1984
> History is arbitrarily tampered with, the country lacks integrity, the people's thinking is firmly imprisoned, and the dictator's ultimate goal is to pursue power.
One more person to watch Orwell, one more guarantee of freedom.
War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is power. I believe these few words may still become the most famous sayings of some politicians today. Launching war for the supreme power, sacrificing the freedom of some people, and making their own people become ignorant to support them. In order to achieve their goals, telescreens are installed wherever possible, and thought police are everywhere. Even young children have become time bombs for parents of "misconduct". In such a high-pressure environment, most people are loyal followers of the party. But even so, a small mistake may make you disappear suddenly, and all existing traces will be removed.
Under this kind of rule, the anger that people feel is an abstract, undirected emotion, which can be adjusted like the flame of a blowtorch, turning from one object to another. This is just like what Le Pen put forward in "The Mob", "In a group, any emotions and behaviors are contagious. People are often excited and excited by the same feelings, and they are easily affected by the opinions and opinions of others. Under the influence and influence, individuals in the group have a strong herd mentality, which is easy to be misled by others."
**1984 and Magical Reality:**
> **Ministry of Peace (responsible for war)**
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> The Ministry of Peace supports Oceania’s permanent war against one of the other two superpowers.
> The main purpose of modern warfare (according to the principle of dual thinking, the leaders of the inner party both recognize and deny this purpose) is to consume the fruits of machinery production and to continuously improve the general standard of living. Since the nineteenth century, the problem of how to deal with surplus consumer goods has been lurking in industrial society. At present, only a few people can get enough food. This problem is obviously not urgent. Even if there is no man-made sabotage going on, this may not be an urgent problem.
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> **Ministry of Wealth (Ration and Hunger)**
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> Responsible for the distribution and control of food, commodities and domestic production. In each fiscal quarter, the Ministry of Wealth will announce the rising false standard of living. In fact, rationing, availability, and production are falling. The Ministry of Truth revises historical records to support the "quota increase" announced by the Ministry of Wealth every quarter.
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> **Ministry of Truth (Propaganda)**
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> The Ministry of Truth controls all information: news, entertainment, education and art. Winston Smith worked in the records department of the Ministry of Truth, "correcting" the historical record to make it consistent with the current remarks of Big Brother and making everything the party said is true. The so-called "Whoever controls the past will control the future, and whoever controls the present will control the past"
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> **Ministry of Charity (torture and brainwashing)**
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> The Ministry of Humanity identifies, monitors, arrests, and transforms real and fictitious dissidents. In Winston’s own experience, dissidents would be beaten and tortured first, and then when they were about to collapse, they would be sent to Room 101 to face "the most terrible thing in the world", until the dissent was loved by the big brother. Replaced by thought.
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> Do the above four departments used to control the masses, the Ministry of Truth and the Ministry of Charity, feel familiar? There is also the Ministry of Peace.
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> **Doublethink doublethink**
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> In the book Orwell mentioned two kinds of ideological reforms. One of the most powerful is to carry out language reform, that is, to create "new language"; Contradictory thoughts and beliefs do not feel contradictory.
> For example, the child interviewed was mentioned in the last article of "Learning to Go Online". Another example is the ridiculous story of saying that a certain historical document is meaningless and then letting others comply with the agreement.
> One of the biggest highlights of dual thinking is that it can be used not only for brainwashing people, but also for defenders of the brainwashing system.
> For the employees of the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth, double thinking means that they can distort historical facts and then firmly believe in the new history they have just written. Dual thinking can not only be used to brainwash the people, but also the defenders of the brainwashing system, and the effect is good!
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> **Crime thought crimethink, thought crime thoughtcrime**
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> If you have criminal thoughts, you will commit thought crimes without conviction for speech or actions. The opposite of this term is good ideas, that is, ideas praised by the party; based on the simple dichotomy principle of Newspeak, there is no gray area between good ideas and criminal ideas.
> Criminal thoughts will not lead to death, criminal thoughts themselves are death.
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> **Sexcrime sexcrime**
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> Sex is only for married people of the opposite sex to provide the party with more population. All other types of sexual acts are considered criminal sexual acts, that is, sexcrime.
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> This is just because the sexual instinct creates its own world, which is beyond the control of the party, so it must be destroyed as much as possible. It is especially important that sexual deprivation can cause hysteria, and this is a good thing, because it can be transformed into war fanaticism and leader worship.
