The most telling part of “1984″ is the appendix

http://qz.com/95696/you-probably-didnt-read-the-most-telling-part-of-orwells-1984-the-appendix/

by hermanywong • 13 years ago

214 136 13 years ago

minikites• 13 years ago

I don't get the fascination with mapping 1984 onto current events when Brave New World always seems to fit so much better: http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2010/07/amusi...

Sure, we're all talking about PRISM now but give it a month or two.

dangoldin• 13 years ago

How about Fahrenheit 451 or We? Almost every dystopian novel shares something with the world.

minimaxir• 13 years ago

Fahrenheit 451 is primarily about censorship of information, although government surveillance plays a small part.

derleth4• 13 years ago

Fahrenheit 451 is primarily about self-censorship, born of a desire to avoid causing offense.

Or, if you believe Bradbury, it's about Television Is Evil and nothing else:

http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenh...

Fahrenheit 451 is not, he says firmly, a story about government censorship. Nor was it a response to Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose investigations had already instilled fear and stifled the creativity of thousands.

[snip]

Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature.
“Television gives you the dates of Napoleon, but not who he was,” Bradbury says, summarizing TV’s content with a single word that he spits out as an epithet: “factoids.” He says this while sitting in a room dominated by a gigantic flat-panel television broadcasting the Fox News Channel, muted, factoids crawling across the bottom of the screen.

stplsd3• 13 years ago

Because we live int this shiny Brave New World in sea of irrelevance and nobody knows/cares about We.

And because BNW is clearly plagiarism of We, that adds another quite ironic dimension.

devindotcom2• 13 years ago

I don't really see how BNW maps better. 1984 was about surveillance, oppression, and central control of narrative of life. BNW is about the choice to surrender to comfort - certainly applicable in this day and age, but not onto current events, I'd say.

mindslight• 13 years ago

The two themes are not incompatible. Brave New World is about the carrot, 1984 is about the stick. In 1984, the upper classes which controlled big brother would've been true believers who led comfortable lives and had better things to do than mind the surveillance. In BNW, those who refused the distractions and instead put their energy into undermining the system would've been discovered and remedied somehow.

run4yourlives• 13 years ago

I'm pretty sure it is because of two reasons:

1. More people have read 1984 than have read Brave New World.

2. Brave New World is so ridiculously accurate that most people are too afraid to think about what this means.

We fear 1984 while living (for the most part, the only real difference is that we don't have, or need, a direct controlling force) Brave New World.

widdershins• 13 years ago

Brave New World is a much more ambiguous dystopia. Many people could read it and say, "Hey, everyone's happy with their lot. They are conditioned to love their work and the entertainment's great. What's the problem?". That's a much more subtle kind of situation to grok.

weinzierl• 13 years ago

    "We fear *1984* while living *Brave New World*".
    -- run4yourlives 
    %

went straight to my fortune cookie quote file.

megablast• 13 years ago

1984 has world wide surveillance and control through the media. Can you not see why people are using these reasons to bring up 1984?

afterburner• 13 years ago

From what I remember, Brave New World centers largely around the use of drugs to regulate the populace, so while it might fit the debate with current day mood stabilizers, it's nowhere near as much about surveillance and a police state. It's like the opposite, regulation through conditioned happiness rather than suffocating oppression, with a similar loss of liberty. So the surveillance part resonates with PRISM.

__--__• 13 years ago

Is there any reason we can't be living in both? They both lump everybody on the planet into one of two categories - rule through fear or rule through pleasure. Both are distractions that are equally effective, for different people. Some of us are living 1984 AND Brave New World, some just one or the other and some are living something else entirely.

fennecfoxen• 13 years ago

I'm personally favoring things going more like a slow-motion version of C. S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength (the interesting half of which is what Orwell kinda ripped off writing 1984 - it's sort of a spiritual prequel).

