I Love 1984

Does everyone have a favourite book? A book that they read and re-read year in year out? That is spiritually and emotionally nourishing and rewarding, and that provides fresh insights every time into both oneself and the world around? In news that will come as a surprise to precisely no one who knows me and my endlessly paranoid mindset, my favourite book of all time is 1984 by George Orwell. And yesterday, I finished reading it for something like the 13th or 14th time. I've read it once a year since I was a precocious and arrogant teen. It remained my annual treat as I grew into a pretentious and arrogant student. My development into a pompous and arrogant twentysomething was accompanied with readings once every 12 months. And now, as a presumptuous and arrogant thirtysomething, it's still my bible when it comes to informing my thought processes. But is the book, written as a post-war warning about a totalitarian menace long since discredited and dismantled, and set in a future that is now our past, still in any way relevant? Or is my constant referral and re-referral to it just so much pseudo-highbrow headwank?

For those (hopefully few) of you who don't know, 1984 concerns itself with the life and thoughts of Winston Smith. He is a citizen of Oceana, a totalitarian state ruled by The Party. He lives in London, the chief city of what is now referred to as Airstrip One. A lot of language now in everyday use has its roots in 1984. Big Brother, for example, was created by Orwell (along with the phrase "Big Brother is watching you"). The Thought Police receive their debut mention in terminology in 1984. Somewhat more worryingly, the idea of a controlled reality created by a select few and imposed on the majority was discussed in unflinching detail here. Why disturbing? Well, compare the words of O'Brien in 1984;

"O'Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. 'We control reality because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation -- anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it."


With the comment that a senior aide to that lovable scamp Dubya made to Ron Suskind, a journalist for the New York Times, in 2004;

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

To me, those words read as something alarmingly similar to the triumphant insanity that is shat into Winston Smith's brain by O'Brien This alone would seem to serve as proof of the relevance of 1984; that those in power can say, without a hint of irony or self awareness, things that Orwell wrote pretty much for the shock value of having an authoritarian figure say them. Does that mean then that we are living in a similar state to the bleak hell that Winston is eventually destroyed by?

Another major feature of the society that Winston Smith finds himself in is the lack of accountability, and the habitual falsification of figures to prove that those in power are unerringly correct about everything at all times. Indeed, Winston's job is (despite his growing hatred of The Party, and the almost unconscious desire to rebel) to falsify information that has appeared in the media. Now, I will freely admit that we are perhaps not quite at that stage yet; in 1984, there is no one to offer up any opposition to or disbelief of the figures that are continually changed. In our society, whenever the Government produces figures about immigration to say that hardly anyone is entering the country, it can be guaranteed that some faintly right-wing group will produce utterly different figures proving that our nation is overrun with dirty foreigners who want to have sex with our roadsigns. Whenever a New Labour drone tries to triumphantly claim that the NHS is in great shape, we invariably hear from the Unions that the NHS is being stripped and raped by profit-hungry Public-Private partnerships.

So we can see that our leaders don't quite get away with making up bullshit figures and facts to prove that they're perfect. However…am I really the only person who is disturbed at how often they still try? We have become so used to those in government telling us lies, damned lies, and statistics that we are now conditioned to treat whatever pronouncement made in much the same way as one would treat a crippled Jimmy Carr; something to be laughed at and then ignored. Although the methods used to achieve it differ from those in 1984, I would argue that our government has gone out of their way to ensure that they don't have to answer to those who elect them. The continual use of smoke and mirrors to present their figures in such a way to make them seem correct, and our subsequent lack of interest in what we assume to be their lies has already meant that they can do pretty much what they want because we just don't care, and don't feel we can make a difference. You don't agree? Look at what happens on those rare occasions that an issue arises that does excite public interest. The Iraq war was opposed by hundreds of thousands of people, and there were protests all over the country. And what happened? They were given a collective pat on the head, told they didn't understand, and why didn't they all go home and leave the important work to the grownups?

