It's just... the book is hypocritical It's ironically a great description of itself The phenomenon where, once you become a True Believer, the more absurd the propaganda is the more violently you rush to defend it The way even the mildest expression of doubt triggers rage
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Laurent_Weppe
THAT'S HOW PEOPLE FEEL ABOUT 1984 ITSELF When you go "Okay this is silly though This wouldn't happen, you know this wouldn't happen right" The book is well written enough that it triggers this emotional "THAT'S WHAT A SHEEP WOULD SAY, THAT'S HOW THEY GET YOU" reaction
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Laurent_Weppe
It's something Orwell, ironically, experienced himself He was an early victim of the Red Scare "I hear commies hate basic human decency so much they just set piles of babies on fire I hear during the Spanish Civil War the countryside was littered with baby fires"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Laurent_Weppe
And his weary reaction is just "Why do you think that happened, where did you see this happen, who witnessed it" "Well that's the kind of thing commies do, and this barrage of deflecting questions is the kind of thing commies say"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Laurent_Weppe
Like he knew that was bullshit, he'd had it done to him, *as a communist* And then 1984 becomes this Red Scare bludgeon on a grand scale "This is what commies want They want you to hate your parents, to hate sex and pleasure, to believe 2+2=5, to get your face eaten by rats"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Laurent_Weppe
And if you're like "That's not true, that's not what *actually happens* in totalitarian countries, even at its worst Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia or Maoist China didn't actually look like this, this is a cartoon" "...That's what a brainwashed Party member would say"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Laurent_Weppe
Welp Can't interrupt the Two Minutes' Hate, right Goldstein - er, I mean Big Brother - and the Brotherhood - er, I mean the Party - are everywhere Hiding in every dark corner, infiltrating every office and factory, responsible for all harm that comes to the world
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Laurent_Weppe
So fucking depressing And people just straight up say "Oh well this is a book about communism and Stalin MAYBE it's also about Nazi Germany" Pluck the damn log out of your own eye How is the most relevant thing it's about, to you and your students, not McCarthyism
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Laurent_Weppe
But it's the McCarthyists who wanted this book taught! Who used it as a justification for suppressing leftist ideas! We had to censor and surveil people so we didn't wake up in a society of censorship and surveillance! Ffffffffff
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Laurent_Weppe
Well, now I need a five hour nap. That was exhausting.
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Laurent_Weppe
At least it was also interesting and of course speaks to the fact that I was called a sheep for believing the govt when they said not to wear masks (I was a sheep, and wrong) and also, by a different group, for wearing a mask now. No matter what, the narrative can fit an agenda.
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And, like you note, authority can be the official leader or the leader of your "resistance" and you're basically left to wonder if anything is true and if any decisions we make are authentic, etc.
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