will I ever let an 1984 post go without mentioning the misogyny and the general rapey tone? No
Also just the flat out middle class elitism of Orwell, describing the proletariat as pigs in a pen that will be satisfied with bingo and booze while the brave middle class mediocre white brit is the only one who truly understands the world and what must be done.
Gotta admit that i had a slightly more forgiving reading of the novel, and assumed it was the main characters alienation from the rest of society, and him still being stuck in the indoctrination of the party, that resulted in him being unable to see the proles as people.
I always had the idea that Winston had a lot of prejudice, doomed to failure because the party had programmed people to such a degree that even a would be revolutionary would act according to their idea of a revolutionary, and be easily caught and executed, or broken down again. After all, a revolution without support from the proletariat would be pretty much completely toothless, so making anyone within the party incapable of understanding them and gaining their support is a pretty good guard against party members taking advantage of their privileged position to help overthrow the party.
Since the book was not written from the point of view of a prole, we only have the word of a smug git like Winston to go by regarding how they really act. If a prole exhibited revolutionary tendencies, they were probably dealt with in some similar way, also indoctrinated to revolt in a controllable manner, or, as they existed outside of the party, probably just found by secret informants, and obliterated with overwhelming force.
But, it was a few years ago that I read it, and I was one of those people who smugly told people to read it all the time, no matter how relevant it was to the conversation.
I was such a smug little git. And I know I sometimes give Orwell more leeway than he probably deserves.
Orwell would have sold everyone here to the brit secret police for anti-white thought
Damn, I guess shitheads put out good stuff sometimes. Who could have guessed?
its funny af that british pundits are obessed with 1984, britain is easily one of the more "orwellian" states of the g7, with literal mass surveillance and a military deep state and a very undemocratic personage a la big brother in the form of the queen.
It sounds corny but in a way we're already living in a slightly more toned down version of the average dystopian novel. Turns out all you have to do is give it an attractive outer veneer and people won't even care (AKA the strategy of capitalism).
That's the whole point of most dystopia novels but people seem to think the authors are just imagining these things as taking place 100 years out or something. That's why stories like Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 are good because they make it more obvious that it's supposed to be talking about the world as it exists with slight modifications. 1984 should be pretty obvious as well I suppose, but there is no metaphor or allegory too apparent for people to squirm their way out of understanding.
I would watch the shit out of a Carry On in Big Brother's Britain movie
Is it true you need a license to own a butter knife in england?
Sorry for being so dense but can someone explain the image? I know about Orwell and 1984 but what does the curving arrow and head looking at the book cover mean?
The dashed line represents the message the reader took from the book. The solid line represents the message that (also) should have been taken from the book but wasn't because liberalism.
Thank you, that makes sense now.
And yes it does worry me that this kind of thing has to be explained to me.
