Re: 1984 by George Orwell - a discussion of Part 1
Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2018 7:22 am
In Chapter Seven, the diary continues, opening with the famous line, if there is hope it lies in the proles. In this chapter Orwell expresses his Etonian disdain for the working class as beneath suspicion, his disgust at their inability to think: “their discontent led nowhere, because being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances.” His description of popular culture is “Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbours, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling, filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.”
Winston Smith goes on to ruminate on the reality of the past. He finds evidence of Party lying, but immediately destroys the old document out of fear, since the erasure must be forgotten. He tells of his recollections of the Revolution and its aftermath, which are clearly modelled exactly on the Russian experience, with only Big Brother/Stalin surviving from the early days, and all the other revolutionaries being purged and executed.
Musing on philosophy, Winston asks what difference there is between believing that the earth goes around the sun and believing the past cannot be changed. On that logic, he concludes that the Party must eventually decide that two plus two equals five: “Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense.”
Therefore Winston sets forth an important axiom:
The irony here is that Engels cited this line of Hegel in the Anti-Duhring, but Stalin completely rejected it as a basis for political sedition.
Winston Smith goes on to ruminate on the reality of the past. He finds evidence of Party lying, but immediately destroys the old document out of fear, since the erasure must be forgotten. He tells of his recollections of the Revolution and its aftermath, which are clearly modelled exactly on the Russian experience, with only Big Brother/Stalin surviving from the early days, and all the other revolutionaries being purged and executed.
Musing on philosophy, Winston asks what difference there is between believing that the earth goes around the sun and believing the past cannot be changed. On that logic, he concludes that the Party must eventually decide that two plus two equals five: “Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense.”
Therefore Winston sets forth an important axiom:
This line echoes Hegel's axiom that freedom is the recognition of necessity. The axiomatic existence of mathematical logic has a compelling power, demanding consistency and coherence. The idea that we might be free to have our own private mathematics, or construct a system where numbers lack formal precision, involve a misunderstanding of the meaning of freedom. These ideas go back to Aristotle’s original logical axiom of identity and difference, that a thing is itself and not something else. Orwell is decrying epistemological relativism, the idea that truth can be constructed, and instead presenting the moral value of objective truth.Winston Smith wrote:Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
The irony here is that Engels cited this line of Hegel in the Anti-Duhring, but Stalin completely rejected it as a basis for political sedition.