The Prescience of George Orwell
Political writers frequently reference George Orwell and his dystopian novel 1984 (published in 1949) – but because the references are typically brief and general, it may be profitable to look at a more detailed comparison of 1984 to what is happening in the US and the world today.
In the novel, the country of Oceania was ruled by “the Party,” personified by an antichrist figure referred to as Big Brother, the only permitted “deity.” Oceania was perpetually at war, alternatively against Eurasia (with Eastasia as an ally) or against Eastasia (with Eurasia as an ally). When, for example, a war with Eurasia suddenly switched to a war with Eastasia, all previous history was destroyed and a new history written. In effect, the endless war with alternating foes and allies, plus the rewrite of the past, created a perpetual present.
Whether the enemy of the moment was Eurasia or Eastasia, the Party identified the arch-villain behind everything “evil” as one Emmanuel Goldstein, “the Enemy of the People,” whose face was projected on large telescreens everywhere for the daily “Two Minute Hate.” (Did Donald Trump get his two minutes today?)
Also, hanging in Oceania homes and public places were large posters depicting Big Brother and captioned: BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU. And he was watching, because there were hidden cameras and microphones almost everywhere (something like the widespread surveillance in today’s China). The government branch that monitored this surveillance was called the Thought Police, and they were expert at reading faces to discover thought crimes. (We aren’t that advanced yet – we’re still on audible “hate speech” and visible “hate crimes.”)
There were three classes of people in Oceania “society”: (1) Inner Party members, who controlled the government and all industry; (2) Outer Party members, who were government functionaries (bureaucrats) controlled by the Inner Party; and (3) the proles (proletariat), who did all the blue-collar grunt work, sort of like our “deplorables” today. The proles lived in a relatively unsupervised area, but the Party did have spies there.
1984 is well known for coining several dystopian terms – for example, memory hole, newspeak, and doublethink. The memory hole is where past history is discarded and destroyed once new history has been written. In effect, it’s like what many US schools now do when they include the so-called 1619 project in their curricula and discard what mature adults with functioning brains know is true US history. There may not be a physical memory hole, but book banning works almost as well, as online booksellers have occasionally (so far) demonstrated.
In the book, newspeak is the use of contradictory and ambiguous words to mislead and manipulate the public. There’s an A vocabulary, a B vocabulary and a C vocabulary. The A vocabulary was used for ordinary conversation, drastically reduced to mundane words from everyday life that have unambiguous meanings – hit, run, dog, tree, etc. The B vocabulary consisted of newly formed compound words that were constructed for political purposes. For example, “goodthink” and “groupthink” meant orthodoxy, “crimethink” referred to a thought crime, and “oldthink” was decadence.
The function of the newspeak B vocabulary was not so much to express meanings but to destroy them – for example, “goodthink” is meant to destroy logical thinking, in our world like a requirement to use someone’s “preferred” gender pronouns instead of the biological obvious. The C vocabulary consisted of purely scientific and technical terms.
Another 1984 concept is “doublethink,” a way of thinking that turns traditional logic on its head. For example, the Party’s slogans included “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” and “Ignorance is Strength” – and the government bureau that constantly rewrote history was called the Ministry of Truth. (We wonder how President Trump’s Board of Peace will work out.)
Doublethink should remind us of the bills, laws, and politically correct social rules foisted on us today – like the “Affordable Health Care Act,” which has turned out to be anything but affordable and was never meant to be – or the proposed but unpassed “For the People’s Act,” which would have federally codified certain voting abuses that have been documented since the 2020 election – and if passed, would have virtually guaranteed elite one-party rule. And how about those “mostly peaceful” demonstrations that have resulted in deaths, injuries, and billions in property destruction?
Or take the proposed but unpassed Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. The fact is, our First Amendment already guarantees people the right to form or join a union if they want to – it’s called freedom of association. What the PRO Act would have done is take away the right not to join a union, which the First Amendment also guarantees (see the 1958 SCOTUS case of NAACP vs. Alabama) – and it would have overridden the right-to-work laws of 27 states. In other words, workers would have been forced to join unions. In addition, the PRO Act would have made it very difficult for entrepreneurial people to work as independent contractors and in effect would have killed our flourishing gig (independent) economy. The list goes on. But back to the 1984 story.
Briefly, the central character is Winston Smith, who works for the Ministry of Truth. From the start, Winston was not a believer in the Party’s line. He went through the motions of his task but committed two serious sins against the state: (1) he “secretly” kept a journal in which he recorded his cynical observations; and (2) he “secretly” met with Julia, a fellow bureaucrat, in the prole area. The word secretly is in quotes because Winston’s duplicity was known all along, via hidden cameras and microphones and prole spies. Among other things, the Party believed Winston was a spy for Goldstein.
When Winston was finally arrested (along with Julia), he was brought to the Ministry of Love for torture and “re-education,” activities that were directed by a man named O’Brien, who said this to Winston:
You are here because you have failed in humility, in self-discipline. You would not make the act of submission, which is the price of sanity...Only the disciplined mind can see reality, Winston. You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes; [but] only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth.
Basically, Winston was told that the Party’s concern is for collective POWER – individuals are merely subjects who must adhere to the Party’s “truths.” In one scene, when O’Brien held up four fingers, Winston (after torture) finally says he sees five, because the Party says there are five. Are we seeing this kind of brainwashing today, without the torture – for example, with transgender claims? Consider: We are told that (transgendered) “men” can have children and that (transgendered) “girls” should be able to compete on girls’ sports teams. Indeed, the bearded lady used to be a carnival sideshow attraction but is now presented in some public libraries as a kindly storyteller to children. As the wizard of Oz said: “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”
At another point during Winston’s re-education, O’Brien said this: The old civilizations claim they were founded on love and justice. Ours is founded on hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement.
Well, these days we have ample objects of hatred (Christians, Trump, ICE, deplorables, leftists); lots of things to fear (war, looting, police cutbacks, inflation, etc.); and plenty of rage (over an endless supply of micro-aggressions). We also have questionable instances of triumph – for example, over feckless politicians or cowering school administrators – and there’s no shortage of self-abasement (like white guilt, people apologizing for their faith, kneeling before BLM, etc.).
O’Brien continued: We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future, there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card.... There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother.
Does anyone doubt that some of these things are happening today? For example, we have had minors getting abortions without parental consent. We have had gender reassignment procedures authorized by some courts in the face of parental objections. We have socialist indoctrination in many schools and most colleges, often resulting in serious hostility between students and their parents. We have a country divided by, among other things, race, ideology, class, economic policies, and immigration policy. And we have the ongoing disparagement of (white) men by radical feminists (i.e., “toxic masculinity”). But the most foundational division is between the Judeo-Christian moral precepts upon which this country was founded and the atheistic moral relativism that now drives at least half the country’s population.
At the end of 1984, after a final torture, Winston was totally defeated and sincerely came to love Big Brother. But for us, the book should depict the demonic result of a Godless society. It tells us why we must do everything we can to engender a spiritual revival before it’s too late. We need to reverse engines now and head back toward Jesus, encouraging as many souls as we can to come with us.
For ye were as sheep going astray; but now are returned unto the Shepherd…of your souls (1 Peter 2:25).
by Norbert J. Kuk