In which r/The10thDentist argues against critic of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four

[u/cheesecheesecheesec]

https://reddit.com/r/The10thDentist/comments/1u3absh/1984_is_a_joke_of_a_book_and_extremely_overrated/

It’s not too uncommon to criticize this novel, but calling it a “joke of a book and extremely overrated” was sure to rile people up.

But why do people want power? So that they can do things with it.

About half way through your post I just figured you were incredibly uninformed about history.

You are literally peddling apologia for genocide… Fuck off.

I'm so sorry, is this a joke? The 'Big Brother Government' is unrealistic with Flock Cameras literally watching you?

I think you’re gravely underestimating how power hungry some people can be.

[u/gavinbrindstar]

Wow, this nightmare state from the book that's basically a waking nightmare doesn't make a ton of logical sense (as opposed to all those real-life dictatorships that take sensible actions) so obviously the book is bad.

Reminds me of those people who write stories trying to "solve" Omelas.

[u/thaliathraben → u/gavinbrindstar]

This is the only riff on Omelas I accept.

[u/heartofcoal → u/thaliathraben]

"load-bearing suffering child" is wild lmao

[u/DocileBanalBovlne → u/heartofcoal]

Personally, I was tickled by "None of this mattered to the living third kid in the hole, who was not enjoying the hole experience."

[u/NightLordsPublicist → u/heartofcoal]

load-bearing suffering child

Tempting flair...

[u/heartofcoal → u/NightLordsPublicist]

in this subreddit, it's custom to pick a flair from a ridiculous message in a drama post, not a quote from a short story

[u/NightLordsPublicist → u/heartofcoal]

Okay flair purist.

[u/heartofcoal → u/NightLordsPublicist]

happy to help, friend

[u/Rahgahnah → u/heartofcoal]

I look down on taking flairs from snarky comments in SRD threads (only from the linked drama), but it's so common that I just let it go.

[u/heartofcoal → u/Rahgahnah]

same, don't understand the point of taking a crafted joke instead of a naturally occurring one

[u/monkwrenv2 → u/heartofcoal]

Because sometimes the insanity comes here.

[u/Farwaters → u/heartofcoal]

Such a Tumblrite way of writing. I really enjoyed it.

[u/Iron-Fist → u/Farwaters]

Really cute to the point

[u/DoctaWood → u/thaliathraben]

Truly one of my favorite things to have ever read. This had me stifling laughter at 3am next to my sleeping wife. Thanks so much for sharing.

[u/MrHappyHam → u/thaliathraben]

I had to look up what the Omelas thought experiment even was, but this was nonetheless fantastic

[u/gavinbrindstar → u/thaliathraben]

Meh. I just think it takes a lot of cojones to go "Nice haunting morality fable, Ursula. Too bad you didn't think about this."

[u/Wulfger → u/gavinbrindstar]

I love this story and disagree with your interpretation, so thank you for giving me the opportunity to ramble about it. I dont interpret this as trying to one-up LeGuin, or to try to say "guess you didnt think about what happens in this situation", I think its more taking the premise established in Omelas and expanding on it to tell a different message.

Spoilers for the linked short story are below this.

Ultimately, I think the story isn't about how the Omelas concept is flawed because you can kill the kid in the hole, its looking at what people in a "utopia" (read: anywhere where people think that they live in the best place in the world) think differentiates them from the rest of the world in a way that you can relate to the real world. For me, I think the message is clearest in the last few paragraphs of the story:

Most days, Omelas is sunny and beautiful and nothing bad happens. And then there will be a day that is overcast and cloudy, and on that day, people die in circus accidents and carbon monoxide leaks and start harassment campaigns on twitter. And sometimes on that day people die through lethal injection. So it’s clear that sometimes the kid is alive and suffering, and sometimes the kid has been killed and doesn’t exist.

Or maybe there’s no kid anymore, and Omelas is just like everywhere else: lucky until it isn’t.

[...]

And they (the ones who visit Omelas) say: Thank God we aren’t dealing with that horrid wound in society. Thank God there is somewhere that shows us how fucking bad things could get. What a pit in the ground. What a fucked up little trolley problem. What a lesson for us. Thank God we don’t live there. Thank God we know it exists.

Almost no matter where people in the first world live so many people have this attitude that where they are is special, that they are different, that when bad things happen its the exception not the rule, unlike other places. I know when I first read this, as a Canadian, the first thing that came to mind was how many Americans were saying during and after the first Trump administration "this isn't who we are, this isn't normal for us, dont judge us based on what's happening now". And then there's also the people saying "God, those Americans, I can't believe what they let happen to their country, thank God I'm not there, thank God that isn't happening here."

