"How many fingers am I holding up Winston?" The most chilling thing I have ever read. The truth brings pain to the body. The lie brings pain to the mind.
Read Fahrenheit 451. All books are illegal because the ideas they express make citizens uncomfortable with each other. Instead of constantly happy and non-rebellious. People have fast cars, Giant TVs, and a war is going on somewhere but no one cares about it. All books are burned by firemen and the people owning them arrested. Guy Montag is a book burning firemen who starts to read them illegally because he met a neighbor Clarisse McClellan a free thinker who everyone thinks is crazy. There is also Mildred Guy's wife who is vain and accepts society. There is Faber a retired English teacher from before books were banned who helps Guy recreate a bible. And Beatty Guys boss the fire chief and ideal citizen but alludes to he used to read books.
Covena White fahrenheit 451 is a good book but isn't "that great". It's a nice concept but is way too weird and I found the central character hard to follow.... (That's only my opinion though)
George Orwell’s 1984 is not centric to the “prediction” of the use of cameras. It’s a dystopian view of the political use of camera monitoring and secretive surveillance.
As a non-native English speaker I was struggling to understand a word “Orwellian”. It is finally clear, thanks. (The whole channel is a treat to my mind, actually).
One thing Orwell couldn't predict is that everyone would sudden have a camera in their own pocket that we could use to record not only our fellow citizens but also those in power. We have the ability to root out corruption and injustice by turning the camera back around at the oppressors.
When I first read 1984, my twelfth grade mind was floored by the ending, but also super fascinated by the Appendix. I mean, I was so invested in the logic and possibility behind the concept of language governing thought. The Appendix stuck in my mind. Whenever someone would ask me about a book recommendation, I'd always end up gushing about 1984's Appendix. I acknowledge that, to most people, the Appendix was probably boring as hell, but 1984 was the first book -- actually, the first _thing_ -- that made me interested in the study of language. Nearly 3 years later, I've declared my Bachelor's in English language with an added minor for teaching ESL. It seems really weird that I have to thank a essay-type extra in a dystopian fiction written nearly 70 years ago for helping me along my post-secondary path.
For me, the best part of the book is when Winston talks about the middle class "if there is hope it lies in the proles... if they only could somehow become conscious of their own strength.. they could blow the party to pieces tomorrow morning". It is still the truth today, if the working class unite themselves, they could be invincible against any type of government but ironically they are the easiest to be manipulated. "all that was required from the proles was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter ratios" THAT IS TODAY! he also talks about sports, beer, heavy physical work to keep they controlled, false rumors... come on!
I was only just thinking of this the other day. And don't forget that the proles were also kept entertained by pornography , lotteries and formulated popular music.
For the sake of balance it was like that in 1949 when it was written. I totally agree with your point though, and just because it was bad then doesn't mean it's worse now. The worse part is people pay for their own brainwashing. That said it isnt quite so bad as the book after all this discussion is able to take place
Arguing with an Inner Party member is like playing chess with a Cardassian pigeon: No matter how good you play, it will rewrite the rules, define white as black and black as white, and strap your face to a cage filled with hungry rats.
I've always understood the term "Orwellian" to mean, "something that would happen in an Orwell novel", much like the term Kafkaesque, not necessarily to mean something that Orwell would support, in which case it is currently used accurately and correctly.
Not every human activity was completely monitored, the proles worked with minimal (comparitively) servalance which is one reason why Winston believed any rebellion must come from the proles.
Wow, such a great comment at the end when you say, “we are always watching each other”. So true that there is no big brother, but there never was. We are our own big brothers.
I really appreciate you made this review. I read the book after working in Beijing for a year and I recognised so much of what I have experienced there in the book. That scares me but I am happy there are many people who read this. I hope that more people will read the book because of this review!
Orwellian alludes to his creation not his ideals, Dickensian doesnt promote pickpocketing or Kafkaesque doesnt mean Kafka was pro transforming into an insect...
But does the appendix being written in English really hint that Orwell's future is a positive one? I think it's just because it's trying to teach us the reader Newspeak. We wouldn't understand the appendix if it was written entirely in Newspeak..
I am very grateful for this interpretation and analysis of "1984". So many years ago, I was taught in the first reading of this book that "1984" is a foreboding against tyranny and surveillance states; that it was about government gone mental. We have always been rather mistrusting of governments. I can understand but am also quite wary of the fear that a body of people, elected or otherwise, sanctified with up-keeping social justice through the monopoly on violence, imprisonment and social ostracism can suddenly and inexplicably abuse its unique privileges. For me, "1984" warns us more than about governments or oligarchies. Any society that uses public shaming, fear-mongering or thought-bandwagoning to encourage conformity over independent thinking, grooms, as an organism might its own constitution, the cells that will perpetuate it at the expense of perspicacity, justice, rationality, utility or humanity. Perhaps the world of "1984" has already materialised. Instead of the dystopian colourless world that we've been taught to dread, we are quite fond of our LED-lit, scented incense one, as might the myriads of Oceanians their own. We love it because it's not built by governments but by a collective of seemingly our own kinds. The methods of this collective is --- and requires, rather --- much less violence and re-writing of the facts; its plebeians are much more willingly subdued because they feed off of the base fear of loneliness and insignificance. The collective then builds a hierarchy for those who speak, think and act in a way that is supported by it. The misfits are exiled in mental space, cast out for rudely challenging the collective out of ignorance, or perhaps a serious lack of indoctrination. Do we even know who they are after so long being out of sight and out of mind? Am I not correct in saying this --- albeit hyperbolically darkly interpreted: the real big brothers are our inner fears to be forgotten or alone, built into the societal creature that eats our pictures, video and thoughts to excrete to us the affirmation of human connection and status? How numbs us to our own evils --- hides it or disguises it, even --- through the clever use of banners, flags, pithy sayings for slogans and pen-lined round logos framed by crossing arrows. The need for human connection frees us and oppresses us alike, no? Therefore, the real medicine against the "1984" dystopian evil is to not only detest unfettered powers of governments, but also to cultivate a muted insistence that we never put collectives or doctrines before people. Perhaps it requires a minute and constant application of judgment and introspection to make sure we do not succumb to the torture of wants that impel us, perhaps even with good intentions, to the inhumane.
