Washington State University - Chinook Yearbook (Pullman, WA)

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sun k k kjrk k k Fbr fcltf k k k So Many Questions Which is real, And which is not? These things we claim to know. Ahola What is right, And what is wrong, And what is really so? 28 Expressions 1984

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Big Brother is Watching You technically possible and the need for class distinctions having disappeared, the new rulers no longer strive for human equality but treat it as “a dan¬ ger to be averted.’ ' Goldstein says that looking over the last forty years, the new rulers differ from former rulers in that the newer rulers “were less avaricious, less tempted by luxury, hungrier for pure power, and above all, more conscious of what they were doing and more intent on crushing opposition. This last difference was cardinal.” In the second extract from Gold¬ stein’s book, Orwell explains the role of war in crushing opposition. From the onset of modern mechanization, the new industrial society has had one central problem: how to use up the surplus of goods produced by the machines without raising the stan¬ dard of living. “For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away.” Poverty and ignorance then, became necessary conditions for social stability. The new regime learned that the only way to restrict distribution of goods to the people in a “psychologi¬ cally acceptable way” was endless war. Endless war accomplishes the two¬ fold purpose of supressing the masses in ignorance, and equally important, in fear. The looming shadow of nuc¬ lear catastrophe strips man of his security in the world he lives in and prevails upon him moods of despair and hopelessness. Moreover, un¬ leashed defense spending sucks the national wealth out of the economy, producing products that never enter into the free market. Capital other¬ wise available to private enterprise is squandered on bigger and better mis¬ siles to keep those nasty REDS further away from the land of free thinking people. In 1984 , the superstates are utterly unconquerable and self-contained. War, now being continuous, has changed character. There is no milit¬ ary efficiency because the purpose of war is not to conquer each other but to conquer the excess of industrializa¬ tion. Nothing about the enemy is ever known, except that they are entirely responsible for all of earth’s evils. All acts of governmental perversion can be justified in the interest of defeating the enemy. The distracted multitude never looks beyond the surface of things. They believe what is told to them, and never search for any deep¬ er understanding. Orwell knew the real war waged is against the subjects of each superstate by the rulers to “keep the structure of society intact.’’ Thus continuous war and continuous peace are synonomous. War Is Peace. Winston now knew how but not why. His new found knowledge, however, helped none but his own curiosity, because Goldstein’s book was not written for rebel spirits like his own in the interest of the Brother¬ hood. The Brotherhood didn’t exist and Goldstein didn’t exist. The book was divinely inspired by Big Brother himself to expose weak Party Mem¬ bers. Good Party Members do not think for themselves but, with the help of intense doulblethink training, accept traditional conventions even in the face of evidence to the contrary. In low esteem are those who care enough about truth to think singular¬ ly about the world around them; they are a threat to stability, authority, and sanity. Those in lowest esteem, diabo¬ lical in nature and in ranks with the Devil, are those who not only question conventional lines of thought, but are willing to risk their own blood to dare instability. It is not hard to see, therefore, how the justifications and policies of some of the current superpowers were an inspiration for Orwell. Gorrupt poli¬ tical figures hold sway over the ignor¬ ant masses, hiding from them things as they really are. Governmental poli¬ cies benefit only those who are in pow¬ er and attempt to subordinate those who have none through ignorance and misrepresentation of the truth. Who is to say whether Orwell, in the writing of 1984 , was predicting life as we now know it, or decribing life as he saw it. What can be said, however, is that much of the horror found in 1984 can be realized even in today’s civilized world. Although we cannot hold Orwell ' s book to be a doctrine of fact, we can, and must, take it as a reminder of the way of life we could be heading toward. by Paul Sweeny kkkkkkkkkkkkkkk 1984 Expressions 27

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1984 Expressions 29