To wit: launching a grand patriotic endeavor with much fanfare and overwhelming public support (exploiting a sense of national unity and purpose fostered by the recent war), having that endeavor set up a secret parallel justice system answerable to nobody, indefinite detentions...

oh, and the ensuing clashes between the wronged and the merely indifferent... the lowly everyday employees in the terrible scheme for world domination who wish they could get out of it, or do something about it, but fear for their lives and their futures...

(Postscript. Then there's a bunch of Christian allegory tacked on inelegantly, which, as Orwell pointed out, undermines the dystopian horror - c.f. http://www.lewisiana.nl/orwell/ )

ghc• 13 years ago

The reason That Hideous Strength is a better blueprint for what's happening than Brave New World or 1984 is that its focus is on the intersection of communication, government and human behavior, rather than on a dystopian future enabled by new technology. Instead of trying to paint a picture of the future it deftly holds a mirror up in front of us, one that reflects just as well in any era.

Perceval• 13 years ago

Orwell owes more to James Burnham's non-fiction book The Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World. Orwell's pamphlet-within-a-book in 1984 "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism" is more or less a condensed version of Burnham's thesis. Orwell even reviewed Burnham's book when it came out: http://www.george-orwell.org/James_Burnham_and_the_Manageria...

mtgx• 13 years ago

I think so far 1984 is a much better match. Not perfect, but so far better than BNW.

tpurves• 13 years ago

How about Player Piano? In my mind this book really speaks to the root cause of what's causing divides and imbalances in the modern world, in a way hackernewsians might relate to:

"The story takes place in a near-future society that is almost totally mechanized, eliminating the need for human laborers. This widespread mechanization creates conflict between the wealthy upper class—the engineers and managers who keep society running—and the lower class, whose skills and purpose in society have been replaced by machines. " -wikipedia

goostavos2• 13 years ago

Perhaps because the world is not a hard dichotomy and people can see elements of both stories in current events..? Add on top of that the current popular story of persistent surveillance via the NSA, and it's not huge leap to get from NSA to Big Brother to 1984.

grey-area• 13 years ago

There are lots of similarities with 1984:

Eternal war against an ill-defined enemy

The perversion of everyday language in order to hide the truth

Rewriting history frequently so that what becomes important is allegiance to the party rather than the truth (first Obama opposed mass surveillance, now he's for it).

The impression of ubiquitous surveillance, and the use of technology to control the masses, even if its not clear just now much there actually is (NSLs etc)

Two minutes hate, where hatred is channelled at an arbitrary, abstract enemy (talk radio)

Indefinite and secret detention, and of course torture

Information strictly controlled and the truth at a premium (this one is more like Kafka I guess)

I admit there are elements of Brave New World that fit very well too (particularly those highlighted in that cartoon), but lots of other predictions of 1984 do chime quite nicely with the current situation in the US (even if the society depicted is absolutely nothing like the current US in many ways).

baddox8• 13 years ago

I strongly disagree with this. 1984 fits much better and is much less far-fetched. The society in 1984 is very similar to real-world society at the time; the only real differences are the ubiquity of government propaganda, rationing of resources, the state-sanctioned class system, and telescreens, and even all of these are already present in lesser ways and could conceivably be intensified to 1984 levels in five or ten years. I frequently experience things that are virtually identical to events in 1984 (e.g. government lies that society immediately accepts, people regurgitating pro-government phrases that are hammered into children's brains in public school, justifications for war and militarism, demonization of political dissidents, the newly-prominent surveillance, etc.).

The society in A Brave New World is a dystopian science fiction fantasy world that is a far cry from any society that has ever existed.

I think both books are good and offer important warnings to society, but 1984 is simply a much more grounded and realistic view of a conceivable totalitarian state in the near future.

Nav_Panel• 13 years ago

The society in A Brave New World is a dystopian science fiction fantasy world that is a far cry from any society that has ever existed.