Isn't he still vlogging every week? Maybe life just got in the way for anything else. Doesn't mean he's doing that because of reasonable content of 1984. There's a plentitude of other reasons to stay off 'social' media.
So, once many years ago I read this story, devoured it even though it was written in a tongue foreign to me. Since I owned a Penguin Literature edition of this book there were some questions written in the back, and today I found my answers scribbled on the blanc pages in the back at the age of 17. I never quite knew where to leave them, so I'll share one here maybe someone here enjoys it. Words are meant to be passed on, in my option. The question was "Shortly rewrite the plot of the last chapter of the novel to make it more hopeful." This was my answer, back in the day: At last, the day has approached. The waiter went up to him, his face plastered with boredom, and put a little note onto his table along with a full glass of victory gin. Winston didn’t even try to hide the note from the telescreen, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. The note read "Meeting Minitrue twenty sixteen" and so he went. Back in the days of hiding he would have tried to fight it. Now, the unfillable emptiness in his stomach made such thoughts impossible. The last human ate himself from the inside. As expected, he was called in and brought into the deepest depth of the building, to a long corridor. There it was. The act he had been waiting for. He couldn't feel anything though, only the emptiness inside of him. Unchangeably true. Winston was sent to the end by a voice behind him. Slowly he started walking towards the door at the end of the corridor, even though he was certain to never reach it. The high click of the gun being loaded came from behind his back. Always from behind, in the back of the head. Suddenly, an impression came to him of waling in the sunshine. He wasn't sure where it came from, but a memory formed in his mind where the emptiness had been. A false memory, that he was sure of, because nothing good like this could exist. Of a woman, holding a little girl in her arms, trying to save her from the world, from all harm. The memory was false, the moment had never happened, he was sure of it. Deep down, in the ministry of truth, he realised how little it mattered whether that memory was false. If he could think of it, here, in this place, it might be true someday. Sometime in the future, it could happen. From the empty spot in his stomach certainty arose. It was all the humanity Winston had left in him. Even though he knew 2+2 equalled 5, and he loved big brother, he knew if he could imagine woman loving her daughter, someone, somewhere could love. These thoughts in mind, the bullet reached his neck, snapped his spine and made his heart stop. He died, as all humans do, with no one even noticing his secret victory.
@@MostHighEmperorPalpatine It's an older username, but it checks out... also, you've had a failure of imagination concerning Internet-of-Things devices proliferating and being used for surveillance. Have you ever considered that in the present time these devices are "only" used to market to people by listening and observing consumers' personal lives, but that at a later time they might be used for other purposes, such as political surveillance? What happens when all of your products are listening and watching, your thermostat, your phone, your laptop, your tablet, your personal assistant (e.g. Alexa/Google Home), your toilet, etc... and the *detailed* collection of *your* *personal* *information* is sold to an authoritarian government, or some stranger who wants to harm you or your family? Governments change, and I'd say that since 2016 many highly-influential and powerful national governments have changed for the worse, with authoritarians and oligarchs becoming more powerful around the planet due to social media-based psychological warfare and influence campaigns fueling their steady rise to positions of control. Right now, *all* *of* *the* *data* that these IoT devices collect is but one court-order away from being willfully delivered from companies' databases into the archives of local and national agencies, under the flimsiest of pretenses of probable cause. People are already starting to self-censor their private conversations when speaking with friends and family about politics and other topics, and nervously joking about being "on a list" is widespread. Laws, and the people who write them, can change dramatically in a rather short period of time.
The horrifying part of all this, is I know people that have reacted just as if they have crimestop inside them, and they instantly lash out and reject what you say if you say something that is politically, not in reality, wrong according to the powers that be.
I read 1984 (and animal farm) when I was in highschool around 1977. At that time, there was NO WAY to read another persons mind. It was totaly impossible. Now, if I have complete access to your computer and mobile device, I know you and what you think better than you do. It is not just social media. The government now has the means as well as the motive and we are quickly working to provide the opportunity. The opportunity will be described as something that is needed to protect the citizens, and we will hand it over without a thought.
Love the tying back into the thematic lessons from Crash Course Psychology as well as those from the One Hundred Years of Solitude lecture. Oh and Chomsky/Pinker
I always thought Big Brother was the concept of the surveillance state not an actual dictator because besides the telescreens (which you have a good reason not to trust) the reader never really meets a character named Big Brother.
any human natural language takes ambiguity but mental computational language doesn't which is the mind uses language. mental computational language ain't English Japanese french or any language as these. C programming language is a language sort of mental computational language but not 100% pure. the mental language only allow you to use IF statement and THEN statement to organise Variable symbol that doesn't allow any double means happen.
I am curious as to who actually read the book as compared to those who think they read the book now that they have watched this. If you fall into the latter, I'd highly suggest you read the book before commenting below. Besides, it's a good read too.
Sanderson Girl By that I assume it completely glosses over Orwell being a Socialist who fought against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War in the 15th international brigade and praised the Commune in Catalonia for being a glimpse into the Socialist world to come, free from gender division, moneygrubbing, and wage slavery
Literally only just realised that you're not an omnipresent being that cranks out a thousand videos a month, you actually have a brother that looks a lot like you and does similar content. Can't believe I never noticed that before.
“The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.” ~Bukowski Orwell had also some extraordinary harsh comments against the lack of freedoms in the liberal "democracies" of his time.
The appendix is written in Standard English as an ironic nod to the standards of the day in which the author drew upon for inspiration. It's a critique & warning.
I think anyone who read this novel from “3d world” countries would have different perspective, for example I’m from Syria and a lot of the novel parts was a description of things I grow up with, even the torture part. Some part was like reading my country history. You’re lucky much more than you know.
