What does 1984 teach

Thank you everyone for commenting. I read animal farm a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it as a story about animals taking over a farm. This was the one of the reasons for reading When I finished animal farm my dad explained its other meaning.

I look forward to re-reading it once I cover the Russian revolution in school. I did find a bleak story but one I wanted to finish. I think it has given me a healthy attidude to authority and I fully agree that the govement should be here to serve the people and not the other way round as comented above. Im sure I havent grasped everything in the book but this single book has caused me to think more then any other.

I do plan to read it again when I am older. Daniel Nov 01, AM 0 votes. You can really get to hate Thursdays :. Drew Oct 31, PM 0 votes. Do what you're told if you know what's good for you, laddy. Pedro May 17, PM 0 votes. I'm 19, and I read like 1 year ago, I learned a lot from it, and felt identified, since I live in Venezuela I see there's a lot of similar political stuff with the story; even if we are the "minority" we gotta keep fighting, we don't know how many people are with us if we don't try.

David Burke I live in Mexico. It looks to me like was the Latin American guide book for social engineering. That and the Matrix. Nov 06, PM 0 votes. Read them. They were meant for your generations. It's your world. Make it better. Holly Nov 08, AM 0 votes. I read the book as a teenager, and it gave me a healthy distrust of authority that has served me very well to this day, and I am pushing 50 now.

Put not your faith in princes and always remember Laurel Nov 23, AM 0 votes. It had a huge impact on me, to the point that I have voted in every election starting when I turned 18 46 now and when my children read it; they realized what could happen to them and began voting also. A vote may not do much but rally enough people to your vision and your vote and theirs can bring down a harsh government.

Bob Oct 28, AM 0 votes. I was 15 or 16 when I read My thoughts at the time were "well, that's about the Soviet Union, It can't happen here. Guess what? It is happening here. The book should send chills down your spine. I pass the torch of freedom to the younger generation. Richie Feb 07, AM 0 votes. I'm in College and this was a assigned read in a class. I think the book overall is a slow way for any young person to learn very basic principles of communism. It shows how power can be used to manipulate people and deceive the masses into conformity.

But im not sure out of most of the comments on this page people say that this book is a good re read when you are older and have experienced more. Five-story condo building going up on former strip club site in downtown Oceanside. San Diego. Little Leaguers in Logan Heights striking out with city over much-needed ballfield repairs. San Diego Museum of Art photography exhibition includes greats of 20th century. Kenji Akahoshi on his retirement as a Buddhist minister and why gratitude plays an important role in his life.

Column: Political extremism morphs into death threats — and a desire to burn books. Classical Music. The three superpowers are about equal in strength and are continuously at war. But it is a war that nobody can win. In the hands of the governments absolute power has corrupted absolutely. Each dictatorship possesses an all-pervading control of collective behavior and of thought itself. The past is a pawn in the hands of present policy: When the rulers want to change history, they destroy all old books and periodicals and replace them with new ones.

The power elite are indifferent to truth. In effect, there is no truth and there is no past. Understanding the nature of political power is even more important today than when Orwell wrote. Things did not turn out so well for Winston Smith. Pushed to the limit by torture and brainwashing, he betrays Julia. He loved Big Brother. The story ends there. But for Orwell the writer and activist, the struggle for Truth, Peace, Plenty and Love was only beginning.

Today, Nineteen Eighty-Four comes across not as a warning that the actual world of Winston and Julia and O'Brien is in danger of becoming reality. Rather, its true value is that it teaches us that power and tyranny are made possible through the use of words and how they are mediated. If we understand power in this way, especially in our digital world, then unlike Winston, we will have a better chance to fight it.

Festival of Social Science — Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire. Edition: Available editions United Kingdom. The moral authority of his name was stolen and turned into a lie toward that most Orwellian end: the destruction of belief in truth. We stagger under the daily load of doublethink pouring from Trump, his enablers in the Inner Party, his mouthpieces in the Ministry of Truth, and his fanatical supporters among the proles.

Spotting doublethink in ourselves is much harder. In front of my nose, in the world of enlightened and progressive people where I live and work, a different sort of doublethink has become pervasive. Progressive doublethink—which has grown worse in reaction to the right-wing kind—creates a more insidious unreality because it operates in the name of all that is good.

Its key word is justice —a word no one should want to live without. But today the demand for justice forces you to accept contradictions that are the essence of doublethink. For example, many on the left now share an unacknowledged but common assumption that a good work of art is made of good politics and that good politics is a matter of identity.

The progressive view of a book or play depends on its political stance, and its stance—even its subject matter—is scrutinized in light of the group affiliation of the artist: Personal identity plus political position equals aesthetic value. This confusion of categories guides judgments all across the worlds of media, the arts, and education, from movie reviews to grant committees.

Then self-censorship turns into self-deception, until the recognition itself disappears—a lie you accept becomes a lie you forget. In this way, intelligent people do the work of eliminating their own unorthodoxy without the Thought Police. This pressure can be more powerful than a party or state, because it speaks in the name of the people and in the language of moral outrage, against which there is, in a way, no defense.

Certain commissars with large followings patrol the precincts of social media and punish thought criminals, but most progressives assent without difficulty to the stifling consensus of the moment and the intolerance it breeds—not out of fear, but because they want to be counted on the side of justice.

This willing constriction of intellectual freedom will do lasting damage. It corrupts the ability to think clearly, and it undermines both culture and progress.