Is 1984 even more relevant today?

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” - Winston Smith (1984 by George Orwell)

I am finally getting around to reading 1984. I remember hearing about it when in high school. I was a junior in 1984. For some reason though, I never read it. Last week I installed Mobipocket on my Centro and in browsing feedbooks.com for something to read, this one jumped out at me so I decided it was time.

I am just past chapter seven at this point, but with each passing chaper I am finding how more and more of what Winston is experiencing is reflected in what I see happening now… in general and in some ways specifically with the current Presidential campaigning.

If you have not read the book, then I doubt I could summarize it concisely enough to post here, besides, if you have not, you probably should. What I will do for now is try to touch upon a few things that have struck a chord with me as I have been reading.

Senator Clinton was recently recounting a trip to Bosnia she took back in 1996 when she was First Lady. During a speech at George Washington University on March 17, she said the following as part of a prepared speech;

“I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.” [hillaryclinton.com]

Just after the speech, during a new conference, when further asked about the situation, she said this;

“Everyone else was told to sit on their bulletproof vests,” Clinton said. “And we came in, in an evasive maneuver. … There was no greeting ceremony, and we basically were told to run to our cars. Now, that is what happened.” [newsvine.com]

What was striking me about this as I was reading was the ease with which ‘The Party’ in the book would revise history. Winston struggles with this as he is writing in his diary.

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right. The obvious, the silly, and the true had got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall towards the earth’s centre.

It was this struggle that led to him writing the quote I opened this posting with. But what does it mean, even today, when we are bombarded by those who are constantly trying to get us to forget what was in favor of what they want us to remember? How do we keep our wits about us to win the debate against those who try for force ‘the truth’ down our throats? Truths that we know are false.

Senator Clinton has since come out and said she ‘misspoke’ during her speech, and that it was a ‘minor blip’. In some respects, I could almost believe this. But those comments were not just some off-the-cuff statements made to the media while rushing between campaign stops. This was a prepared speech. On top of that, by all accounts, this is the first time she has made such a ‘blip’, even though she has recounted this story many times, even including it in her book, Living History, where she wrote;

“Due to reports of snipers in the hills around the airstrip, we were forced to cut short an event on the tarmac with local children, though we did have time to meet them and their teachers and to learn how hard they had worked during the war to continue classes in any safe spot they could find,” [usatoday.com]

I do not believe for a minute that what she said in her speech was an unintentional blip, blunder or slip. I may not want to see her in the White House, but she is not a stupid woman. Maybe many other things, but not stupid. That entire speech was about bolstering her image in regards to international policy, and I believe this was part of polishing that image to show she could ‘take the heat’, so to speak.

Instances such as this speech, even the debate over global warming are issues that keep creeping in to my mind as I get deeper in to this book… and it is becoming almost chilling. In 1984 The Party has some rather elaborate mechanisms in place used to actually rewrite all records of any specific incident, and the scary part is how easy it is for it to start. You just start by telling your version of an event, and if nobody notices or cares enough to call you on it, then you have taken the first step to re-writing history.

I can not help but wonder, if I had read this book 20 years ago, would I notice these things as I do now… ?

More thoughts to come.

Photo Credit: The Library of Congress