I like how you kept it lite hearted while still warning anyone watching and unaware how scary close to reality in the U.S. and U.K. are ton1984. Didn't quite elaborate to clarify the smartphones camera and microphone never being able to be turned off, even if user thinks it is. You did however mention how it's within the truck terms and conditions of their stuff stated privacy settings we all have submitted, and volunteered any real privacy at all!
The simple answer is - we don't really know because we are now tens of thousands of years removed from when humans had no language. Not only is it hard for a language-user to imagine the world without language, but that world is so radically different from our own, that many of the things we spend our time thinking about aren't the same thoughts that our ancestors would have thought about. Their relationship to food, shelter, social structures, and intimacy would have been dramatically different than ours.
I´d argue that without words only instinct remains, but on the other hand, we do have the instinct to communicate so language can only be the consequence of this instinct.
But there must have existed times in the development in humanity where we had much fewer words than we have now, or even when the verbal tools we had lacked the fine grammar or structure we normally associate with language. We did not simply jump from having no words to having a fully-formed language overnight. How then did this transition between "instinct" and whatever else you consider our mind to be made up of happen?
I read this book in 2009, when smartphones weren't invented yet. It's crazy how much the comparison of the novel to present day has changed. Because today we do like to record our every movement or like it to be recorded.
I think it's safe to assume this wasn't recorded today while he was sick with the flu. Videos with this level of editing and animation take more than a day to produce.
SonofaGlitch ...so removing restrictions on giant, often monopolistic ISPs censoring and sabotaging traffic that they dislike increases competition and destroys monopolies. Riiiiight.
Unless of course the ISP's don't let you see information about their competitors that is positive, NN is just making essential and important parts of the internet free from abuse, it has nothing to do with competition which seems to be a buzzword that people like to use to justify ridiculous concepts. ALL utilities should be regulated by the government any discussion otherwise is just non-sense. Imagine if the power company could abuse you the way Internet Service Providers want to, that would be completely insane. "Oh you're using your electricity for a computer? you'll have to pay an extra $20 a month - not for the extra electricity your computer uses, just because we want to bill you more."
There's also the fact that there's a difference between "surveillance as a way to protect the populace" and "surveillance as a means of preventing dissent" and the line between those two can be difficult to find. Personally, I think surveillance in public places SHOULD be a thing (this includes shops and workplaces, even if the latter aren't technically public) but people's homes and other private locations are off-limits. In simple terms: if you can reasonably expect people to be fornicating there at some point, don't put a camera there. Surveilling purchases is more ambiguous. Here's a question for others to debate: should stores keep lists of who buys which products and allow the government to access those lists for security reasons? (Say someone buys products from multiple stores that together can be used to make a bomb, for example.)
Well we already do that to a certain extent. Take pseudoephedrine sales, for instance. Most states have a database that logs each purchase and automatically notifies the stores when to refuse a purchase because the buyer is already at their purchase limit for the day/month/year.
I think there is also such a system already in place for fertilizer (which can be used to make bombs). Possibly also for products that are the main ingredients in producing some illegal drugs. Though tracking all purchases would be a huge invasion of privacy because you can tell so much about someone from that - I heard a story about company predicting someone was pregnant based on changes to their buying patterns.
I wish there was a 3rd part of this as well, which would concern itself the corruption of individuals as well. As the book loosely alluded to stating the mere change of masters for proletarians and proved to be true in case of Winston and Julia agreeing to tumult every possible moral values there is and voluntary indulging into the sordid abyss, in exchange for gaining their personal goals. I was particularly feeling disturbed while reading this book because I was failing to find empathy for the main protagonists. In this case it seemed to me that both side of the coins were equally rotten with the difference of upper hand and authority in respective time. Needless to say the book itself was a psychological torture.
Brave New World, The Panopticon.... so many more to do, and really, so much deeper if you wanted it. Either way, you all rock, thank you so much for your hard work!
It's interesting to examine the similarities between the book and our reality today but I don't think it's particularly productive to assume that we live in a dystopia. The world isn't that easy to define and I think John did a good job making that clear. How it is and how it should be will always be two separate things for people who desperately want to see it like that. It's on us to make the world better that's true but I don't think that this can be achieved by only seeing what we don't want. We have to see our victories too and I agree with Orwell in that sense. Everything that supports better living conditions for people is ultimately worth striving for.
I really need to re-read 1984, i feel like the first time i read it (back in high school) that it was very much a surface reading, without much thought to the deeper philosophical questions like does language change the way we think.
My Utopian & Dystopian fiction class is literally reading "1984" right now, and this the best coincidence ever. Here's my question though, in "1984" and the other dystopia's we've read this semester (Huxley/Zamyatin's "We"/Gilman's "Herland"), a major conflict is how much technology is too much technology, and then the dystopia comes into play when that "too much" is reached. Is technology, or the abuse of it, really the only way a society could turn into a dystopia? A society set in nature, with limited or no technology, may be better in some ways, but couldn't it lead to just as many problems? Where are all the dystopias about nature?
I think post-apocalyptic stories covers the theme of "bad world without technology", if we look at potential societies. There tend to be the reverse of dystopian societies where instead of an oppressive society it's every person for themselves. I think a dystopian story by it's very nature requires a intricate society. You could however set a dystopian story in a much more primitive society. Maybe you build it around an oppressive religious institution, state or upper class. Spanish Inquisition, pre-revolutionary France, imperialist Russia (hey, go biblical and look at how the israelites were oppressed in Egypt). There are a lot of historical eras to draw parallels to.
Large-scale totalitarian dystopias require advanced technology because technology is power. For a small number of people to control a much larger number of people they need to have far more power than those other people and for that they need technology. However small-scale totalitarian dystopias, e.g. Lord of the Flies, don't require advanced technology because physical prowess can be sufficient power to control smaller numbers of people. Alternatively if you don't have advanced technology to allow the few to dominate the many you can have an extensive hierarchical power structure to do it but this usually leads to constant infighting amongst the upper eschelons - e.g. Catholic church in Dark Ages, or the nobility in medieval Europe (and/or the ancient world).
