Notes on 1984 by George Orwell

I finally got around to reading the classic 1984 by George Orwell (I like to mix it up between technical/programming books, fiction, and non-fiction/business/design books). This book was a chilling account of a future, uber-totalitarian world. Reading it shortly after Atlas Shrugged, I actually found a lot in common between the two texts. In Ayn Rand's book, the heroes overtly portray the virtues of selfishness, individualism, and capitalism, whereas in George Orwell's book, he teaches the same lessons by contrast: the heroes can only try to subvert the system, and the reader sees the horrors that happen when the opposite (collectivism and loss of rationality) takes over.

Some of the descriptions in the book were so graphic and emotional that I had a hard time at first figuring out whether the author was serious (a fan of collectivism) or not; I was pretty sure he wasn't, but he made the point very clear of how a mass of people could be brainwashed into accepting it and losing individual rationality. I also wondered whether there were elements of satire and commentary on the political environment of his time or whether he was just commenting on a (bad) possible future.

Part 1
Ch 1

• Tele screen two way watching and showing
  
• Big brother is watching
  
• Party political
  
• Police patrol
  
• Thought police
  
• War is piece
  
• Freedom is slavery
  
• Ignorance is strength
  


• Ministry of truth: news
  
• Ministry of peace: war
  
• Ministry of plenty: economics
  
• Ministry of love: law and order
  


• Victory gin
  
• Victory cigs
  


• Propaganda
  
• Politics in all
  
• Buying book, pen, writing in diary a crime
  
• No one knows exact date
  
• How do you communicate with the future?
  


• Thought crime
  
• Revolutionary
  

Ch 2

• Mother taken away
  

Ch 3

• No externally recorded facts
  
• Who controls the past controls the future
  
• Who controls the present controls the past
  
• Countries at war
  

Ch 4

• Continuous alteration of past news and records so predictions match reality
  
• Data created, deleted, or falsified
  
• Can create dead men but not living ones
  
• Create facts in past
  
• Oceania against Eurasia 
  

Ch 5

• comrades
  
• Destruction of words to make common language
  
• Newspeak vs oldspeak
  
• Narrows the range of thought by narrowing vocabulary
  
• Rations of all goods
  

Ch 6

• Chastity brainwashing
  

Ch 7

• Anti-capitalist lies
  
• Fossils of evidence of falsification by government
  
• Past changes continuously
  

Ch 8

• Rebellion by buying antiques
  
• Writing in diary
  

Part 2

Ch 1

• Met girl
  
• In love
  
• All has to be secret
  

Ch 2

• Secret meeting
  

Ch 3

• Break the rules and trying to get away
  
• Animal impulses dangerous to party
  
• To escape focus on life not death
  

Ch 4

• Secret room
  

Ch 5

• Hate week
  
• Political power through fear
  
• War as sham
  
• No one remembers
  
• Lies becoming truths
  

Ch 6

• Thoughts to words to action
  

Ch 7

• They can't change you on inside if you hold on to feelings
  

Ch 8

• Distributed mesh brotherhood of revolutionaries
  

Ch 9

• Starts reading Goldstein book
  
• Long speech in book (like John Galt's!)
  

Goldstein Book Ch 1: ignorance is strength

• High, mid, low classes tied to part of political party
  
• no deviation of opinion
  
• Contradictions and denial of reality
  

Goldstein Book Ch 3: war is peace

• Super states permanently at war
  
• War effort increases production for no reason
  
• Inner party vs outer party vs prols
  
• Extinguishing independent thought
  
• Only science for weapons
  
• No contact with foreigners or languages
  
• Denial of reality
  


• Knowing truth vs untruth
  

Ch 10

• Caught by thought police
  

Part 3

Ch 1

• Thought crime prison
  

Ch 2

• Brotherhood guy double crossed him
  
• Past exists only in past and memories
  
• Nature of reality as objective
  
• Brainwashing
  

Ch 3

• Power is aim of party
  
• Reality inside the mind
  
• We make the laws of nature
  
• Power over men instead of things
  
• Winston hero of man
  

Ch 4

• Mind converted and deceived but heart not
  

Ch 5

• Room 101
  
• Learn to love big brother
  
• Give up heart 
  

Ch 6

• Both lovers betrayed each other
  
• Only care about self
  
• Won victory over himself by killing brain and loving big brother
  

Epilogue

• Engsoc: English socialism
  
• Newspeak
  
• heretical thought unthinkable in the language
  
• A words just for plain life
  
• B words specifically for political ideas
  
• Impossible to translate old books into newspeak
  

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