1984 (Signet Classics)
by George Orwell
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Book Summary Information
Author: George OrwellBrand: Penguin Group USA
Afterword: Erich Fromm
Edition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1961-01-01
ISBN: 0451524934
Number of pages: 268
Publisher: Signet Classic
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780451524935
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of 1984 (Signet Classics)
Book Review: Powerful Existential Warning
Summary: 5 Stars
A very meaningful book. I was taken back at how intense it turned out to be; socially, politically, psychologically and existentially. And it really gives one the awful nausea that Sartre spoke of and the angst of Kierkegaard, the existential despair, emptiness, loneliness, the awful outcome that leaves you with a sour pain in the pit in your stomach. But that is only if you remain too attached and subjective. On the other hand, if you can detach yourself from this book and view it objectively, it is the most meaningful and explanatory lesson in awareness to the distinct and very real possibility of a utopian world gone bad. This book is a valid warning.
The book is brilliant, portraying an authoritarian government that recreates all thought, erases all history, negating it all into solipsism, that all reality is simply the creation of man - The Party of Ingsoc- and in doing so melts into a radical blind relativism. Ingsoc, the Party of Big Brother which rules, also attempts to create an entirely new form of language - Newspeak - that reduces the variations of meanings to prevent people from independent thinking. In this new language, the word called, "Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them . . The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt."
It's ironic, but ultimately the fundamentalists are blind relativists in that they violently enforce their view and then change to a completely new view - new history, and then re-enforce this view in staunch, one-sided fundamentalism. This is truly blind relativism, which is different from cultural relativism and pragmatism, where there can still be a limited form of relativism that retains values, but not in the world of Big Brother. This is important because there is a huge difference between mindless relativism and the compartmentalization of absolutes in pragmatism, which maintains value retention while tolerating cultural differences. But in Big Brother, all becomes a relativistic void for the Party, which uses hate, fear and torture to achieve its end goal, the goal of power; power for the Inner Party.
The government of Orwell's 1984 is different from all the previous authoritarian governments, as it does not fool itself that it trying to help the people. At the end of the current edition is a short essay of Erich Fromm, with an analogy in comparison to two other negative utopian novels with three other positive utopian novels and how society went from such positive idealism to the recognition of negative possibilities in the direction of our future and how our responsibilities and the limited amount of time humanity has as a species to make the necessary changes towards heeding this warning and directing itself towards the positive outcome.
Despite the outcome and utter despair the book leaves you with, the valuable lesson speaks for itself. And I think in America, we must recognize our free-market fundamentalist mentality, our military bullying and authoritarian nature that puts the dollar and large corporate control over the proletariat. We need to value Orwell's warning and work towards repairing the great democratic dream of a equalitarian society that puts the rights of the individual ahead of monetary gain and looks towards the preservation of our environment - to restore the ideas of Emerson, Whitman and James and pragmatist values of democratic government actively engaged by the educated working classes.
The year 2005 represents a major time for America (Amerika) to wake up from the partisan, unilateral decisions of the Bush Administration's lone ranger policies, which include torture (congress just re-defined this word!) and lies. And in addition to the United States Imperialism, there is another major serious global development resembling Big Brother which has already begun; the WTO (World Trade Organization), well underway with a pseudo-democratic, secretive, powerful, small elite group of plutocrats (mostly United States corporations) enforcing global limits on protective government regulations, reducing environmental protections and proletariat rights, all so under a "newspeak" (rhetorical-beneficial) language of "free-trade." Orwell has become a superior prophet over Nostradamus.
"Is not a matter of whether the war is not real or if it is. Victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past. And no different past can ever have existed. In principle, the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects. And its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or Eastasia, but to keep the very structure of society in tact." George Orwell, 1984
"In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird." p. 156
WAR IS PEACE - and great profits are gained by large corporate military contractors and the vast oil supply (Halliburton). The economic gain is not for the working class, but for the corporate elites and their private ownerships. Thus the government remains financed and ready for further imperial maneuvers.
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY - and we now have tight security measures, wire tapping, censorship and the Patriot Act. All of this enslaves us and removes many of our liberties and private rights, all so for the sake of keeping our freedom secure, slavery to protect freedom. Ultimately, censorship prevents the working class from Socratic inquiry of government policies, thus the government remains in tact. Labor parties, Poplulists-Farmers, Feminists, African Americans/Civil rights, evironmental protections, minimum wage requirements and the working man and woman themselves loose their rights and voices of active participation. They are simply "prols," while the corporate elite, the plutocrats increase their rule, working their way towards totality. Open Democracy and human rights die, aristocracy enslavement lives, all so to protect the freedom of the country.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH - and to remain in ignorance is keep the proletariat quietly content in his mediocre existence, either in poverty or struggle, ceasing the time, strength and desire for Socratic inquiry of government policies. The result; mindless flag waving nationalism. Ignorance masked under the newspeak of "Free Trade" and radical privatization without regulatory control leads to monopolistic corporate state owned society. And the flags keep waving. The breakup of a Hollywood couple takes the headlines, while WTO is quiet in the media background. The elite in Control increase and maintain strength. Ignorance is strength.
Summary of 1984 (Signet Classics)
Celebrate the 60th anniversary of Orwell?s masterpiece 1984Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell?s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, Orwell?s narrative is timelier than ever. 1984 presents a startling and haunting vision of the world, so powerful that it is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the power of this novel, its hold on the imaginations of multiple generations of readers, or the resiliency of its admonitions?a legacy that seems only to grow with the passage of time.
Among the seminal texts of the 20th century, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a rare work that grows more haunting as its futuristic purgatory becomes more real. Published in 1949, the book offers political satirist George Orwell's nightmare vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one poor stiff's attempt to find individuality. The brilliance of the novel is Orwell's prescience of modern life--the ubiquity of television, the distortion of the language--and his ability to construct such a thorough version of hell. Required reading for students since it was published, it ranks among the most terrifying novels ever written.
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