I think it is possible to have a dystopia without technology. For an example, simply take the rule of the famous Vlad Dracula, or the French Reign of Terror. For a fictional version look up the Falkovnia domain in the Ravenloft Dungeons and Dragons setting.
Crash course, make a video over the Net Neutrality situation! This will affect you and your fans! They need to know how to fight back and how it will affect them!
I think it might be a bit more complex than that under an authoritarian regime. When the state controls everything, even something as foundational as language rules, it can absolutely carry over into how people think and act.
any human natural language takes ambiguity but mental computational language doesn't which is the mind uses language. mental computational language ain't English Japanese french or any language as these. C programming language is a language sort of mental computational language but not 100% pure. the mental language only allow you to use IF statement and THEN statement to organise Variable symbol that doesn't allow any double means happen. the human natural language easy to create ambiguity, so the newspeak doesn't exist in reality.
Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook. All four need to be broken up for Anti-trust and Monopoly violations. Not to mention the monetization of personal data without explicit consent and or renumeration. Business & Contract Law 101.
@@harleyquinn5826 Google has already taken over a ton of the internet, that's like saying you can't criticize big brother if you live in their society (well I mean you can't but you get what I mean)
1984 is my favorite book and I liked this analysis. Just a thought: in the video, John undermines the idea that language drastically affects the ability of ones to think divergently. He says that Winston is broke in through torture and not through the limitation of language. I am not saying that John is wrong, but what if Winston is "special". Due to his job is more exposed than others to the incongruities of the regime, probably is more educated than the average and also needs a wider vocabulary for his job. Maybe his peculiar social stratus is more troublesome and maybe the regime keeps people like Winston under special control. What happens to him, including the torture seems to me an inefficient way to deal with widespread or common dissent. I find also interesting the use of "good instinct" as a tool to discern imposed reality. It feels like an echo of Brave New World or of the "noble savage" narrative, where "untamed" men are purer and more innocent than "civilized men".
this is one reason it matters what music you listen to, because you're essentially taking in someone's thoughts in the form of lyrics. Listen to good music by good writers.
Could you do an episode on Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury? I think it is a good novel, again, describing a dystopian universe, but where the one who is watching is, as you said, ourselves. I'd like very much to hear your ideas on that matter.
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"How many fingers am I holding up Winston?" The most chilling thing I have ever read. The truth brings pain to the body. The lie brings pain to the mind.
And it's not enough that you say the lie, you have to believe..
The only part I didn’t like was that Winston was defiant until they just shocked his brain with some random thing. It felt cheap.
God I’m scarred....
Mirsab Hasan - I kinda like the confusion they put around it, almost like he himself wasn’t completely sure of what had happened
I have a maths exam tomorrow and I'm watching a video on 1984. This is my life and these are my choices.
"What Orwell failed to predict is that we'd buy the cameras ourselves, and our biggest fear would be that nobody was watching."
Read Fahrenheit 451. All books are illegal because the ideas they express make citizens uncomfortable with each other. Instead of constantly happy and non-rebellious. People have fast cars, Giant TVs, and a war is going on somewhere but no one cares about it. All books are burned by firemen and the people owning them arrested.
Guy Montag is a book burning firemen who starts to read them illegally because he met a neighbor Clarisse McClellan a free thinker who everyone thinks is crazy. There is also Mildred Guy's wife who is vain and accepts society. There is Faber a retired English teacher from before books were banned who helps Guy recreate a bible. And Beatty Guys boss the fire chief and ideal citizen but alludes to he used to read books.
Covena White fahrenheit 451 is a good book but isn't "that great". It's a nice concept but is way too weird and I found the central character hard to follow....
(That's only my opinion though)
George Orwell’s 1984 is not centric to the “prediction” of the use of cameras. It’s a dystopian view of the political use of camera monitoring and secretive surveillance.
read the book- the brave new world.
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is more applicable to our society imho
"Big Brother never came. Instead we got Little Snitch." - Robin Williams, referring to the smartphone/social media revolution
So Robin Williams is saying it's more of Little Brothe,r or Randy from Recess
As a non-native English speaker I was struggling to understand a word “Orwellian”. It is finally clear, thanks. (The whole channel is a treat to my mind, actually).
One thing Orwell couldn't predict is that everyone would sudden have a camera in their own pocket that we could use to record not only our fellow citizens but also those in power. We have the ability to root out corruption and injustice by turning the camera back around at the oppressors.
When I first read 1984, my twelfth grade mind was floored by the ending, but also super fascinated by the Appendix. I mean, I was so invested in the logic and possibility behind the concept of language governing thought. The Appendix stuck in my mind. Whenever someone would ask me about a book recommendation, I'd always end up gushing about 1984's Appendix. I acknowledge that, to most people, the Appendix was probably boring as hell, but 1984 was the first book -- actually, the first _thing_ -- that made me interested in the study of language. Nearly 3 years later, I've declared my Bachelor's in English language with an added minor for teaching ESL. It seems really weird that I have to thank a essay-type extra in a dystopian fiction written nearly 70 years ago for helping me along my post-secondary path.
The appendix also has a pretty subtle detail of what might have happened after the year 1984: it describes NewSpeak in Standard English.
Right? Never really noticed that until I saw this vid, after reading the book. Real interesting stuff!
"That's not a thought crime...yet"
Those haunting words will soon come true
:(
and then trump tried to declare antifa a terrorist organization
For me, the best part of the book is when Winston talks about the middle class "if there is hope it lies in the proles... if they only could somehow become conscious of their own strength.. they could blow the party to pieces tomorrow morning". It is still the truth today, if the working class unite themselves, they could be invincible against any type of government but ironically they are the easiest to be manipulated. "all that was required from the proles was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter ratios" THAT IS TODAY! he also talks about sports, beer, heavy physical work to keep they controlled, false rumors... come on!
I was only just thinking of this the other day. And don't forget that the proles were also kept entertained by pornography , lotteries and formulated popular music.
