Nothing is efficient in Oceania except the Thought Police. Since each of the three superstates is unconquerable, each is in effect a separate universe within which almost any perversion of thought can be safely practiced. Reality only exerts its pressure through the needs of everyday life - the need to eat and drink, to get shelter and clothing, to avoid swallowing poison or stepping out of top-story windows, and the like. Between life and death, and between physical pleasure and physical pain, there is still a distinction, but that is all. Cut off from contact with the outer world, and with the past, the citizen of Oceania is like a man in interstellar space who has no way of knowing which direction is up and which is down. The rulers of such a state are absolute, as the Pharaohs or the Caesars could not be. They are obliged to prevent their followers from starving to death in numbers large enough to be inconvenient, and they are obliged to remain at the same low level of military technique as their rivals; but once that minimum is achieved, they can twist reality into whatever shape they choose.
-- “1984” by George Orwell
What makes Orwell’s dystopian world particularly distinctive and even hauntingly claustrophobic is the complete control over thought, and hence reality, that the totalitarian state exercises. We see this most prominently in Winston’s role as a journalist for the Ministry of Truth in which history is constantly and comprehensively rewritten to fit the present dictates of Big Brother. More generally, though, we should appreciate that this total control applies not only to history but to all knowledge, and even to what can possibly be said, as evinced through the development of Newspeak, cutting away the language to a bare minimum to support Party needs and nothing more. We will see the nature of this radical twisting of reality brought out more clearly in the upcoming torture scene.
In today’s installment from Emmanuel Goldstein’s book, we see the basic social infrastructure that makes this kind of thought-control possible. It seems to depend on a strangely maintained stagnancy. First, there is the stability that comes from the supposed inability of any of the three superstates to conquer another, and then there is the forced scarcity that makes technological progress expendable. Cut off from the pressures of competition and material progress, the totalitarian government is able to effect a comprehensive and perfect cocoon around the minds of the citizens.
This is obviously unrealistic. Despite the best efforts of totalitarians, even if they wished to use “1984” as a blueprint, reality is simply too dynamic to be held in check by any government. Nevertheless, one has to respect Orwell’s authorial choices, as he creates a chilling dystopian world that fascinates the imagination, and whatever this vision may lack in reality, it perhaps makes up for in its vivid presentation of what is the ultimate goal of a totalitarian government, the radical reduction of humanity to the needs of the government to maintain its power.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