Could you justify this further? I'm curious as to your reasons for writing off Brave New World. I just recently finished it (I've read 1984 a few times already too), and I found Brave New World to resemble life in America a lot more than 1984 did, at least based on my personal experiences and not what I hear on the news. However, before I go and write up a bunch of stuff, I am interested in hearing your view.

rjzzleep• 13 years ago

it's probably because she is not completely inaccurate with her analysis. but that is also why the whole concept of peace in star trek was based on the fact that everyone was speaking one language, dressing one way etc. it took me over ten years after growing up with star trek to actually realize how poisonous those thoughts are.

I also counted the amount of cameras between green park station and victoria, just walking through the tube one day. I think the number was something around 30, but it's been a while.

duaneb• 13 years ago

They address different parts of society. I wouldn't say either is more or less likely as they could both end up being true or neither.

danso• 13 years ago

That's funny...the part about language and how it can be used to limit thought was the most memorable part of 1984 to me today (well, besides the rats at the end)...but I hadn't interpreted to be written from the perspective of someone in a post-Big Brother world.

discostrings5• 13 years ago

It was one of the most memorable parts for me, too, and I don't remember interpreting it that way.

I just pulled out my copy of 1984 to check the article's interpretation. Through most of the appendix, the tense is a bit ambiguous, but there's a line that seems to indicate Ingsoc didn't prevail in the book's world: "It was expected that Newspeak would have finally superseded Oldspeak (or Standard English, as we should call it) by about the year 2050."

acqq2• 13 years ago

Because it's not. The interpretations of Ms. Frost are wrong. The narrator talks to the reader reading it in 1949, using the language from 1949 but talking about the future as if he had a vision of it. That's it. He never claims that Oldspeak won or anything. He had a vision of future in some particular moment, 1984 and explains the plans of the ruling party regarding the Newspeak as of 1984.

discostrings5• 13 years ago

I thought that before re-reading the appendix. But take a look at this line: "It was expected that Newspeak would have finally superseded Oldspeak...by about the year 2050."

Why not just "It was expected that Newspeak would finally supersede Oldspeak..."? The author seems to go out of his way with the tense he uses to convey the future interpretation.

One could argue against the article writer's conclusion, but after re-reading the appendix, I think there's some compelling evidence for it.

EDIT: At least for the bit about it being written from an Ingsoc-free future.

ctdonath• 13 years ago

Finally! Someone other than myself recognizes there is an appendix to 1984, and that it (the appendix) is an instruction manual.

derleth4• 13 years ago

No, it's about what Orwell saw around him in the UK in the late 1940s, working in a government propaganda office.

derleth4• 13 years ago

“The whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought.” It will render dissent “literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”

If this worked, we would have neither the word 'antibiotic' nor the drugs we classify under that name, because we didn't have the word until after we invented the substances.

The Sapir-Worf Hypothesis is interesting but Newspeak takes it too far and turns it into self-parody; the fact languages can develop new words, and new meanings for old words, gives the lie to the whole idea of taking it that far.

devindotcom2• 13 years ago

This seems to me a rather pedantic objection to a moral structure for a theoretical language... it's worth noting that both "anti" and "bio" existed as parts of language before antibiotics. The word antibiotic has a general meaning because it is made from known parts, and was used as the best fit for something which was discovered.

Also worth noting is that scientific research is heavily controlled in the world of 1984 for the reason that it brings novelty, advancement, and change of thought patterns.

derleth4• 13 years ago

It's not pedantic if it goes to the very heart of the concept.

Also worth noting is that scientific research is heavily controlled in the world of 1984 for the reason that it brings novelty, advancement, and change of thought patterns.

It was heavily controlled in the USSR, too, but that didn't prevent the Gulag Archipelago novels from being written, for example.

return0• 13 years ago

I just hope everyone learns their lesson, starts being careful about the digital trace they leave behind, and that years ahead the current Big Brother has been reduced to civil servants still miserably analyzing the bulk of data from the 2002-2013 era.

wtf_shawn• 13 years ago

When I was in high school my teacher made us read this portion of the novel. I appreciated it after and took away many of the same points you made here. At this time there was no issues with NSA to relate to though so thank you for this comparison.

dllthomas• 13 years ago

"At this time there was no issues with NSA to relate to though so thank you for this comparison."

