The Complete Failure of '1984' ｜ 10⧸26⧸23
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
165.49805
Summary
Orwell's dystopian classic, 1984, has been read as required reading in American public schools for decades. And yet, it was never actually written as a critical work of literature. Instead, it served as a convenient shorthand for government control and propaganda.
Transcript
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We hope you're enjoying your Air Canada flight.
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Fast-free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land.
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Wi-Fi available to Airplane members on Equipped Flight.
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Progressive media outlets are celebrating the release of Julia,
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a new feminist retelling of 1984 authorized by George Orwell's estate.
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One glowing review from the Los Angeles Times declared that the new novel outclassed Orwell's dystopian classic
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and suggested that it should take the original's place in high school English curricula.
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Perhaps the 20th century's most famous novel about propaganda,
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in which the main character's job is to update the historical record to conform to the current government narrative,
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has been updated to conform with modern propaganda.
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The media, which in theory serve as the safeguard against exactly this form of centralized information manipulation,
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are instead its most enthusiastic cheerleaders.
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Though we live in a society whose conception of authoritarianism has been shaped almost entirely by 1984,
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Orwell's novel failed to slow our rush headlong toward centralized state control.
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Humans are narrative creatures who don't interact with facts in a vacuum.
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Stories are critical because they create a shared context and vocabulary in which we can place the facts that we encounter.
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Even going back to Plato, most civilizations understood that the stories that they collectively tell themselves
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shape the very conceptual landscape on which people approach issues.
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Orwell's book has served as the shared narrative context in which America and many other western nations
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discuss the possibility of tyrannical state authority.
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Modern advances in mass transit, mass communication, and mass production during the early 20th century
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allowed for the rapid centralization of state power,
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and gave rise to nightmarish regimes like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
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Orwell's most famous work perfectly captures the nature of those regimes
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in its depiction of brutal authoritarian government backed by plenty of direct opposition and the threat of force.
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The dystopian novel became the universal reference point for tyranny thanks to its ubiquitous assignment
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as required reading in American public schools.
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Although the deterioration of public education has meant fewer modern students will read the book,
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for many decades 1984 was likely the only novel most Americans had read that provided such a conceptual framework.
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And yet, while most people treat 1984 as the critical warning on what an authoritarian government looks like,
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they never seem to consider why it was included in compulsory public education in the first place.
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The truth is that while 1984 serves as a good warning against the dangers of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union,
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it fails to equip students with the tools necessary to oppose the total state that is currently consuming America.
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Given the nature of our soft, managerial regime, 1984 poses little threat to our leaders.
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And because it's the only text in which most Americans encounter the idea of a dystopian government,
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the novel limits their ability to conceive of an oppressive government that does not resemble the one Orwell described.
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As a result, 1984 is only a threat to the dead managerial regimes of the past,
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It serves the role of containment, setting a narrative frame that fences in thought about how a population might be controlled.
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I'm not suggesting that there's some vast conspiracy to distribute 1984 to control the masses,
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but its organic selection was likely due to its compatibility with our regime's mode of power.
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Think of the rebellious and edgy television show that warns you about the dangers of evangelical Christianity,
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thereby enforcing all the real narratives of power.
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Some of the predictions in 1984 did come to pass, like the novel's own propagandistic update and replacement.
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But our totalitarians look and feel so different that Orwell's warnings failed to halt their advance.
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By casting themselves in the guise of kind, tolerant, and educated administrators applying therapeutic remedies,
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our current regime's rulers can enact many of the social tears depicted in 1984 without triggering the narrative alarms.
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These days, it's impossible to thrive with just one job.
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Between increasing living costs, paying off debts, and planning for the future,
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things like buying a home, building savings, and even going on vacation can seem like fantasies.
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If your goal is financial freedom, you could start taking on more hours at your current job,
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work towards a promotion, or try putting your money into something risky like stocks, cryptocurrencies, or even a side hustle.
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But at the end of the day, do you really want to sacrifice time and energy
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that could otherwise be spent with your loved ones or on your hobbies just to make a living?
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Several alternative dystopian novels do accurately warn against aspects of our soft managerial total state,
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but they failed to gain the formative narrative status achieved by 1984.
