Transcription
The book I want to talk to you about today is much more than just a book. Imagine a country where there is absolute rule, a country that has constant enemies inside, outside, and somewhere in between. Where the image of the enemy suddenly changes, sometimes one side is a threat, sometimes another. Where freedom is only an illusion, where truth disappears, and history is written and erased as needed. Where you are forced to close your eyes to the reality of what happened in the past, because a different reality is now declared as truth. A country obsessed with vengeful propaganda and endless dogmas, where your every word, movement, and even thought can be used against you. And no, this is not the country you are thinking of; this is the regime described in Orwell's work.
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Nineteen Eighty-Four is a work that aimed to criticize the Soviet Union. However, this book is not just some dystopian fairy tale about the dangers of the past. Nineteen Eighty-Four reflects our current reality more clearly than it appears at first glance. This book is the clearest anatomy of a totalitarian regime, and it seems to warn us, to warn us, and to teach us what happens when power is concentrated in one hand. Now, before I continue, I want to ask you a question, the answer to which you will probably be able to give at the end of the video. In your opinion, how far are we from the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four?
Chapter One: Fear and Power
In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, there are only three countries that divide world power: Eurasia, East Asia, and Oceania. The plot unfolds precisely in Oceania, a country that is constantly mired in war with the other two states. In this country of ours, a dictatorial regime reigns, and the ruling Party exercises absolute control over the thoughts, actions, and perception of reality of its citizens. The leader of the Party, Big Brother, is everywhere and in everything. There are four ministries in the country: the Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Love, and the Ministry of Plenty. The names seem beautiful and noble, but reality paints a completely different picture, and you will soon understand why. The main character, Winston Smith, works in the Ministry of Truth. His main duty is to correct historical records and bring them into line with the Party's propaganda. Winston Smith's life embodies the life of a person controlled by a totalitarian state, filled with fear, monotony, and hopelessness. His living environment is as cold and desolate as Oceania itself. Here, in every house, even in the smallest apartment, there is a telescreen that monitors the population 24 hours a day and broadcasts the Party's propaganda. It cannot be turned off. Everywhere on the streets, there are portraits and slogans of Big Brother. He seems to be everywhere and sees everything. Consequently, people live in constant fear. It is precisely this fear that is the main weapon the Party uses to maintain its power. People are afraid that their every step is being watched, especially since there are no laws at all in this state. However, people are still punished for specific actions. This is one of the most dangerous and paradoxical aspects of this totalitarian system. Here, everything is simultaneously permitted and forbidden. This uncertainty ultimately causes fear and caution in people. Citizens should even be afraid of their own thoughts. The Party punishes not actions, but thoughts. Yes, you heard correctly, thoughts. The most striking example of this uncertainty is the so-called thoughtcrime. Thoughtcrime does not require any action or external evidence; it is enough for a person to think something that is against the Party. In Oceania, there are no laws. Those thoughts and actions that would lead to inevitable death if discovered are never formally forbidden, and all these endless purges, arrests, torture, and disappearances are not actually in response to committed crimes, but simply the elimination of individuals who could commit a crime in the future. I repeat, who could commit a crime in the future. When people do not know why they will be punished, they are forced to constantly control their behavior and thoughts. However, the fear of arrest is not the only thing people are afraid of. The country is also gripped by the fear of war. It often happens that enemies bomb parts of the city, and the Party convinces people that only they can defend the country. In addition, there is an internal enemy, a man named Goldstein, the leader of the Party's resistance movement. Goldstein represents all the ideas that the Party opposes. He has also written a book that exposes the regime, and reading it is a crime. For all this, he is declared an enemy, and every day, during the Two Minutes Hate, people vent their negativity towards him on screen. This, of course, happens to control people's minds and instill loyalty in them. However, our main hero understands all this very well. One fine day, he will start writing a diary. This diary represents his secret protest against the totalitarian regime. Although writing a diary is not forbidden, Winston realizes that he may be arrested for what he writes in the diary. On one page of this diary, we read a phrase written repeatedly in large letters: DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER. For the Thought Police, it does not matter at all what Winston wrote, or if he wrote anything at all. He committed a crime before he even picked up a pen, simply by thinking it. That is why he already knew that one day all this would be discovered and he would definitely be arrested. Along with all this, physical and emotional connection between people was also forbidden in Oceania. Emotions that might arise from physical connection are directed at a specific individual, not at Big Brother. You can probably guess what kind of fear people lived in in this country. It is precisely in this way, by using the image of the enemy, constant surveillance and control, and the destruction of love and human connections, that the Party sowed fear, which became the eternal source of their power.
Chapter Two: He Who Controls the Past Controls the Future; He Who Controls the Present Controls the Past.