When were you in high school?

mindcrime• 13 years ago

Heh, good question. The NSA, and it's predecessors (SIS, etc.) have been snooping since the days of the telegraph!

tomasien2• 13 years ago

1984 and other works of science fiction were always used to represent these psdeu-truths to me growing up. It would range from why socialism was bad, to why America was good, to why reading was important, etc. etc. But it's just a book, it's just a series of thoughts put into a really compelling story, but that doesn't mean it's true, probable, or even possible.

It's a reference to our collective consciousness and contains some potentially key insights, but whenever something REMINDS us of 1984 we're all still like "HOLY SHIT IT'S LIKE 1984 THAT MEANS BIG BROTHER IS TOTALLY GONNA HAPPEN!"

It doesn't mean that at all. This Snowden business is massively disturbing, but our ability to collectively disseminate and digest information about it is encouraging, something that wasn't remotely possible in 1984. People make jokes about their tweets being censored by PRISM, and they're funny because it's not happening.

Freedom of speech is so important.

Edit: not saying a 1984esque future is impossible, just that the book being written doesn't make it any more or less possible.

jonnathanson• 13 years ago

"Edit: not saying a 1984esque future is impossible, just that the book being written doesn't make it any more or less possible."

The book is hyperbolically over-referenced in pop culture, in internet arguments, in OpEd pages, and so forth. I'll grant you that. Chances are, PRISM is not the beginning of a steady march toward a fascist police state. Far from it.

But that's not the point of this article. The author isn't claiming "a 1984esque future" is in the cards. Rather, she's drawing comparisons between a particular aspect of Orwell's concept -- that of linguistic manipulation for political ends -- and the tactics being used in actual politics today. The playbooks are similar.

The fact is, we've sacrificed quite a few of our freedoms in recent decades in service of a vaguely defined "War on Terror," and it's highly disconcerting. It doesn't mean we're ready to put Big Brother in office, and drastic hyperbole to that effect is indeed silly. But it does testify to the power of language to bend a population toward an agenda.

tomasien2• 13 years ago

Agreed. I agree with the thesis of the article whole-heartedly. I'm adding some context of my thoughts, not a counter-argument. That the meat of the book, not the "words and the ability to think will keep us free" message the underlies it is annoying to me, and it's been used that way my entire life.

dkl• 13 years ago

Chances are, PRISM is not the beginning of a steady march toward a fascist police state.

But it is certainly a precondition. Just like "free speech zones" after the Iraq war and during the run up to the 2004 presidential election.

Let's not kid ourselves: we won't awaken in a fascist state. It will be like the frog boiled alive, the ratchet will be turned ever so slowly, but the march is definitely in the direction of fascism. How long will it take? Will it ever happen? We can't say now, but the last 12 years have had an alarming number of movements in the wrong direction.

bediger4000• 13 years ago

You're wrong, Snobby Quartz Writer Snob. That appendix is my favorite part of the book, and it's responsible to a large degree for my sensitivity to corporation's attempts to change language (Me: I like a cheese burger and a small fry. McD's counterguy: cheeseburger and regular fries. How irritating.)

But worse than the English-teacher-vogueing, is that the snobbery gets in the way of a really good point.

gohrt2• 13 years ago

You actually wanted just one fry?

hudibras• 13 years ago

The title is total linkbait, but very well done. I'd be willing to bet that 90% of 1984 readers go on to read the appendix, so Quartz's title immediately draws in everybody who did.

jcl• 13 years ago

I must admit, I always interpreted the appendix to be a note from Orwell to the reader, not a document from a later date within the novel's world.

asimeqi• 13 years ago

Fun fact. Bjarne Stroustrup indicates the appendix of "1984" as a source for an interpretation of the name C++. http://www.stroustrup.com/bs_faq.html#name

mpyne5• 13 years ago

Just came across it in the Fourth Edition of the C++ Programming Language book that was just released, in fact.

