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Continuing with 1984.
How does the book relate to today's politics, or to the politics of his time? Does Orwell present something that we should actually be afraid our society will turn into? Are people really motivated by power for power's sake as Orwell depicts? Was he predicting history based on current trends, or was it satire, or what?
We discuss the relationship between minds: the realms of intimacy vs. surveillance, how a state might "contain" a mind that it controls, and "doublethink," where one mind is split—much like Sartre's "Bad Faith"—to intentionally delude itself.
Listen to part 1 first, or get the ad-free Citizen Edition.
End song: "Civil Disobedience" by Camper Van Beethoven from New Roman Times (2004), written by Jonathan Segel as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music ep. 38.
Sponsors: Visit Talkspace.com/examined; use code "EXAMINED" for 30% off your first month of online therapy. Go to blueapron.com/PEL for three free meals with free shipping.
Check out this cool lefty podcast: srslywrong.com. (The episode Mark was a guest on is #89.)
might be a good followup to Orwell:
https://larvalsubjects.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/hacking-the-social-construction-of-what2.pdf
Brave New World has five classes from alpha to epsilon.
At the height of Maddison Ave advertising, there were advertisers who said that they really had to believe the particular product they were writing copy for was the best in the world. Until they came to write copy for the next product. This is pretty close to doublethink.
Great Episode!
You mentioned Rorty only in passing, but his relation to Orwell is quite interesting in my Opinion. Rorty has a chapter on Orwell and Truth in his Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. The Book “Rorty and His Critics” by Brandom additionally has an exchange between James Conant and Rorty on the latters position. Conant’s contribution is a long but in my opinion very interesting read. According to him, Rorty “fails and is unable to read” Orwell.
This really goes deeper into the tension between truth, relativism, and Rortyian Pragmatism the Podcast alluded to, so I encourage anyone interested to read into it.
I second the recommendation of the excellent Rorty/Conant exchange on Orwell and truth–it is no accident that Rorty got around to 1984 eventually. But Conant is right: Rorty will not read Orwell for anything but his own purposes. Wes’s tribute to Orwell at the end of the podcast reminded me of my favorite remark about Orwell, by Stanley Cavell, Conant’s teacher: “Orwell’s writing, here [“Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool”] and elsewhere, is exemplary of a correct way in which the moral sensibility, distrusting higher ambitions, exercises its right to judge an imperfect world, never exempting itself from that world” (Must We Mean What We Say? 303). A podcast devoted to Cavell, the greatest American philosopher of the 20th century, is long overdue. He is great on movies, as Danto said, but he is great on everything he takes up.
Thanks for the great podcasts!
I would like to add this:
From ‘Spiritual Exercises’, Ignatius of Loyola, 1522/1548:
Thirteenth Rule: To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black if the hierarchical Church so decides it, believing that between Christ our Lord, the bridegroom, and the Church, His bride, there is the same spirit, which governs and directs us for the salvation of our souls. Because by the same spirit and our Lord who gave the Ten Commandments, our holy mother the Church is directed and governed.
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/ignatius/exercises.xix.v.html
Maybe Orwell studied The Spiritual Exercises?
Qoute from 1984:
“Oceanic society rests ultimately on the belief that Big Brother is omnipotent and that the Party is infallible. But since in reality Big Brother is not omnipotent and the party is not infallible, there is need for an unwearying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the treatment of facts. The keyword here is BLACKWHITE. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to BELIEVE that black is white, and more, to KNOW that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary.”
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7502633-oceanic-society-rests-ultimately-on-the-belief-that-big-brother
Also,
Thomas Pynchons 2003 introduction to 1984 is worth reading:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/100899/Pynchon-s-Intro-to-Orwell-s-1984
All the best,
Lars Buchardt,
Copenhagen
I first read 1984 at 15 when I was wrestling with whether and how to be a Christian (having been raised in a conservative Australian evangelical tradition in a family that was smart enough to put the strengths in a good light and cover over the weaknesses).
It seemed then, and it still seems, that Orwell has made his Party adopt much of its language from Christianity and that it works as a critique of Christian (church) authoritarianism. I am working from memory and have never done the project of reading carefully, but:
– ‘God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.’ cf Minilove, the place where there is no darkness
– ‘Perfect Love casts out fear.’ cf Room 101, the fear (of rats) is the instrument to cast love out of Winston.
– ‘Christ, the firstborn among many brothers.’ cf Big Brother (I think you mentioned those ‘unseen listener to every conversation’ plaques Christians sometimes have in their homes.)
– Finally that ‘those who control the past control the present’ – a perfect description of the power operations of the gospel accounts of Jesus life and work and resurrection.
I feel sure there are a bunch of other likenesses to be drawn, but I hope that’s enough to make the point. There is a real sickness in evangelicalism; wrestling with this critique would be very healthy. There is a book called ‘Torture and Eucharist’ which discusses the means by which christians try to heal the psychic wounds of those who have been through torture, to bring the perfect love that casts out fear back to life in people. (link: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/paperbacktheology/2007/09/torture-and-eucharist-book-review.html)
I would like to respond to a couple points made during the discussion.
The motivation of the party and power and whats in it for them and the lack of capitol.
The inner party has more than better food. O’Brien has a servant, a nice place to live he can turn the telescreen off so the are living materially privileged lives. Also they access to past and seem to revel in it-see Charrington’s rhyme , they can think or when they think it is okay when others do it is thought crime! The motivation is less clear , power for powers sake seems very hazy but we must remember that this is a post nuclear world war world. After the world powers have obliterated the world what is left for the elite of the society that emerges after the world has burned. Orwell believed that there would be nuclear war in the 20th century and I think that is where his idea about power for it’s on sake comes from, it’s about the only thing left to pursue in an empty world.