Big Brothers Are Watching You

For several years now, I've been teaching uncertain teenagers about George Orwell's 1984, about how it presents a (then) future world he feared.
  Many of them think "Well, it didn't happen, so he was wrong, and his book is depressing, so who cares?  Others connect with it even though it's quite political and philosophical for a teenager to read.

   Obviously, many things remind me of what it was like to live under the Plymouth Brethren system I grew up in.  Not everyone who attends and takes part in Brethren stuff is "under" it, but my family and I certainly were.  And every year when I teach it, 1984 reminds me of that past, and I wonder if it's a sensible comparison.  Well, let's see:

Expectations Run Deeper Than Rules

In 1984's Oceania, there are a host of unwritten expectations for exactly how people will think, feel, dress, act and live.  The citizens somehow "just know" they are expected to live this way, without needing to be told in so many words.  It's trained into them.  They act in the expected manner, all without thinking about it.  Some stuff is understood to be good, and some stuff is understood to be bad.  And everyone is watching each other with poker faces, seeing who's thinking or feeling or acting differently than everyone else, so they can share this information and report it, "for the good" of the person in question.   So the person can be warned and then "fixed."  There is nowhere citizens can go where they are not being watched, and their motives questioned, at all times.  No one can breathe free.

Slumming It With the Dirty People of the World

Winston Smith finds a way to try to allow his brain and heart and life to "breathe" a bit.  He goes out and takes walks in the world outside the perpetually bombed-out battleground that is Airstrip One/London, the city where he lives, to walk among the "proles." The proles are the lower-class, working people who aren't trying to be approved or have any status within the system.  They drink beer and smoke and gamble and watch sports on TV in bars, and have relationships with people they're not married to, and generally dress and talk and act how they like.  They are rustic, and much more colourful.  Winston sneaks out and walks around in their neighborhood.  He talks to them to see what their lives are like, and finds their comments and memories and day to day life challenges and enriches his own.  And while there, Winston goes into a junk shop and buys something a good citizen of Oceania wouldn't need: a personal diary or journal.

Self Expression Is Rebellion

Winston goes home and starts secretly writing in it.  He finds that he needs to secretly write down a bunch of thoughts and feelings, as he has no voice, and yet knows he needs to get all that out.  So he does.  He writes about his past.  He sometimes writes angry things about the leadership and the life he's living. Things that would get him in trouble, if anyone saw them.  He must write them, but lives in fear of them ever being seen.

   Because in Oceania, one of the worst things one can be accused of (and an accusation is as powerful as proven guilt) is "thoughtcrime."  Thoughtcrime is thinking unapproved things.  Thoughts exist to support the authority structure, the political system, and so they are controlled, like any other resource.
   Thought Police may show up unannounced and question people as to their thoughtcrimes without any notice.  Ultimately, what happens to Thought Criminals is they are interrogated, tortured, re-brainwashed, and forced to publicly retract the troublesome thoughts they had, admit they were wrong about absolutely everything, and confess their utter depravity, including frequently bogus accusation tossed in to bolster the efforts of the reputation blackeners.  They are shells of their former selves, broken and old before their time, grateful to be readmitted to the system that did this to them.

Special Language

There is a special language, a jargon, spoken in Oceania.  Citizens call each other "brother" or "sister" and there is a dictionary of approved language.  The dictionary doesn't add a number of special words to the langauge.  What is being done is the vocabulary of the people is being progressively limited.  It is being systematically shrunk.  Citizens are given the terms they are to use, and children aren't even being taught any other language other than "newspeak."  This is to increase the number of thoughts and ideas which can no longer be communicated without straying outside the bounds of "insider," approved language.  For example, a citizen couldn't use newspeak to criticize his government or question its agents, as the approved langauge used to talk about them doesn't allow that, and he has no other language.  Ultimately, the approved langauge is stark and grey.  All swearing or vulgarity, and even colourful and emphatic language is slowly being edited away, and people's speech will less and less bear the stamp of a personality, as it is all "scripted."  Spies and thoughtcriminals will be recognizable by their inability to speak like the insiders do.

Special Thinking

The way the citizens in Orwell's 1984 are indoctrinated involves something he calls "doublethink."  Doublethink is the learned skill of thinking two contradictory things, and not being bothered by, or even aware of, there being any contradiction at all.  Every citizen needs to learn how to do this.  Every citizen needs to be able, when the government says, for example, "2 + 2 = 5," to set aside his or her own thinking, and just know on a deep level that this must be true, as the government has sure enough said it.  Intellectuals and deep thought are always viewed with suspicion.   They do not help the system. They have "questions."  Intellectuals disappear with regularity in Oceania, their thoughts, deeds and ideas, and even all sign they ever existed, carefully deleted and edited out from the history and consciousness of the citizens, who may not speak of these "unpersons."

Enforced Drabness

Overall, the people live in an enforced drabness, with no means of expressing one's own individuality by a brightly coloured or uniquely styled item of clothing, colourful slang, or anything of that kind.  The people become completely interchangeable, eventually. 

   The women marry lovelessly so there can be children, and the children are thoroughly indoctrinated by the continual lectures and meetings all citizens unceasingly attend, and they then spy on and report their parents if they catch a whiff of individual thinking or feeling in the home.

   The character of Tom Parsons is in many ways an "ideal" citizen.  He is always smiling, unlike the usual paranoid, frightened, depressed folk around him.  He happily eats anything the cafeteria dishes up, believes (and gets excited about) anything the government says, even when it's patently contradictory, and enjoys the public confessions and executions which are continually going on.  He gets enthusiastic about each new rally, meeting or briefing.

Apparently Profound Slogans
The Party in 1984 has slogans like these:

War is peace
Freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength

   To better reflect what is taught in Brethren circles, I would alter the first slogan to say "Division is unity."  And I am very familiar with the old saw: "in order to be truly free, one must give up one's liberty."  (to the system)
   I've sat through some big brother's meetings.  The ones which "mandated unity" through supporting division.  The ones which "helped" the people who had lost their ability to doublethink by kicking them out and making them unpersons.

Projecting?

It is very possible I am merely projecting my own crap upon this book.  Then again...