straight_talk• 13 years ago

I guess the HN admins have read that chapter very carefully. Anybody who dares to express an opinion against the elite here is immediately hell banned.

afandian• 13 years ago

I'm amazed that Quartz is still in business. Whilst on a desktop it's just horrible to use, on my Android it flat out doesn't work. The comment thing covers the whole screen and I can't see any content. How difficult is it to make a website that works on modern browsers? I wanted to read this, it looks interesting.

brady747• 13 years ago

Can't speak to android but I love their site on my desktop and love the articles I have read there so far. So, I guess I might be the reason why they are still in business.

usea• 13 years ago

Somehow the site manages to break almost every method of scrolling in opera. I can't use the scroll wheel on the mouse, nor arrow keys, nor page down, nor spacebar. I have to scroll by grabbing the scroll bar.

munger• 13 years ago

Wow yeah, firefox here on a desktop - they moved the browser's scroll bar from the far right to the right of their content (the middle of a 1920px wide browser). I was clicking where the scroll bar would be to try to scroll - and what that did was for every click I made (on a blank background), when I clicked "back" to get back to HN after I read it, it cycled me through as many different stories as erroneous clicks I made before allowing me to back all the way to HN. (basically spamming 3 different stories I didn't want to read instead of "back" button functionality)

Terrible UX.

Edit: additional paranthetical

rdl2• 13 years ago

I love their content. So far, it browses fine for me in chrome and on iOS. I'd be fine with a simpler presentation, though.

It is certainly no OnSwipe, crasher of browsers.

noyesno• 13 years ago

See also: "Politics and the English Language", Orwell, 1946. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

dhughes• 13 years ago

Has anyone ever noticed Scientology tends to use a type of Newspeak?

A lot of acronyms and initialisms and other obscure, the article states the appendix of 1984 “The whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought.” It will render dissent “literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”

I wonder if old L Ron was a fan of 1984?

goostavos2• 13 years ago

Do you have any examples of newspeak in their literature?

I had a cousin "fall prey" to the organization. I don't know what went on internally, but he was forced into, what I colloquially call a re-education camp (I'm not sure what they called it), for two weeks. They took his phone away and had him break all contact with the outside world, even with his girlfriend at the time. 2 Weeks later, he pops up and says he's moving to California to be a part of the church.

It was pretty creepy to be honest.

Point being, I find the mechanics of the church to be interesting.

jmduke• 13 years ago

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.

~ Neil Postman

baddox8• 13 years ago

It's a popular quote, but not one I find very accurate according to my interpretations of the two books. For example, in 1984 the government did a lot of censorship, but it's also true that there were very few people who would want to know the truth. This is why Winston is so alone. Presumably the censorship efforts would no longer be necessary if the government's goals of spreading Newspeak and eliminating the few remaining Winstons were accomplished. 1984 also featured a population "reduced to passivity and egotism" and truth was also drowned in a sea of irrelevance (namely, the persistant and perhaps partially fictional global war). A few of the differences are real, but most of the main points are false dichotomies.

jccc• 13 years ago

But these are closer to end results. The contrasts being drawn between Orwell and Huxley are about the means toward those results -- fear, force, violence vs. drowning entertainment, drugs and distraction.

I think the point is that if we can recognize which is which we're better able to resist going down a dark road.

irickt• 13 years ago

In the East poets are sometimes thrown in prison – a sort of compliment, since it suggests the author has done something at least as real as theft or rape or revolution. Here poets are allowed to publish anything at all – a sort of punishment in effect, prison without walls, without echoes, without palpable existence – shadow-realm of print, or of abstract thought-world without risk or eros. ... America has freedom of speech because all words are considered equally vapid. — Hakim Bey http://hermetic.com/bey/taz1.html

disgruntledphd2• 13 years ago

Thanks for reminding me about Hakim Bey. Fun fact: (may not actually be a fact) Richard Stallman and the whole idea of copyleft, is borrowed from the works of Hakim Bey (which is where I read about it first).

