You are not Winston. You are not in the Party. You are a prole. The party doesn’t give a shit about what you think, do or say. The only exception is if you pose a meaningful threat to the Party. In which case, the Republican-Democrat Party, the Capitalist Party of the United States of America will threaten you, disappear you, etc, etc, just like they have done to every threat in American history.
The criticisms should be exactly the same for private sector but it has the aesthetics of public sector so that’s what centrists/conservatives latch onto.
but then they want to ban anyone that says its cool to kill slave owners. smh what happened to your frozen fruits centrists?
if the centrists and conservatives really believed those things were “bad apples” and not frothing at the bit to do those things themselves, why do they not believe in taking any measures to curtail those actions?
I can imagine someone equating proper pronoun use to Newspeak. “They’re changing language so that it will have NO MEANING!”
I agree with most of your points, but the proles aren’t portrayed like you say they are. They are repeatedly emphasises to be the only hope. Their poverty, stupidity, etc, is created by the Party.
1984 is not political theory. 1984 is fiction.
GOOD post
you might like Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov
I recommend showing this to anyone beginning to question Orwell.
Asimov rules and the Foundation series is one of the best sci-fi series to introduce non-liberal worldviews to someone with.
It gives a fairly easy to understand look at different eras of civilization encapsulated by different periods after the death of a rome-esque civilization.
It’s softer than explaining like imperialism and its reverberating effects to someone and is easy to read since it’s just good fucking sci-fi.
I’m not saying it as a replacement to like theory and education, but it’s good for weening someone off stuff like Orwell and Rowling.
Sending a reader down the Asimov path helps open the mind to non-liberal views of society.
I’ve thought about this recently vis a vis my mother, a fairly high up person in the ultimate PMC institution, the IMF. See, in 1984, there is some time dedicated to the fact that Party members like Winston live intentionally austere and unpleasant lives. They are watched all the time, wear awful party uniforms, go to constant meetings, and work grinding desk jobs. The proles live in poverty, but their lives are less rigidly controlled. I think the American PMC class is really approaching Party levels. When I think of my mother and her regular 15-hour workdays, how the IMF literally has a tracker on their employee’s iPhones and sends them warnings based on where they go, how they have this overbearing company culture of always being on your email and ready for another meeting; well, I think of Winston
I hate 1984. The only good part is the appendix because Orwell couldn’t fit his rapey misogynist tropes there. Not to be a snowflake but high-schoolers shouldn’t have to read a character having a r*pe fantasy about a woman he doesn’t know.