For the sake of balance it was like that in 1949 when it was written. I totally agree with your point though, and just because it was bad then doesn't mean it's worse now. The worse part is people pay for their own brainwashing. That said it isnt quite so bad as the book after all this discussion is able to take place
Don't forget fake news!
What do you mean they are the easiest to be manipulated? The middle class has caused a bunch of civil wars we do step up but not when we're happy
@@kami9407 yeah but god damn what is needed to stop all the happiness?!
"Not since Dr. Frankenstein has someone so often been inappropriately alluded to"
Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita begs to differ.
haha omg yes!
How so?
Arguing with an Inner Party member is like playing chess with a Cardassian pigeon: No matter how good you play, it will rewrite the rules, define white as black and black as white, and strap your face to a cage filled with hungry rats.
Zogg from Betelgeuse make more videos please
+Zogg from Betelgeuse -- so a Cardassian pigeon, an Inner Party member and an Ayn Rand devotee all think the same way. Cool!
We need more of your videos. Please come back :)
I miss you so much
Thats what liberals want
I hope the NSA guy watching finds this entertaining
I hope so too.
Not entertaining, it's his instruction manual
I've always understood the term "Orwellian" to mean, "something that would happen in an Orwell novel", much like the term Kafkaesque, not necessarily to mean something that Orwell would support, in which case it is currently used accurately and correctly.
Not every human activity was completely monitored, the proles worked with minimal (comparitively) servalance which is one reason why Winston believed any rebellion must come from the proles.
Yet the proles were so indoctrinated that they wouldn't try to.
Wow, such a great comment at the end when you say, “we are always watching each other”. So true that there is no big brother, but there never was. We are our own big brothers.
I really appreciate you made this review. I read the book after working in Beijing for a year and I recognised so much of what I have experienced there in the book. That scares me but I am happy there are many people who read this. I hope that more people will read the book because of this review!
10:04
"Alexa, can you make sure not to spy on me?"
"I'm sorry John, I'm afraid I can't do that."
LOL
10:09 "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" to answer what you said...
I think Orwellian in it's current use is accurate. It works well as meaning, "Resembling the world of an Orwell novel."
Orwellian alludes to his creation not his ideals, Dickensian doesnt promote pickpocketing or Kafkaesque doesnt mean Kafka was pro transforming into an insect...
"Can good books improve the human experience?" he asked while teaching a literature class.
But does the appendix being written in English really hint that Orwell's future is a positive one? I think it's just because it's trying to teach us the reader Newspeak. We wouldn't understand the appendix if it was written entirely in Newspeak..
Totally agree! I think they're projecting too much hope into it.
I am very grateful for this interpretation and analysis of "1984". So many years ago, I was taught in the first reading of this book that "1984" is a foreboding against tyranny and surveillance states; that it was about government gone mental. We have always been rather mistrusting of governments. I can understand but am also quite wary of the fear that a body of people, elected or otherwise, sanctified with up-keeping social justice through the monopoly on violence, imprisonment and social ostracism can suddenly and inexplicably abuse its unique privileges.
For me, "1984" warns us more than about governments or oligarchies. Any society that uses public shaming, fear-mongering or thought-bandwagoning to encourage conformity over independent thinking, grooms, as an organism might its own constitution, the cells that will perpetuate it at the expense of perspicacity, justice, rationality, utility or humanity.
Perhaps the world of "1984" has already materialised. Instead of the dystopian colourless world that we've been taught to dread, we are quite fond of our LED-lit, scented incense one, as might the myriads of Oceanians their own. We love it because it's not built by governments but by a collective of seemingly our own kinds. The methods of this collective is --- and requires, rather --- much less violence and re-writing of the facts; its plebeians are much more willingly subdued because they feed off of the base fear of loneliness and insignificance. The collective then builds a hierarchy for those who speak, think and act in a way that is supported by it. The misfits are exiled in mental space, cast out for rudely challenging the collective out of ignorance, or perhaps a serious lack of indoctrination. Do we even know who they are after so long being out of sight and out of mind?
Am I not correct in saying this --- albeit hyperbolically darkly interpreted: the real big brothers are our inner fears to be forgotten or alone, built into the societal creature that eats our pictures, video and thoughts to excrete to us the affirmation of human connection and status? How numbs us to our own evils --- hides it or disguises it, even --- through the clever use of banners, flags, pithy sayings for slogans and pen-lined round logos framed by crossing arrows. The need for human connection frees us and oppresses us alike, no?
Therefore, the real medicine against the "1984" dystopian evil is to not only detest unfettered powers of governments, but also to cultivate a muted insistence that we never put collectives or doctrines before people. Perhaps it requires a minute and constant application of judgment and introspection to make sure we do not succumb to the torture of wants that impel us, perhaps even with good intentions, to the inhumane.
2017 John : I am not going to denounce social media
2019 John : Hasn't used social media in almost a year
Isn't he still vlogging every week? Maybe life just got in the way for anything else. Doesn't mean he's doing that because of reasonable content of 1984. There's a plentitude of other reasons to stay off 'social' media.
Just because you don't use something doesn't mean you are against it.
he literally released a blog two days ago
A very nice video, I think the part that stands out to me was "Winston can't turn off his telescreen, we however choose not to."
I just looked at the date for this piece (2017). Boy, how things have changed in 3 years!
It is cynical to read 1984 and Animal Farm for me as a Chinese.
李振 not at all
I think the PRC might be mistaking this as an instruction manual rather than a book.
