Don’t even get me started on the three-word slogans…

A couple of weeks ago I, probably unwisely, picked up my copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four and decided now was a good time to reaquaint myself.

At the time I had no idea — having not read it for some years — just how relevant, how terrifyingly relevant, it is.

Written in 1949, George Orwell’s masterpiece and the fictional realm he created is uncanny in its resemblance to today’s world.

On the great unwashed masses

There are many many parts to this book that have resonated with me (the three word slogans I won’t even go into as clearly this was Cummings’ playbook) but it was the next passage and the one after that made me put ‘pen to paper’.

p72: “If there is hope… it lies in the Proles.”

(The proles — proletariat — are the great unwashed masses.)

Winston (the hero of the novel) recalls a memory of a time when he heard a great noise of hundreds of voices yelling and he’d thought it was the start of an uprising, a rebellion, an insurrection or revolution perhaps. It turned out to be a row among the housewives of the neighbourhood over some pots and pans but he laments: “Why was it that they could never shout like that about anything that mattered?”

“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”

In reality very little was known about the proles. It was not necessary to know much. So long as they continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance.

Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that seemd natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern.

Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbours, films, football, beer and above all gambling filled up the horizon of their minds.

… no attempt was made to indoctrinate them with the ideology of the Party. It was not desirable that the proles should have strong political feelings. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations.

Even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere because, being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty grievances. The larger evils escaped their notice.

And this is my problem. These are my neighbours, my friends too in some cases. Can I see something they cannot see? Do they see it but turn a blind eye or do they simply refuse to see it because of the pain and distress it would inevitably cause?

At the moment this country — and several other parts of the world too — seem to be living in some horrifying dystopia where politicians don’t lie about little things (which some would say is par for the course) but they lie about big things and much worse.

They break the law: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/sep/24/boris-johnsons-suspension-of-parliament-unlawful-supreme-court-rules-prorogue

They believe themselves above the rules they set out for others: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52811168

They hand out taxpayers money to their friends: https://www.ft.com/content/93036435-45df-4883-b5d3-86ab96ca20e8

And I wonder when it’s going to stop. But then I realise that I’ve been asking that for some time. And it’s just got worse and worse.

So how bad does it have to get before I am able — or sufficently incensed — to stand up and do something real to stop it?

I think it is easily bad enough already. But, like many, I have children, two jobs, a home — responsibilities I cannot walk away from. But this morning I said to myself that if I am still needed for the revolution of the future and my kids are safely independent from me, I will give up everything to overthrow the regime we are currently living under.

I pray that I never have to.