Analysis: George Orwell “1984” Part 3
Yes, Orwell interesting plays with the separation of the party from the people, the cult of personality, which sometimes only covers the interests. But nowhere there is the elite, which would hold power not from economic interests, but just control and sadism sake. History has shown that even the ruling elite in the Union, pursuing its own selfish interests, in the end turned into a new bourgeoisie class, appropriating the people’s wealth, accumulated by generations of hard workers.
By the way, about the social hierarchy. In the novel “1984” openly States that social mobility is when “socialism” is lower than in a caste society. Touching to read this, remembering how Brezhnev started a factory worker, and Gorbachev is a tractor driver. It was a quite typical way for the party players even in the days of Orwell. So where did that kind of speculation?
In General, we can only marvel at the fact that Orwell gained fame as philosopher and not a sociologist. His lengthy discourse about the fact that “society has always been divided into three parts lower, middle and upper”, not inferior to the banality of some of the ancient Greek thinkers.
Only the ancient Greeks, it is possible to forgive sociology as a science was not then in sight, but Orwell, who lived in the twentieth century for such nonsense to excuse no reason. All the more so after these arguments the author of “1984” gives an idea worthy of a hidebound reactionary not that what was happening in the world of uprisings and revolutions, they were in vain, because everything is back to normal.
And here a lie and a substitution of concepts in the novel reaches its climax. Only a complete ignorant would put a sign of identity between the feudal aristocracy, the bourgeoisie and the bureaucracy. Only a person completely unfamiliar with the story, will undertake to assert, that the revolution ultimately did not led to a change in the sociopolitical system and consequently for it progress. However, Mr. Orwell is coming out in a jiffy.
“Philosophy” Orwell kills his superficiality in a number of episodes. The author famously draws Parallels between Bolshevism and Nazism, categorically declares that the destruction of private property does not contribute to equality, etc. If you list all the mistakes, exaggerations, double standards, outright lies and exaggerated clichés, which is teeming with novel, you can write a whole monograph. In order not to bore the reader, I focus only on one paragraph that interested me as a historian. Throughout the work, the author savors the fact that in Oceania, minute by minute the past to fit the present and for some reason these falsifications again become the prerogative of Ingsoc.
Meanwhile, a change history in favor of the interests of the ruling class, a phenomenon that emerged almost simultaneously with the science of the past. Here we can cite many examples from the nobles of ancient times, who wanted to bring their ancestry by family tree of the gods, and ending with the ruling circles in the US, has arrogated to itself the chief merit of the victory in the Second world war.
The actual liar
As we see today, Orwell was no great shakes as a prophet. No world system “totalitarian socialism” is not. Earth is split into several chronically warring with each other despotisms. In 1984 the Union was already on the verge of Restructuring, which collapsed.
But there’s something the author of “1984” was right. If in its pages, generously strewn with lies, not lying around would be a grain of truth it is unlikely that he had now so very popular. Repressive culture, about which wrote Herbert Marcuse in the 60ies, has created “one dimensional man” an ideal consumer with atrophied instinct of fighting. New technical equipment cameras, cell phones, the Internet has opened opportunities not only for communication but also for total control and surveillance over the population. It seems that the story of Snowden showed the world: Big Brother really is watching us.
The cold war is gone, but the car handles ideological consciousness of the individual is relentlessly cold and cruel. The truth is inseparable from lies, freedom from slavery, knowledge from misinformation. Shooting a new film adaptation of “1984” could have been easily put it real the clip, and it would look organic!
Like the book, the images and terms used by the propaganda, are separated from their original prototypes. Stalin, Nicholas II, Lenin, St. George ribbon, world war II, flag all this and more merged into a bizarre phantasmagoria, in still in the masses a false consciousness.
Only does it all not afraid and his reek, but it is a capitalist elite whose fate was grieved in his novel Orwell.
Is there a way out of this situation? As said the main character of the book Winston Smith (Orwell and then apparently remembered his Marxist past), “the only hope in the proles”. Billions of workers around the world, their physical and mental abilities create good civilization, but regularly Rob, the oppressed, only they are able to change society for the better. The only question is that this time they should be more conscious and organized than a hundred years ago or than some of the new George Orwell is to blame for some of the new Big Brother.
But it is also noteworthy that the novel “1984”, being part of the anti-socialist propaganda, today could be used against the “proles”, playing the role of demotivate. Why fight when victory will certainly result in the defeat, and attempts to build absolute democracy will turn to slavery?
Not so long ago one of my friends wrote that the main purpose of all the dystopia to deprive people of hope for a progressive and bright future, “discouraged” from looking for alternatives. I wouldn’t say go for the whole genre, but in the case of Orwell is saying is true 100%.