Fedas Nah, they simply realised that
So, once many years ago I read this story, devoured it even though it was written in a tongue foreign to me. Since I owned a Penguin Literature edition of this book there were some questions written in the back, and today I found my answers scribbled on the blanc pages in the back at the age of 17. I never quite knew where to leave them, so I'll share one here maybe someone here enjoys it. Words are meant to be passed on, in my option. The question was "Shortly rewrite the plot of the last chapter of the novel to make it more hopeful." This was my answer, back in the day:
At last, the day has approached. The waiter went up to him, his face plastered with boredom, and put a little note onto his table along with a full glass of victory gin. Winston didn’t even try to hide the note from the telescreen, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. The note read "Meeting Minitrue twenty sixteen" and so he went. Back in the days of hiding he would have tried to fight it. Now, the unfillable emptiness in his stomach made such thoughts impossible. The last human ate himself from the inside. As expected, he was called in and brought into the deepest depth of the building, to a long corridor. There it was. The act he had been waiting for. He couldn't feel anything though, only the emptiness inside of him. Unchangeably true. Winston was sent to the end by a voice behind him. Slowly he started walking towards the door at the end of the corridor, even though he was certain to never reach it. The high click of the gun being loaded came from behind his back. Always from behind, in the back of the head. Suddenly, an impression came to him of waling in the sunshine. He wasn't sure where it came from, but a memory formed in his mind where the emptiness had been. A false memory, that he was sure of, because nothing good like this could exist. Of a woman, holding a little girl in her arms, trying to save her from the world, from all harm. The memory was false, the moment had never happened, he was sure of it. Deep down, in the ministry of truth, he realised how little it mattered whether that memory was false. If he could think of it, here, in this place, it might be true someday. Sometime in the future, it could happen. From the empty spot in his stomach certainty arose. It was all the humanity Winston had left in him. Even though he knew 2+2 equalled 5, and he loved big brother, he knew if he could imagine woman loving her daughter, someone, somewhere could love. These thoughts in mind, the bullet reached his neck, snapped his spine and made his heart stop. He died, as all humans do, with no one even noticing his secret victory.
You're Great man! I watch your videos at least 6 hours a day
We need “brave new world” as a counter book to 1984
Camilla Geiger Brave New World: Dystopian because everyone's too happy and ignores everything, not because they're unhappy and ignore everything.
I gotta reread Brave New World. They were both reading assignments, and that was the one I ignored most
This is why Alexa and other ‘smart house’ features concern me.
@@MostHighEmperorPalpatine It's an older username, but it checks out... also, you've had a failure of imagination concerning Internet-of-Things devices proliferating and being used for surveillance. Have you ever considered that in the present time these devices are "only" used to market to people by listening and observing consumers' personal lives, but that at a later time they might be used for other purposes, such as political surveillance?
What happens when all of your products are listening and watching, your thermostat, your phone, your laptop, your tablet, your personal assistant (e.g. Alexa/Google Home), your toilet, etc... and the *detailed* collection of *your* *personal* *information* is sold to an authoritarian government, or some stranger who wants to harm you or your family?
Governments change, and I'd say that since 2016 many highly-influential and powerful national governments have changed for the worse, with authoritarians and oligarchs becoming more powerful around the planet due to social media-based psychological warfare and influence campaigns fueling their steady rise to positions of control. Right now, *all* *of* *the* *data* that these IoT devices collect is but one court-order away from being willfully delivered from companies' databases into the archives of local and national agencies, under the flimsiest of pretenses of probable cause. People are already starting to self-censor their private conversations when speaking with friends and family about politics and other topics, and nervously joking about being "on a list" is widespread. Laws, and the people who write them, can change dramatically in a rather short period of time.
@@metanumia Well put :)
Emperor Palpatine bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuh
Sounds like something Emperor Palpatine would say: Trust me i'm your friend, there's nothing to worry about"; while he slides the knife in your back.
I know that Alexa and maybe even Siri never forgets what you say unless you manually delete it.
Just finished it the other day after reading it for the first time. Kinda broke my heart.
Of course it does! One cannot imagine what one cannot describe! Simply having a word for a certain shade of colour allows one to experience it.
Always good to hear Jon speak on sci-fi
The horrifying part of all this, is I know people that have reacted just as if they have crimestop inside them, and they instantly lash out and reject what you say if you say something that is politically, not in reality, wrong according to the powers that be.
I read 1984 (and animal farm) when I was in highschool around 1977. At that time, there was NO WAY to read another persons mind. It was totaly impossible. Now, if I have complete access to your computer and mobile device, I know you and what you think better than you do. It is not just social media. The government now has the means as well as the motive and we are quickly working to provide the opportunity. The opportunity will be described as something that is needed to protect the citizens, and we will hand it over without a thought.
Love the tying back into the thematic lessons from Crash Course Psychology as well as those from the One Hundred Years of Solitude lecture. Oh and Chomsky/Pinker
I always thought Big Brother was the concept of the surveillance state not an actual dictator because besides the telescreens (which you have a good reason not to trust) the reader never really meets a character named Big Brother.
John green is wow .. your thoughts are excellent
The english language is really weird.
Words have more than one meaning.
In this case, the word "party" means to diametrically opposite feeling things.
any human natural language takes ambiguity but mental computational language doesn't which is the mind uses language. mental computational language ain't English Japanese french or any language as these. C programming language is a language sort of mental computational language but not 100% pure. the mental language only allow you to use IF statement and THEN statement to organise Variable symbol that doesn't allow any double means happen.
Awesome!
Big brother is everyone & each one of us.
I am curious as to who actually read the book as compared to those who think they read the book now that they have watched this. If you fall into the latter, I'd highly suggest you read the book before commenting below. Besides, it's a good read too.
Hey John, love this book and this channel, I didn't realize you were still in crash course!
“We all big brother now” - Childish Gambino
the sound effects during Thought Bubble were exceptional in this clip!
If the author could be contacted; he would probably respond with - "I told you so."
You are a hero this course lines up with my curriculum at school, thank you Professor Green! Xx
Sanderson Girl
By that I assume it completely glosses over Orwell being a Socialist who fought against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War in the 15th international brigade and praised the Commune in Catalonia for being a glimpse into the Socialist world to come, free from gender division, moneygrubbing, and wage slavery
Dominique Martinez No, 1984 is just some optional wonder reading. Handmaids tale isn’t though
Literally only just realised that you're not an omnipresent being that cranks out a thousand videos a month, you actually have a brother that looks a lot like you and does similar content. Can't believe I never noticed that before.
