Book # 1: 1984 By George Orwell - Do we live in an Orwellian Society?

First Edition Cover - image source 

This book resonated a lot with me. If you follow my blog or my twitter timeline you will see one theme that I am very passionate about - privacy and how the surveillance state is trying to eradicate it.  I became very passionate about this topic when I read about Snowden's revelations. Reading about the NSA's surveillance program and their seeming disregard of individual privacy was shocking to me. It made me want to know more about how our data is being collected and how it is being exposed to surveillance.

Reading George Orwell's 1984 felt like it was a critique of our current state. There were three themes in the story that really struck me the most and I will go through each one of them in this post.

The mere threat of constant surveillance is enough to kill dissent. 

In the book the Party had installed countless Telescreens and listening devices as part of its surveillance infrastructure. The Thought Police could listen in on anyone at anytime but there was no way of knowing when you are being monitored. Everyone in Airship One had to live under the constant threat that they are being monitored - here is how Orwell described it:

"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork....But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live - did live, from habit that became instinct - in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."

I always believed that the biggest evil with the NSA mass surveillance is not the individual invasion of privacy but more importantly the fact that its threat kills dissent. During the height of the debate caused by Snowden's revelation a lot of people who supported NSA mass surveillance came out saying "If you have nothing to hide then you should not be afraid of NSA surveillance." This line of argument is flawed to its core. A massive surveillance system is a tool for a totalitarian central power. It is a necessity to its survival as it seeks to ensure that everyone is conforming to its imposed norms. A massive surveillance system allows a totalitarian power to identify dissidents before they can spread any further.

When we are constantly being watched we start to be cautious about what we say or do. When we start to be cautious about our words and actions we start to be cautious with our thoughts. When our thoughts are hampered by caution our human spirit starts to die. It is only through a society where we are free to express ourselves in ways both banal and profound can we truly call ourselves free. 

The constant threat of war/ fear is important to a totalitarian regime. 

In the book, Oceania is in perpetual war with the other superpowers Eurasia and East Asia - who they are at war with is constantly changing. In his book, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, Emmanuel Goldstein explains that the regime needs a perpetual war in order to maintain its power. War is needed to consume the national product in such a way where no significant surplus is produce as to elevate the economic and social well-being of the proles. Everything is rationed and the best way to justify rationing is the presence of a perpetual war. Everyone has to constantly work and contribute to the state without actually elevating their own social and economic status. This allows the Party to keep the proles poor, uneducated and therefore easily controlled. War in Oceania's society was an economic tool for control by the Inner Party. 

This theme has so much parallel to modern Western societies today. War and the constant threat of war is still used today, not as an economic tool, but a more sinister one - to curtail individual freedoms. Take the case of the Patriot Act in the USA. This act is probably the most draconian act ever produced by a modern day "democracy" and it was passed under the constant fear mongering of people in power. Yes the horror of 9/11 still fresh in everyones mind and the terrorist attack on that day was horrific, however the way fear was used as a currency by those in power has so much parallel to the experience of the proles in Oceania. President Bush proclaimed a global war on terror and leaders from other nations have carried on that theme until today. We are all at war against terror and this perpetual war requires us to give up some of our individual freedoms in the name of collective security. Whenever those in power seek to consolidate their power even more they always justify it with fear and the threat of another terrorist attack. I am not saying that terrorist attacks are not real, what I am saying is that the threat of an attack is never enough to justify giving those already in power with more power over us. Everytime there is a major terrorist attack in Europe or America world leaders start asking for more powers to keep us safe but nobody bothers to ask how they failed to prevent the attack in the first place when we gave them more powers before the most recent attack. 

The most blatant example of how our leaders today use fear to gain more power is the recent comment by UK Prime Minster David Cameron regarding encrypted communication; 

"Are we going to allow a means of communications which it simply isn't possible to read? My answer to that question is: 'No, we must not."

He is pushing for legislation where Internet communication companies like WhatsApp, Snapchat and iMessage are required to provide governments a back-door to their servers or else they will be banned in the UK. To me this sounds a lot like Big Brother and the Inner Party speaking. 


Was the Brotherhood real or was it another tool invented by the Inner Party?

Winston developed doubts about the legitimacy of the power held by the Inner Party and its monopoly on truth largely due to his work in the Ministry of Truth where he was tasked in re-writting history for the Inner Party. His exposure to the Inner Party's manipulation of the truth made him doubt the legitimacy of the party's claims. He started asking more questions about the propaganda he constantly heard on the Telescreen and he started getting more interested in the revolution being fought by a mysterious group called the Brotherhood and its leader Emmanuel Goldstein. 

Winston's belief in the existence of the Brotherhood and Goldstein grew even more when he was given an opportunity to be part of the revolution when he met O'Brien. O'Brien was a member of the Inner Party who claimed to be part of the Brotherhood. It was O'Brien who gave Winston a copy of the book The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism - a book supposedly written by Emmanuel Goldstein and contains the philosophy of the Brotherhood and its revolution. Later on it was revealed that O'Brien was actually a member of the Thought Police and he arrests Winston to be cured. 

Winston was subjected to intense torture from O'Brien during his captivity. During one of their torture sessions O'Brien reveals to Winston that the The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, the book considered to be the bible of the Brotherhood, was a product of the Inner Party. It was also revealed that O'Brien was part of a Thought Police program where they pose as revolutionary sympathizer in order to lure thought criminals into exposing themselves. Winston asked O'Brien if the Book was true but O'Brien never really gives him a clear answer which caused a lot of confusion for Winston.

Throughout the whole book Winston never really meets anyone else from the Brotherhood aside from O'Brien. Orwell also does not introduce any other character in the book who was a confirmed member of the Brotherhood. This also makes me question the existence of the Brotherhood and its Revolution. The way O'Brien explained the Inner Party's strategy made sense and it made it sound like a very effective program to weed out dissent. However when one looks at O'Brien's explanation in the context of doublethink, his claim about the Brotherhood gets a lot more suspect. Here is how the book describes doublethink;

"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy,..."

O'Brien is a loyal member of the Inner Party and it does not make him exempt or immune to the influence of doublethink. Doublethink was a way for Big Brother to maintain influence over everyone in Oceania and this includes members of the Inner party. In fact I would argue that those in the Inner party are the ones most brainwashed by Big Brother and are more adept at doublethink. With this in mind I was left confused and uncertain about the true existence of the Brotherhood and I believe Winston was struggling with this confusion too. This confusion and uncertainty I believe was the key in breaking him during his torture and interrogation. Yes it was fear that pushed him over the edge but it was this uncertainty about the existence of a revolution he firmly believed in that made him break. 

This uncertainty really highlights the corrupting power of pervasive and massive surveillance. When everyone is being watched by the government, everybody starts hiding their dissent from the government. When everyone starts hiding their dissent from the government it normalizes the abuse and control of the government. The natural human spirit to be free and to fight against tyranny and abuse start to feel alone and lonely as less and less people speak out against the government. This vicious cycle keeps spiralling out of control until we find ourselves in a very dark place. A place where we fear the thought of dissent itself because we feel alone in our thoughts. 

This book reinforced my belief that in order for us to be truly free we have to oppose any kind of dragnet and suspicion-less surveillance by the government. We should not allow ourselves to be ruled by suspicion and fear and we should never let government tell us that freedom is the price to pay for our collective security.

If you are interested in reading this book check out this offer from Amazon.