The best books , he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already.
The preceding excerpt is from page 190 of George Orwell’s iconic novel, 1984. My read of this novel is the anniversary edition. I am moved to start this month’s Reflections with the preceding line found deep in the novel. I first read 1984 in high-school. I learned that Orwell’s novel, as dystopian as it reads, is his artistic response to Communism after World War II. Reading it, again at this time in my life, resonates as a warning to me. In present time there are a plethora of rhymes from Orwell’s story. Some of this novel’s pointed erasures of individuality in the novel’s distant future,(1984), appear to parallel the rewriting of our histories powers that be lay on us today with steady lies and propaganda.
The following excerpt, found on page 30, of my copy, highlights manipulative control on the population by the few. This is a conversation between the main character Winston and his friend Syme. Syme works in the Research Department. Syme is highlighting the technicalities of Newspeak, (not writing in Oldspeak).
“You don’t grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end, we shall make thought crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition we’re not far from that point. But the process will be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now , of course, there’s no reason or excuse for the committing thought crime. It’s merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won’t be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak”, he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. “Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?”
1984 presents a story line where the public is constantly spied on. The people are steadily brainwashed in many ways. Individuality is scrubbed as is their memory. The One source One force in Orwell’s world is Big Brother. The goal appears to be power. the following excerpt found in my copy on page 252 illuminates this goal.
The party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power.
There you have it. As is my custom I won’t spoil the outcome of the main character Winston’s life as he attempts to keep his precious memories and individuality. But as I sit in the lee of the winds of excursions, I mean war, sheltered by my lighthouse, I can not help but wonder what the people who live a hundred years from today will have to encapsulate what the hell was going on in 2020 thru 2026? Already we are scrubbing our yesterdays with alternative facts of the Covid pandemic, the Insurrection,( now police abuse), at the Capital on January 6th, 2021 and of course add the Iran War/Incursion/Excursion on February 28, 2026 to our alternative facts for the future. Our Newspeak, by the powers that be, will dance to alternative rhythms in a Washington ballroom that covers a grave yard of buried truths and a graffiti addled wanna-be leader who marks every wall he can find with his unsavory brand. Our country is young by any standard. But with a diminishing consciousness of our yesterdays, though only 250 years old, predict a country that will live and die by the news cycle along with what ever new propaganda is being swallowed by the masses as Big Brother holds our noses enabling a quick swallow of his garbage.
Expand your consciousness so that tomorrow you can remember the truth of your today as your day becomes tomorrow.
Thank you for reading.
Be at Peace and Joy!
Mark