1984 and Modern Society

• Page 4 reference to helicopters looking into windows. See Scotland hiring drone planes to monitor populace.1

• Page 10 diary entry on ‘flicks.’ Mentions people laughing at a man getting shot as he tries to swim away from a helicopter, and a ‘wonderful’ shot of a boat full of children being bombed. See films like ‘The Hills Have Eyes,’ ‘House of Wax,’ ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre,’ ‘Hostel’ and the ‘Saw’ franchise. Gratuitous violence.2

• ‘Newspeak’ – see text talk and political correctness.3

• ‘Doublespeak’ – ‘We must give up some liberties for freedom.’ – Idiotic, contradictory mantra repeated by many Britons and Americans in the face of ‘terrorism.’4

• ‘Two Minutes Hate,’ ‘Goldstein’ – see Osama bin Laden, ‘War on Terror,’ Homeland Security, Patriot Act, Global Warming, ‘War on Drugs, etc. United by fear and hatred.5

• Emotional impact of films and advertising amounts to brainwashing.6

• Page 25, indoctrination of the young. See child reported to have been arrested in America for having researched an alternate version of the events of 9/11. Children are also encouraged to report on suspicious behaviour of parents in UK schools.7

• The wars with Eurasia and Eastasia are never ending. See ‘War on Terror,’ which used to be ‘War on Communism’ – Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, now threatening Iran. Never ending.8

• Three super-states – Oceania, Eurasia, Eastasia. See 1.) European Union, 2.) Planned American Union from NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), 3.) Planned Pacific Union from APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, and 4.) Planned African Union from the African Economic Community and Organisation of African Unity.9

• Page 29, ‘Always the eyes watching you…’ See the 2008 London bus poster, ‘Secure beneath the Watchful Eyes,’ and the similar 1935 Nazi poster reading ‘Uberlicht mit Hollerith Lochkarten.’10

• ‘Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.’11

• Page 32 reference to ‘One of the first great purges of the ‘fifties.’ See traffic wardens quietly being given the rights to arrest people and search their homes. See mass prisons being secretly built in America as well as hundreds of thousands of plastic coffins lying in fields.12

• Page 33 – flinging the Party aside with a mere gesture.13

• Page 36, ‘The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil.’ See Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’ speech.14

• Page 46, means employed by the Ministry of Truth for keeping the proletariat distracted include packages of pornography and ‘films oozing with sex,’ sentimental songs with no meaning created by machines, etc.15

• Page 47, ‘More commonly, people who incurred the displeasure of the Party simply disappeared and were never heard of again.’ See disappearances in the UK and US alone, not to mention sudden deaths of those who have opposed government doctrine. See assassinations of Mahatma Ghandi, John Lennon, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, John F Kennedy, etc, etc.16

• Page 63, interesting description of how beetle-like men seem to thrive under the Party.17

• Page 65 reference to ‘facecrime.’ See airports beginning to train personnel to spot ‘terrorists’ by body language alone.18

• Page 68 describes the need to break up the family as a loyalty which the Party cannot control. See CIA-funded women’s rights movement and increased state control of children through the education system.19

• Page 72, ‘If there is hope, it lies in the proles.’ – See working class; seething mass of humanity in state of slumber.20

• Pages 72-3, ‘But the proles, if they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves, like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose, they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning.’21

• Page 73, proles fighting over saucepans. ‘Why was it they could never shout like that over something that mattered?’ See deliberate distraction of people via entertainment shows etc.22

• Page 74, ‘Until they [the proles] become conscious, they will never rebel, and until they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.’23

• Proles seen as animals. The Party is for those who might prove a threat to it. Thought Police move through the proles spreading rumours and sifting out those who may become dangerous.24

• Pages 74-5, ‘It was not desirable that the proles should have strong political feelings. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working-hours and shorter rations.’25

• Page 75, Party slogan: ‘Proles and animals are free.’26

• Page 76, rant about capitalism. The Party is a socialist organisation.27

• Page 77, discussing self-delusion. See modern society.28

• Page 85, ‘Ownlife,’ meaning individuality and eccentricity. It is dangerous to show such traits. See group conformity of schools and ridicule of all those who question government accounts of events like 9/11 especially.29

• Page 89, ‘But if there was hope, it lay in the proles. You had to cling on to that. When you put it in words it sounded reasonable: it was when you looked at the human beings passing you on the street that it became an act of faith.’30

• Page 163, ‘By lack of understanding, they remained sane.’31

• Page 210, ‘From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant more than a change in the name of their masters.’32

• Page 216, ‘The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed.’ Hitler said something similar.33

• Page 225, ‘If human equality is to be forever averted – if the High, as we have called them, are to keep their places permanently – then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity.’ See modern society.34

• Page 226, ‘Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad.’35

• Page 227, ‘Sanity is not statistical.’36

• Page 229, ‘The proles were immortal… In the end, their awakening would come.’37

• Page 251, ‘In the face of pain, there are no heroes, no heroes…’38

• Page 269, brainwashing by torture. See Montauk project.39

• Page 280, ‘If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.’40