The Thing about Dystopias in 1984.

Have you read the classic by George Orwell — 1984?
I recently did. What a book it is.
Not just because of the effortless writing. But the depiction of the dystopia is mesmerizing.
And that is NOT in an uplifting manner.
1984 goes into the distant future where the world has changed dramatically. For the worse. Or better if you happen to be a ambitious politician. This book was published in 1949, so 1984 was still a distant dream.
If you haven’t read the book —I urge you to read it.
The world is dominated by a “Party” which has absolute control over every sphere of public life. The “Party” is spearheaded by a towering leader named “Big Brother”.
This menacing, moustached leader is present everywhere, looking over the city — watching your every move. There are telescreens occupying every corner of life including your living room.
Anyone who wishes to express their individuality — something like disagreement with the party or falling in love — is a crime. The act of thinking about committing a crime is a crime aptly called ‘Thought Crime’. If you have the guts to flout the party, you will be thrown in jail, tortured and converted. And then they will, sooner or later — vaporize you.

They decide the Do’s and Don’ts of a citizen. You are supposed to react how they want you to react. Even if the party alters the inviolable past and deceives your senses. They will go and change historical events and publish it as truth.
And so the people are supposed to buy that. Yes, buy brazen lies and be loyal to the party. This concept is described as ‘double think’. You are able to accept what you can see and feel and simultaneously believe it isn’t true. Why?
Because the party said so and that is the ultimate truth.
So, are the predictions relevant? Yes surely. However, reading the book made me more aware of how parties everywhere influence people.
Politicians and their parties indulge in doublespeak. Doublespeak is what it sounds like: language that is deliberately ambiguous to distort or disguise the truth. They do this a lot specially to cover up problems with their party, and it’s quite normal.
This is not Orwellian, because the Party regularly committed the unthinkable. They declared the event never happened after altering every evidence of it. They were talking about it the previous day. But today, it never happened. It is distinct from just distortion.
Reading and imagining this bleak world was terrifying. I’ve read reviews that praise the book for its relevance. It was written in 1948.
It’s 2018 and it still sends a chill down your spine.
The environment in which this book was written was starkly different. Orwell took inspiration from the totalitarians regime of the day. Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Both were brutal, stopping at nothing to achieve absolute control over their population.
A particular line comes up in the book called the 2 + 2 = 5. Two plus Two equals 4 but the party can make you believe its 5 or even both at the same time. This concept seems to be a reference from Stalin’s slogan.
2+2=5 was meant to be a rallying cry to indicate that the goals of the 5-year plan have been achieved in 4 years. Plans of rapid industrialization and collectivization of agriculture were undertaken with stiff targets given. If the managers couldn’t meet them, they were harshly punished. Of course, the slogan spoke nothing of the body count — the process caused a famine. Millions of people died due to starvation.

The slogan is used in multiple manners in other references.
2+2=4 is logically true. It is a trivial, obvious truth. But in the eyes of the party, it is malleable. For their purpose, it can equal 3 or anything they wish. As long as people accept whatever they state, they will dominate them totally.
This is what it actually means. Any fact overturned by a dogma and accepted as truth.
That is how these regimes exercise control over information.
So, 1984 reads like a grave warning. Is it really something to be worried about?
George Orwell wrote this classic in a time when there was no Internet, smartphones or fax. People exchanged letters, watched TV and listened to radio for news. Amidst this slow and sure cycle, totalitarianism was able to control countries. There were no personalized sources and communities flocked to channels with views that echoed their own. It was far easier to influence whole populations than it is today.
Now we have the Internet and cheap broadband. And endless web sites, blogs and Youtube channels with a whole variety of opinions. It is virtually impossible to censor everything. Someone will point out the ridiculousness of your statements, criticize your position and launch investigations.
There are authoritarian regimes which somehow have grabbed power. It is nothing of the sort that 1984 predicted will happen.
Better not get paranoid yet.
But it’s important to stay awake and aware.