And what has this lack of accountability done to the government? Well…ask yourself this; when was the last time that you can think of something done by the government that wasn't either a knee-jerk reaction pandering to a frightened and ignorant middle England, or something that was an out-and-out attempt to enrich themselves? I genuinely can only think of one piece of legislation in the last 5 years that was for the benefit of the majority rather than something to curtail freedoms and benefit the ruling class (for the record, it's the increase in Statutory Maternity and Adoption Pay periods; new mothers and those who adopt now get an extra 3 paid months off). Any government elected in this country seems to now have the maintenance of their power as their first priority, and they have no fear of answering to an electorate in their efforts to do so.

However, there is more to the continual relevance of 1984 than mere commentary on what power does to the soul of those who wield it. For instance, the book makes reference to the media (such as it is). It talks of tatty tabloids pumping out sport, lottery numbers, and gossip for the benefit of the Proles. The Proles are the lumpen majority of people who are kept docile and satisfied by a conscious effort to keep them ignorant. I would contend that this view of the Proles is exactly the same view that most in the mainstream media have of their audience. How else can one explain the continued existence of Heat magazine? If ever there was a magazine that encouraged its readership to become obsessed with banalities and nonentities then this is it.

My hatred for scandal rags aside, the implicit suggestion in 1984 is that the media are complicit in keeping the Party in power. Whilst the Party falsify the information that really does matter a damn (news of the war, political figures, statistics on everything from immigration to production), the media ensure that this falsification goes pretty much unnoticed anyway, because it bombards it's readership with fluff (at this point I have to make clear that I swear I'm not as humourless as this probably makes me sound. As my vast expenditure on ladmags will prove, I think there is a place in the media for fluff. It's just that…well, does it have to be the dominating and overriding concern?).

As an example of this, I'd return to opposition to the Iraq war for a moment; I've already mentioned the strength of Anti-War feeling, and how completely it has been ignored by the government. Yet we do have anti-war elements in the mainstream media, and they will all go out of their way to report on anything that would bolster their cause, right? Right?

Then how come in Chicago a gentleman named Malachi Ritscher was, on 3rd November, able to douse himself in petrol and turn himself into a patiently-sitting human fireball in protest against the war? You've not heard of him? Not really surprising; you'll have to scour the media for mention of his name (even in supposedly Anti-War media outlets such as the BBC, the Guardian, the Mirror etc). However, if you want to find out who was evicted from I'm a Celebrity last night, or if you're keen to know some of the details behind Pamela Anderson's divorce from Kid Rock…well, it's not exactly difficult to come by that information, is it?

The final point I'd like to make in this increasingly frantic and mildly outlandish attempt to make everyone as paranoid as I am concerns the fate of Winston Smith himself. I've talked of how parallels can be drawn between the corrupting influence of power as described in 1984, along with the role of the media in keeping the Proles in their rightful place as doughfaced, mouthbreathing brain donors who clap with glee at the sight of a Z-list celebrity being humiliated on live TV. But what about the parallels between the actual human beings in 1984 and the likes of you and I today?

At the end of 1984, Winston has been utterly broken by the tortures inflicted on him. However, although the Party are triumphant, the only thing they have achieved is complete dominance over a washed out old drunk, a man who obliterates himself with gin and who sits unthinkingly and unquestioningly at his unimportant desk in an unimportant job doing unimportant things to keep the despair at bay. It's quite difficult not to recognise a lot of ourselves in that if we're completely honest. There is a reason that we in the UK drink more than pretty much any other nation, and take more drugs than almost every other country. It's because we rarely feel in charge of our own destinies, or that we have any effective control over our own lives. Successive governments since the 60s have certainly succeeded in making themselves less accountable, but it's been at the expense of the gradual debasement of the very people they want to have power over. More than any other comparison between 1984 and today’s world, I find that the one between the fate of Winston and our own fates in a world that has done it's best to remove all hope that we can ever make a difference to be the most pertinent and the most frightening.

Anyway, if I've depressed the hell out of you with this rant then please console yourself with a thought; it'll be at least a year before I read 1984 again, which means 12 more months until I inflict something like this one you.