“The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.”
~Bukowski
Orwell had also some extraordinary harsh comments against the lack of freedoms in the liberal "democracies" of his time.
The appendix is written in Standard English as an ironic nod to the standards of the day in which the author drew upon for inspiration. It's a critique & warning.
The telescreen I think is the most prophetic part of the book because without a word for smartphone what would you call your phone but a telescreen.
OMG I'm a Linguistics Masters and I read that exact stuff written by Chomsky and Pinker
Your review makes me want to read the book again.
I think anyone who read this novel from “3d world” countries would have different perspective, for example I’m from Syria and a lot of the novel parts was a description of things I grow up with, even the torture part. Some part was like reading my country history. You’re lucky much more than you know.
I like how you kept it lite hearted while still warning anyone watching and unaware how scary close to reality in the U.S. and U.K. are ton1984. Didn't quite elaborate to clarify the smartphones camera and microphone never being able to be turned off, even if user thinks it is. You did however mention how it's within the truck terms and conditions of their stuff stated privacy settings we all have submitted, and volunteered any real privacy at all!
How did we think when we had no words to think with?
The simple answer is - we don't really know because we are now tens of thousands of years removed from when humans had no language. Not only is it hard for a language-user to imagine the world without language, but that world is so radically different from our own, that many of the things we spend our time thinking about aren't the same thoughts that our ancestors would have thought about. Their relationship to food, shelter, social structures, and intimacy would have been dramatically different than ours.
I´d argue that without words only instinct remains, but on the other hand, we do have the instinct to communicate so language can only be the consequence of this instinct.
But there must have existed times in the development in humanity where we had much fewer words than we have now, or even when the verbal tools we had lacked the fine grammar or structure we normally associate with language. We did not simply jump from having no words to having a fully-formed language overnight. How then did this transition between "instinct" and whatever else you consider our mind to be made up of happen?
Sign language
Terribly: deaf people, who have no words, think worse at abstract concepts. Pardon my english.
I read this book in 2009, when smartphones weren't invented yet.
It's crazy how much the comparison of the novel to present day has changed. Because today we do like to record our every movement or like it to be recorded.
Wow, you look so much better than a few hours ago!
I think it's safe to assume this wasn't recorded today while he was sick with the flu. Videos with this level of editing and animation take more than a day to produce.
Yeah it was a joke
He looks better wearing green. 🤷🏻♀️
This makes me read the service terms of every application I have. Goodness, maybe I should find a copy of this book.
Please do a crash course literature episode on animal farm!! It’s one of my favorite books of all time😁😁😁
Finished reading it a few days ago, really enjoyed it
Do "Brave new world" from Huxley!!! and compare it with 1984!
PLEASE do Brave New World! I would love a comparison between 1984 and Brave New World done by you.
perfect time to upload this today, with the Orwellian attack on net neutrality beginning again.
+ (allthough it's not the state taking controll, but handing controll over to large corporations)
Lol stop using the word Orwellian when you clearly don't know what it means...
SonofaGlitch ...so removing restrictions on giant, often monopolistic ISPs censoring and sabotaging traffic that they dislike increases competition and destroys monopolies. Riiiiight.
Unless of course the ISP's don't let you see information about their competitors that is positive, NN is just making essential and important parts of the internet free from abuse, it has nothing to do with competition which seems to be a buzzword that people like to use to justify ridiculous concepts. ALL utilities should be regulated by the government any discussion otherwise is just non-sense.
Imagine if the power company could abuse you the way Internet Service Providers want to, that would be completely insane. "Oh you're using your electricity for a computer? you'll have to pay an extra $20 a month - not for the extra electricity your computer uses, just because we want to bill you more."
Glad I stumbled across your channel.
Subscribed. 😀
"Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither".
Waiting for a friend to give me the book! Can't wait!
There's also the fact that there's a difference between "surveillance as a way to protect the populace" and "surveillance as a means of preventing dissent" and the line between those two can be difficult to find.
Personally, I think surveillance in public places SHOULD be a thing (this includes shops and workplaces, even if the latter aren't technically public) but people's homes and other private locations are off-limits. In simple terms: if you can reasonably expect people to be fornicating there at some point, don't put a camera there.
Surveilling purchases is more ambiguous. Here's a question for others to debate: should stores keep lists of who buys which products and allow the government to access those lists for security reasons? (Say someone buys products from multiple stores that together can be used to make a bomb, for example.)
Well we already do that to a certain extent. Take pseudoephedrine sales, for instance. Most states have a database that logs each purchase and automatically notifies the stores when to refuse a purchase because the buyer is already at their purchase limit for the day/month/year.
I think there is also such a system already in place for fertilizer (which can be used to make bombs). Possibly also for products that are the main ingredients in producing some illegal drugs. Though tracking all purchases would be a huge invasion of privacy because you can tell so much about someone from that - I heard a story about company predicting someone was pregnant based on changes to their buying patterns.
Vigilant Sycamore who declares that line?
~1:60 ...or to put it another way,
"He who controls the past commands the future. He who commands the future, conquers the past." - Kane
I wish there was a 3rd part of this as well, which would concern itself the corruption of individuals as well. As the book loosely alluded to stating the mere change of masters for proletarians and proved to be true in case of Winston and Julia agreeing to tumult every possible moral values there is and voluntary indulging into the sordid abyss, in exchange for gaining their personal goals. I was particularly feeling disturbed while reading this book because I was failing to find empathy for the main protagonists.
In this case it seemed to me that both side of the coins were equally rotten with the difference of upper hand and authority in respective time. Needless to say the book itself was a psychological torture.
Brave New World, The Panopticon.... so many more to do, and really, so much deeper if you wanted it.
Either way, you all rock, thank you so much for your hard work!
Amazing book and really scary...
It's interesting to examine the similarities between the book and our reality today but I don't think it's particularly productive to assume that we live in a dystopia. The world isn't that easy to define and I think John did a good job making that clear.