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Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is probably the most famous of these stories.
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Though flawed, it does a much better job of laying out the tools deployed by our regime today.
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While Orwell focused on force, hate, and blunt propaganda,
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Huxley predicted the more benign and therapeutic tone that social engineering would take.
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The population in Brave New World is not held in check by fear.
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Instead, they're controlled by the manipulation of their pleasures.
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People are genetically engineered to be happy with their station in life
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and provided with constant chemical assistance to help them deal with any feelings of despair or unhappiness.
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Why resist the regime when you can just take a drug that will make all your problems fade away?
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If there's one thing we learned from the pandemic lockdowns,
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it's that Netflix can be just as effective as Soma at pacifying the masses.
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Brave New World was also more aware of the impact that the sexual revolution would have on the total state.
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Humans are genetically engineered, not naturally conceived,
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and so sex has become entirely detached from its organic content.
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So you've always been picky about your produce.
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But now you find yourself checking every label to make sure it's Canadian.
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At Sobeez, we always pick guaranteed fresh Canadian produce first.
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Refusing to have sex with someone is considered selfish.
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Orgies are common, and exclusive attachments are the ultimate taboo.
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There are no husbands or wives, mothers or fathers, sisters or brothers.
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The family forms a fundamental loyalty that competes with the total state,
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but through the destruction of the sacred and the proliferation of pleasure
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that's been unmoored from its natural foundation.
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The citizens of Huxley's dystopia don't fear the jackboot,
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but simply can't imagine an existence where every moment isn't managed by a vast array of highly qualified experts.
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The main problem with Brave New World is that Huxley was still a modern progressive who saw managerialism as the way forward.
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The novel is more of a cautionary tale of progress gone awry than a warning against this form of progress itself.
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That hideous strength by C.S. Lewis is a lesser-known work,
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but it also provides critical insight into a regime that 1984 never captured.
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Lewis understood that the modern obsession with disenchanting the world and controlling human nature was evil in and of itself.
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Lewis also managed to predict the rise of anarcho-tyranny.
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a cabal of self-righteous college professors who had been tricked into serving evil
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used street thugs to manufacture riots and then manipulate the media into justifying a crackdown on average citizens in response.
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The novel's characters are forced constantly to state obvious lies to themselves and others
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to maintain their social status as intellectuals.
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It's that depiction of a moral and spiritual death by a thousand little cuts that makes Lewis's novel so powerful.
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These shapers of public opinion slowly recognize that they've sworn allegiance to a grotesque evil,
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but they've bound so much of their identity and status to the new regime
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that they have to continue their pyramid scheme of lies.
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While there's certainly great merit to Orwell's warning against the forces of authoritarianism,
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It was written to ward off vanquished foes, not address the spirit of the regime that now rules over us.
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The soft managerial regime is one that strips away the sacred,
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denies human nature, and seeks to manufacture the ideal subject.
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The destruction of the family, the sterilization of the vital,
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and the weaponization of sex are all key tools in the arsenal of our ruling class.
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The battle being waged in our time is a fundamentally spiritual one.
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It's a battle of our hearts, minds, and ultimately, souls.
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This is a war of belief, and we must fight to return to what is sacred
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if we wish to escape the smothering advance of managed technocratic dehumanization.
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And of course, you can watch all of my shows and read all of my columns over at The Blaze.
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And you should definitely go check out the new Blaze website,
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because you know those terrible ads that cover all those conservative news websites?
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The Blaze got rid of them, and it looks so much better.
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And they did that because, of course, it's nicer to read,
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but also because they don't have to worry about demonetization anymore.
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they go ahead and slap it with the demonetization label,
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and all of a sudden it drops to the bottom of the algorithm,
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and nobody reads it, and all of a sudden they've disappeared the story.
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What this does is it allows Blaze to run all kinds of stuff,
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and they don't have to worry about that aspect.
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They don't have to worry about whether or not it's going to get deprioritized,
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They can just go ahead and do the type of reporting
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and run pieces like mine without having to worry about the ads that would get attached to it.
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Of course, that means that they are reliant on subscriptions,
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so while you're there, you might consider checking it out and supporting.
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All right, guys, thanks for watching, and as always, I'll talk to you next time.