One fine day, the Party announces that the chocolate ration has been reduced from 30g to 20g. However, later, another announcement is made, this time the chocolate ration has been increased from 20g to 25g. This brings joy to the people, as if the ration has not decreased but increased. Citizens are told that the Party has benevolently increased the amount of chocolate, but no one remembers that it was previously reduced. In reality, everyone knew the truth well, but where did this knowledge exist? Not in any newspaper, not in any record, only in people's minds, which were precisely controlled by the Party. The Party constantly changed past records to align with its current propaganda. Winston's activities in the Ministry of Truth also served this purpose: to erase unnecessary people from the past, to make changes in records, and to rewrite history as the Party saw fit. If the Party pointed to the past and said that such and such an event never happened, then it would be clear to everyone that it never happened. The Party itself invented figures of enemies and threats to strengthen fear among the people. It even dropped bombs on its own cities. It is also a question whether the other two states, Eurasia and East Asia, even existed. Oceania sometimes declared war on one, sometimes on the other. These changes happened so quickly that the Party's propaganda would immediately change all official documents, posters, and information to bring them into line with the new reality. There is a scene in the book where Winston and other colleagues suddenly receive an order that the enemy has changed. Because of this, they must quickly change all information as if the new situation had always been true. If an old banner or propaganda material remained where the old enemy was depicted, the Party declared it sabotage, and of course, they convinced people that any different information was part of the propaganda of the internal enemy, Goldstein. By the way, even Goldstein himself is a person created by the Party. His book, which exposes this regime, is also written by the Party. Goldstein, as the Party's invented enemy, is a unique weapon for strengthening fear. Goldstein was declared the cause of any problem or mistake, which allowed the Party to divert people's attention and create a sense of conflict. That is, in reality, there was no resistance movement, no opposition. All of this was a big lie created to control people's minds. It is in this way that the Party manipulated people's thoughts, changed the past, and thus changed the future. Citizens were simultaneously convinced of two contradictory ideas, and yes, both were true because the Party said so.
Chapter Three: War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.
Here, it was necessary to simultaneously know and not know, to be aware of the whole truth and at the same time to speak a blatant lie, to hold two mutually exclusive views with equal conviction, to use logic against itself, to reject morality and at the same time to strive for it, to believe that democracy is impossible, but at the same time that the Party is the guardian of democracy, to forget what you were asked to forget, then to recall it from memory when needed, and finally to erase it from memory again. Above all, to direct your thought process against yourself. This is how you should be perfected. In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, there is such a concept as "doublethink." Doublethink has a special symbolic and functional significance in the book. It is an artificial language developed by the Party, closely linked to total control, and is one of the Party's important weapons with which the regime limits the thinking and freedom of citizens. Doublethink is constructed in such a way that it is impossible to express free or critical thought through it. In this language, all words are of black or white tonality, meaning they are either positive or negative, which makes it difficult to take a neutral or critical position. You are either one or the other, but in the end, both are the same. After all, what is the justification for the existence of a word that only opposes other words? A word contains its opposite within itself. For example, let's take the word "good." If you have such a word, why do you need the word "bad"? "Ungood" would be the same, and even better, because it is precisely the opposite of what we would say about "bad." This passage, in my opinion, once again shows us that there is actually no opposition here. "Good" and "ungood" are different words, but in reality, both have the same root, meaning both are the same garbage. For example, let's take Goldstein. He fights the Party, he is depicted in the book as an opponent of the Party, but in the end, this opposition is also an illusion created by the Party, which, on the one hand, helps the regime to identify and punish its opponents, and on the other hand, sows fear and loyalty in people. This is precisely the purpose of doublethink: that people do not have the words or concepts with which to formulate anti-Party thoughts. Now tell me, how can people form resistance in this country when they are convinced that this resistance already exists in the form of Goldstein? Doublethink allows the Party to define reality. Words that do not exist cannot describe an alternative reality. Consequently, the reality that the Party creates becomes the only one. Do you remember the four ministries that exist in the country? The Ministry of Peace governs not peace, but constant war. The Ministry of Truth is engaged in rewriting history and propaganda. The Ministry of Love, despite its beautiful name, beats and tortures citizens. And the Ministry of Plenty artificially creates economic deficit and hunger. Thus, each institution serves the deformation of reality. This system is not only a cynical manifestation of power but also a form of doublethink. The names of the ministries and their functions are exercises in doublethink for the people. Orwell's genius lies in the fact that these four ministries combine the four mechanisms held by totalitarianism, which work together to subdue, confuse, and completely subordinate the individual and society. The ultimate goal of doublethink is to completely eliminate thoughtcrime. The beauty of doublethink is that committing thoughtcrime will become impossible because there will be no words for it. And here, words should not be taken literally. Now judge for yourself: how far are we from the reality where Big Brother is always watching us and our every step is in doubt? Where the past is erased, and the future is in the hands of the Party. Where every piece of evidence buried in the abyss of memory has disappeared so that the Ministry of Truth can create a new reality. Are we really so far from the time when critical thinking is declared a thoughtcrime, and you are blamed only for what you think? When did people lose the ability to dare to say that two plus two equals four, when the Party says that two plus two equals five? How can I believe that war is peace, slavery is freedom, and ignorance is strength? Are we really so far from the time when we throw two minutes of hate for more than two minutes of negativity at those called "enemies"? We are told that there is no truth beyond the Party, that our identity, thoughts, and past belong to the Party. We live in a circus where we are both the actors and the audience. Today, we already see how dissenting opinions are erased, how facts are rewritten, how we are unconditionally asked to believe what is radically different from reality. Sometimes it is already difficult to distinguish where reality ends and where a beautiful lie begins. Everything around – ideologies, relationships, histories, and contradictions – is part of a great illusion. Yes, words can be replaced by their opposites, but where does truth remain if, in the end, all words grow from the same root? And indeed, the most dangerous thing is that this illusion has already become part of our daily existence. Orwell warned us, but now you must decide: is this simply the fruit of fear, or have we already taken a step towards the world from which we are trying to escape, with the whispered words of a frightened Winston Smith: "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four."