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> **Unperson unperson**
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> Unperson refers to a person not only being killed by the authorities, but his information in real life is also erased. Such people will be completely erased from books, photos, and articles, so that they will not leave a trace in historical records.
Finally, when he was pierced by a bullet, the last consciousness in Winston's heart was still his love for Big Brother, from a person who had his own thoughts, feelings, desires, and the ability to distinguish right from wrong, but unconditionally believed anything from the party. , You can give up everything for the party. This kind of belief does not say that the party is right, but germinates from his subconscious. If the party says 2+2=5, then yes, this is the truth.
"1984" is not a year, but a society, a suffocating, repressive, unfree or even thoughtless (despite the freedom of propaganda, thought and speech) society. Controlling people's thoughts can gain power. Controlling people's thoughts is a kind of power. Use power to gain power until power is supreme. The "English Society" mentioned in the book is fascinated by such a supreme power. This power can deny all natural sciences and can deny a real world. This power can deprive a person of privacy, can deprive a person of will, can deprive a person of existence, and can also deprive a person of evidence of existence. This power can rewrite the past by tampering with memory, it can distort the present by controlling consciousness, and it can make the future never exist by freezing history.
If Winston is really the last guardian of the human spirit, if everyone allows the spread of totalitarianism and does not fight with it, then Oceania is our tomorrow, and Winston's destiny is our destiny. Winston's complex mood of trust and disappointment towards O'Brien vividly expresses the author's suspicion of the modern ruling class. They seem to have a high degree of wisdom, but their guiding ideology is what is the happiness and peace of mankind, or progress in any sense. They have made power itself the goal of pursuit. They rewrite history at will and practice spiritual slavery on the people. The future they envision is "a foot that will always step on the face" Orwell seems to tell us that this trampling on human nature and the pursuit of power are almost crazy. Half a century has passed. Mankind has made great progress in science and technology. But the future of peace and happiness is still far away.
The psychologist Fromm analyzed the reasons why the Nazis were able to rule Germany in his book "Escape from Freedom". In his view, those who escape freedom have both sadistic and masochistic desires. On the one hand, they hope to control everything and destroy everything. On the other hand, they subconsciously internalize the conventional beliefs of society into their own experience, so as to avoid free thinking and get rid of anxiety. This may be the case with Obram. The freedom he understood is not only the domination of oneself, but also the domination of others. However, this absolute freedom is both an alienation of the spirit of freedom and disrespect for others. At the same time, he internalized the "truth" preached by the totalitarian society into his own thoughts, embedded himself in this morbid system, and became a part of the environment. He is controlled by the environment, relies on the environment, and even enjoys the environment. He is like the old cloth in "Shawshank's Redemption", but he does not want to be released after 50 years in prison. Because once you are released from prison, you will discover the horror of "freedom": having freedom means that you have lost your place in prison, you are helpless, and some are just lonely minds and hearts. The fear of freedom eventually led him to commit suicide.
Freedom in a cage is not true freedom. Can you say that the bird in the cage has freedom because it can sing and dance? Obviously not. Freedom full of control is extreme freedom. Because the area of white paper is limited, if every circle on the paper expands indefinitely, it will inevitably intersect. In fact, freedom from interference does not exist. Mrs. Roland's words before the execution, "Freedom, how many sins are done in your name!" This is the pseudo-freedom. Freedom full of servility is cynic freedom. Just as Big Brother advocated "freedom is slavery" in "1984", if everyone obediently accepts surveillance and gives up thinking, wouldn't human beings become "existence at the biological vegetable level" described by Havel?
**1984 may be a political prophecy, but I obviously prefer to regard it as an allegory of destiny — the most important social responsibility of intellectuals is to ensure that we live in a world where we are not set and free to choose. Russell said 100 years ago: Participating in this variety is the origin of life. I like to engage in creative work, love the people I love, and not betray them because of the will of anyone else. The greatest value of 1984 is that he is a reminder of despair to every intellectual in the world, reminding us whenever Someone wants to arrange our lives and control our thoughts. We should all ask loudly in an ontological tone without hesitation: Who is he, where does he come from, and what does he want to do? **
**We will meet where there is no darkness, but don’t be the darkness of this concept. **