Nineteen Eighty Four

Title: 1984
Original Title: Nineteen Eighty Four
Author: George Orwell
Publisher:  Signet Classics (1950)
ISBN: 9780451524935
Pages: 328 pages
Original Published Date: 1949
Literary Awards: Prometheus Hall of Fame Award (1984), Locus Award Nominee for All-Time Best Science Fiction Novel (1987), 13th on Modern Libraries Hundred Best Novels of the Twentieth Century

From Synopsis:

Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the all-seeing telescreens and the watchful eye of Big Brother, symbolic head of the Party. In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a secret love affair with a fellow-worker Julia, but soon discovers the true price of freedom is betrayal.

Imagine that the world we lived was divided into 3 major ruler, all totalitarian. As long as we remembered, we believed, we always been at war, with one or the other. There were no such thing as freedom, not to act, not to lived, not to loved, not to speak, not even to think. All were directed from the Party for the sake of the Party.

WAR IS PEACE
War is not struggling for power. The wars were for cheap labour (and get this, Indonesia Archipelago was one of the slaves factory!!!). But then again, the labour of the exploited peoples round the Equator is not really necessary to the world’s economy.... (but) to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living. (p 238-239). When people had very scarce to eat, they will had to depended to the Party, and had no time to think other things. By this term, order and peace could be achieved.

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
Human being is mortal. To achieve to most highest peak of freedom of the being, which is immortality, every member of the party must become one with the Party. Think as one. Do as one. (This part actually reminds me a lot of collectivism of The Borg from Star Trek Next Generation)

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
To think and do as one with the Party, every member should neutralized by DOUBLETHINK method, which was to accept everything "they told us to believe" is true, without any doubt, without realizing any inconsistency. History was being up to dated every time. People existence was being decided on the event.

All of these dogma should be accepted as the way of life. If you did not, then you'll need to be "cured" in the Ministry of Love!

***

Just when I thought Animal Farm was amusingly disturbing, 1984 exceeded it by miles.

Published in 1949, after the World War II and the beginning of Industrial Era, this novel was -and still is- a visionary writ tings. Sit on the other side of the continuum of Utopia, 1984 beseech to see the worst of ideology, and the last chapter of Part 2 was really the backbone of the whole story. In this chapter readers would see how Orwell placed his fear and given us how we could be at that place. I don't think that we could ever be there (with the Internet, information highway an all, history updated is rather impossible), but the vision of that place, that kind of reign, should be known to be avoided.

I would like to think that this novel was a different kind of sequel to the Animal Farm. In AF, Orwell pointed how power could be slowly corrupted to benefit oneself, in this novel, it showed how to maintain that power among some minority that were "more equal than the others". Some characters also similar, like the face of public enemy, Snowball in AF equal to Goldstein in 1984 or Napoleon in AF to Big Brother in 1984. But other that that, this novel, or should I say this essay, is much more brave, disturbing and visionary to me.

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/170958152