131–140 of 145 posts
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Orwell was a leftist, but also opposed totalitarian societies. "1984" was a dystopia to expose such totalitarian societies. Unfortunately, much of what he described as a horror scenario in "1984" is already reality today, without people being bothered by it anymore.
How do you define 'leftist'? Orwell also wrote Animal Farm, which is critical of communism.
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Like under the Democratic Qin republic?
Hate how the oppressive Roman empire used state control to force its Latin alphabet on everybody.
This appendix, along with the chapters that are except from "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism", are actually my favorite parts of 1984. I enjoyed how "Principals of Newspeak" is written in a past tense when describing the language and the events of year 1984, it feels like a glimmer of hope that somehow mankind did indeed escape the horrific dystopian world otherwise presented in the book.
> We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares. > But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Ald…
It's a brave new world... until you resist. Then it's 1984.
For those curious about the topic, I highly suggest reading the rest of Eric Blairs work, and also maybe looking up the Fabian Society.
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I wonder how 1984 world would deal with resource depletion.
Probably pretty well: the suffering and dominance is the point. War machines destroy excess production, then people would be tasked with harvesting the war machines. The system doesn't care if anyone is happy or fulfills their dreams - it's goal is explicitly the opposite. As long as the sun burns, it continues.
One might wonder if one of the reasons that they routinely switched alliances was to send each other aid to prop up the strategic balance during periods of famine.
"The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible" I'm genuinely curious do the woke brigades of twitter not have the self awareness to recognize what they're doing? Or do they just not care? Would they be happy with a language designed to make 'harmful' thinking impossible?
Both "woke" ideology and MAGA ideology use words in this way. - Make America Great Again - Black Lives Matter - Stop the Steal - Homophobia - Drain the Swamp - Ableist - America First All of those exist to make it difficult to express an opposing viewpoint. Orwell would have recognized this.
Man
Woman
Gender
Violence
Racism
These, and other words, appear to be redefined, (or hijacked) quite successfully, implying interpretive precedence by woke authority.
With that, discussing such topics becomes very difficult, in particular if such definitions are applied to the discussion itself.
This appendix, along with the chapters that are except from "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism", are actually my favorite parts of 1984. I enjoyed how "Principals of Newspeak" is written in a past tense when describing the language and the events of year 1984, it feels like a glimmer of hope that somehow mankind did indeed escape the horrific dystopian world otherwise presented in the book.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Both "woke" ideology and MAGA ideology use words in this way. - Make America Great Again - Black Lives Matter - Stop the Steal - Homophobia - Drain the Swamp - Ableist - America First All of those exist to make it difficult to express an opposing viewpoint. Orwell would have recognized this.
Part of this has to be that catchphrases are more viral and are an effective way to signal allegiance to a group verbally due to their brevity. It's everything I don't like in a single package. Unthinking, unoriginal, incendiary, devoid of specific meaning, used as a tribal marker, and used to elevate the status of the speaker without having contributed anything.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Both "woke" ideology and MAGA ideology use words in this way. - Make America Great Again - Black Lives Matter - Stop the Steal - Homophobia - Drain the Swamp - Ableist - America First All of those exist to make it difficult to express an opposing viewpoint. Orwell would have recognized this.
Catchphrases are not what I associate with wokeism. Instead it's the redefinition of words already clearly defined before wokeism appeared. Such as Man Woman Gender Violence Racism These, and other words, appear to be redefined, (or hijacked) quite successfully, implying interpretive precedence by woke authority. With that, discussing such topics becomes very difficult, in particular if such definitions are applied t…