InclinedPlane2• 13 years ago

I highly recommend people who find 1984 and Brave New World interesting also read Jules Verne's lost novel "Paris in the 20th Century". It's dystopian in an entirely different way. It talks not about the extremes of state-based censorship from 1984 or of the indifference of the blissed-out citizens of Brave New World but the far more realistic likelihood of rampant self-censorship. Of culture which willingly bends itself to what amounts to the same thing as oppression.

sho_hn5• 13 years ago

From the plot summary on Wikipedia: "Michel discusses women with Quinsonnas, who sadly explains that there are no such things as women anymore; from mindless, repetitive factory work and careful attention to finance and science, most women have become cynical, ugly, neurotic career women."

Is the novel really that off-putting or is the character holding this view an anomaly? From what I can find in reviews, it sounds like the book predicts women will become better educated and career-oriented, and depicts them as acting and appearing masculine as a result. If so that reads to me as pretty shallow dystopia - a lack of understanding of human nature and a lack of imagination (as evidenced by simplistic views on gendered traits) do not compelling speculative fiction make

Doesn't make me have the intellectual hots for the work.

skrebbel• 13 years ago

Before the PRISM leak, I hadn't realized that both Orwell and Huxley could very well turn out to be right.

maxerickson• 13 years ago

They're both books about vast conspiracies that control the masses. Reality is worse than that, there is no conspiracy, just a bunch of well meaning people that think they are doing the right thing.

Of course, reality is also better than that. Many of the people that would ostensibly be equivalent to the party members in 1984 are the ones that are making noise about the dangers of what the government is doing. And the fascist hell hole aspects of Brave New World are certainly not our everyday (society more or less treats excessive use of things like alcohol and marijuana as serious problems. More so for individuals with higher levels of civic engagement...).

cousin_it• 13 years ago

Neil Postman misses the point by a mile. BNW and 1984 were effectively written about different countries, it's just a curious accident that both are set in London. BNW is a first-world dystopia, 1984 is a second-world dystopia. (While Huxley was living in Hollywood, Orwell was fighting in the Spanish civil war for the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification.) Go visit the Checkpoint Charlie museum in East Berlin and then tell me 1984 is "less true". It fucking already happened there. Just like BNW is starting to happen in Western countries now.

iterationx• 13 years ago

People love this quote and the comic that goes with it, but its much deeper than most are willing to take it. For the intrepid I recommend: "Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation & Political Control"

tstactplsignore• 13 years ago

I have always thought that the most enlightening aspect of 1984 is its commentary on the ephemeral nature of rationality, and it disappoints me how often overlooked this theme throughout the novel is. There is an overwhelmingly mainstream misconception that our modern western use of rationality and empiricism is inherent to human thought- in reality, it isn't even universally applicable to our own "enlightened society".

One of the climaxes of the novel is when Winston finally believes that 2+2=5, and he does so because Big Brother says it is so. In general, we tend to believe that belief is something which must inherently rise out of empiricism; all of us reading this believe 2+2=4 because we have seen and understood the mathematical and logical reasoning behind this. However, the spectrum from daily emotional irrationality to politics to religion tells us that human beings do not base a large number of their beliefs in empirical reasoning, but in something unscientific entirely.

Thus, the most important part, in my opinion, of 1984 is not about authoritarian censorship or surveillance, but rather the creation of a delusional society. This is also, even in light of the recent scandals, far more applicable to our society today, when modern conservativism is both willing to be ignorant of scientific and social evidence, and willing to lie to the degree that they have believed their own lies.

baddox8• 13 years ago

I'm surprised at the claim that many readers skip the appendix. Is that really the case? I read 1984 in 7th grade, and the appendix was one of my favorite (or at least most memorable) parts. It's like the maps in some publications of medieval fantasy novels—I would be very surprised if a significant number of readers skipped it.

The most telling part of “1984″ is the appendix

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