How it is and how it should be will always be two separate things for people who desperately want to see it like that.
It's on us to make the world better that's true but I don't think that this can be achieved by only seeing what we don't want. We have to see our victories too and I agree with Orwell in that sense. Everything that supports better living conditions for people is ultimately worth striving for.
Do Fahrenheight 451 next
The last four words of this damn book killed me
The sound effects seem a bit too loud during the thought bubble portion...
This is probably my favorite book :) I don't know if I thought I would say that Orwell is my favorite author when I was in high school
I really need to re-read 1984, i feel like the first time i read it (back in high school) that it was very much a surface reading, without much thought to the deeper philosophical questions like does language change the way we think.
Now that you've done 1984, you HAVE to do Brave New World (please :) )!
It’s scary how 1984 was so god damn accurate in portraying the Soviet Union.
Underrated humor.
My Utopian & Dystopian fiction class is literally reading "1984" right now, and this the best coincidence ever.
Here's my question though, in "1984" and the other dystopia's we've read this semester (Huxley/Zamyatin's "We"/Gilman's "Herland"), a major conflict is how much technology is too much technology, and then the dystopia comes into play when that "too much" is reached. Is technology, or the abuse of it, really the only way a society could turn into a dystopia? A society set in nature, with limited or no technology, may be better in some ways, but couldn't it lead to just as many problems? Where are all the dystopias about nature?
I think post-apocalyptic stories covers the theme of "bad world without technology", if we look at potential societies. There tend to be the reverse of dystopian societies where instead of an oppressive society it's every person for themselves. I think a dystopian story by it's very nature requires a intricate society.
You could however set a dystopian story in a much more primitive society. Maybe you build it around an oppressive religious institution, state or upper class. Spanish Inquisition, pre-revolutionary France, imperialist Russia (hey, go biblical and look at how the israelites were oppressed in Egypt). There are a lot of historical eras to draw parallels to.
Large-scale totalitarian dystopias require advanced technology because technology is power. For a small number of people to control a much larger number of people they need to have far more power than those other people and for that they need technology. However small-scale totalitarian dystopias, e.g. Lord of the Flies, don't require advanced technology because physical prowess can be sufficient power to control smaller numbers of people.
Alternatively if you don't have advanced technology to allow the few to dominate the many you can have an extensive hierarchical power structure to do it but this usually leads to constant infighting amongst the upper eschelons - e.g. Catholic church in Dark Ages, or the nobility in medieval Europe (and/or the ancient world).
I think it is possible to have a dystopia without technology. For an example, simply take the rule of the famous Vlad Dracula, or the French Reign of Terror. For a fictional version look up the Falkovnia domain in the Ravenloft Dungeons and Dragons setting.
Demis Harper For an even more ancient example would be during the civil wars near the end of the Roman Republic, like between Marius and Sulla
Merritt Animation good point! :)
Crash course, make a video over the Net Neutrality situation! This will affect you and your fans! They need to know how to fight back and how it will affect them!
Newspeak was doomed from the start. Humanity is endlessly capable of debasing language beyond any form of regulation.
I think it might be a bit more complex than that under an authoritarian regime. When the state controls everything, even something as foundational as language rules, it can absolutely carry over into how people think and act.
any human natural language takes ambiguity but mental computational language doesn't which is the mind uses language. mental computational language ain't English Japanese french or any language as these. C programming language is a language sort of mental computational language but not 100% pure. the mental language only allow you to use IF statement and THEN statement to organise Variable symbol that doesn't allow any double means happen. the human natural language easy to create ambiguity, so the newspeak doesn't exist in reality.
A great modern follow up to this is Dave Eggers' The Circle, if ur curious.
Google is today's big brother
Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook.
All four need to be broken up for Anti-trust and Monopoly
violations. Not to mention the monetization of personal data
without explicit consent and or renumeration.
Business & Contract Law 101.
Says someone writing on and watching a Google platform
@@harleyquinn5826 your point being?
@@evergreen6702 that it's funny how we notice and we do it and let it take over everything without a second thought, myself included
@@harleyquinn5826 Google has already taken over a ton of the internet, that's like saying you can't criticize big brother if you live in their society (well I mean you can't but you get what I mean)
1984 is my favorite book and I liked this analysis. Just a thought: in the video, John undermines the idea that language drastically affects the ability of ones to think divergently. He says that Winston is broke in through torture and not through the limitation of language. I am not saying that John is wrong, but what if Winston is "special". Due to his job is more exposed than others to the incongruities of the regime, probably is more educated than the average and also needs a wider vocabulary for his job. Maybe his peculiar social stratus is more troublesome and maybe the regime keeps people like Winston under special control. What happens to him, including the torture seems to me an inefficient way to deal with widespread or common dissent.
I find also interesting the use of "good instinct" as a tool to discern imposed reality. It feels like an echo of Brave New World or of the "noble savage" narrative, where "untamed" men are purer and more innocent than "civilized men".
Hey, the rats are nice and fluffy. That Winston is a nutter!
Awesome job, John.
🐢
"How unpleasant that would be, he said as he is staring into a camera lens" - LOL not not creepy at all X;D
Thanks thought bubble!
Today's society is a mix between 1984 and A Brave New World with a little bit Fahrenheit 451.
We are already living this nightmare !
I just finished 1984...
coincedence?
Yes.
Is saying 'coincidence' and then 'yes' an overused joke?
Yes.
this is one reason it matters what music you listen to, because you're essentially taking in someone's thoughts in the form of lyrics. Listen to good music by good writers.
When people say Orwellian I always assume it means that it is something Orwell would have written about, not that he supported it himself
We remember Orwell for the horrors he conceived in his mind, and which his spirit must be conjured to fight such horrors
For the social media question, look at the Chinese Sesame Credit system. It is all of the worst fears about social media come to life.
Could you do an episode on Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury?
I think it is a good novel, again, describing a dystopian universe, but where the one who is watching is, as you said, ourselves. I'd like very much to hear your ideas on that matter.