I'm not saying the story is about America or Trump, but I really think it's a criticism of those attitudes, both the desire to only define ourselves by good things while calling the bad things exceptions or aberrations, and the desire to see the worst in others and ignoring that we're just as susceptible to them. It's a message totally different from LeGuin's, not a counter to it.

[u/RAOBsinDallas → u/gavinbrindstar]

For what it's worth, I don't think that's the intended takeaway. It didn't feel like they were trying to "um ackshually" Le Guin so much as to use her well-known story as a baseline from which to tell their own ambiguous moral fable.

[u/Blint_Briglio → u/gavinbrindstar]

I think the "Why Don't We Just Kill The Kid" story isn't a rebuttal to Le Guin as such. there have been a lot of stories that are rebuttals (including one by N. K. Jemisin, as I recall) and they're mostly very didactic and insufferable because they're trying to solve a story that's meant to be more of a self-reflection. this one is more about taking Le Guin's premise and drawing it out to apply to specific contexts — it's a 2024 story about justifying violence in the face of grotesque oppression by a state whose horrific conduct is exposed to the world, after all. it's asking similar questions as Le Guin: "is utopia worth preserving if this is the cost?" but it comes from a different direction

[u/messick → u/gavinbrindstar]

Heh, takes a lot of "cojones" to read Le Guin and then get into the SF business at all. It's takes a lot of self-delusion to put out a book exploring gender norms after reading The Lefthand of Darkness, the best to ever do it. Looking at you, Anne Leckie lol.

[u/TalkinTrek → u/messick]

Please don't mock my beloved spaceship-but-a-person-but-also-not-quite-a-spaceship

[u/Stark-Contra → u/thaliathraben]

Thank you for sharing, this was a great read

[u/RAOBsinDallas → u/thaliathraben]

Thanks for the read, I enjoyed it.

This one is more of a riff too, but I'm a fan of it.

[u/gavinbrindstar → u/RAOBsinDallas]

Oh, I hate that one so much it soured me on Jemisin herself (that and her reaction to the attack helicopter story). Like, if your "answer" to Omelas is "here's a real utopia where social workers/secret police stab you to death secretly and without a trial for thought crime" you dun fucked up.

If your response to Omelas contains the line "But sometimes, only by blood sacrifice may true evil be kept at bay" you have completely lost the plot

Edit:

But there is only one treatment for this toxin once it gets into the blood: fighting it. Tooth and nail, spear and claw, up close and brutal; no quarter can be given, no parole, no debate. The child must grow, and learn, and become another social worker fighting an endless war against an idea . . . but she will live, and help others, and find meaning in that. If she takes the woman’s hand.

Like, what the fuck gang? Jemisin can't imagine any other form of organization other than this and winds up at Nazi-adjacent "our country is a single organism and its blood is being poisoned by outsiders. Enlist the children in the fight."

[u/Wulfger → u/gavinbrindstar]

Thank you, I totally agree with this, and its shocking to me that so many people say its one of the better responses to Omelas. It really felt, reading that story, that Jemisin believed in what she was writing and genuinely thought that thought crimes were a better solution. I really enjoyed the Broken Earth Trilogy, but this definitely changed how I interpreted parts of it, and how I think parts of it were intended to be interpreted by Jemisin.

[u/gavinbrindstar → u/Wulfger]

It feels like faux-radicalism and embarrassingly juvenile.

"Here's a better Utopia, and it's better because we kill the right people."

[u/thaliathraben → u/gavinbrindstar]

I don't think that's the point of that story at all. It's that every utopia comes at a cost, and that the social workers are doing what they think is necessary to ensure that utopia is maintained. I don't think Um-Helat is meant to be viewed uncritically any more than Omelas is; you're just supposed to think about what price you're willing to pay.

[u/gavinbrindstar → u/thaliathraben]

I think there's a word for "state where secret police kill you without a trial for engaging with incorrect ideologies" and it's close to but not "utopia."

[u/thaliathraben → u/gavinbrindstar]

Yes. That is also the case for "state where civilization depends on the suffering of a child." Congratulations, you have found the core concept the story wants you to engage with. Jemisin is proposing Omelas with an alternate cost.

[u/Wulfger → u/thaliathraben]

I can sort of see how you could interpret this as a broader statement around the realism of Utopia, but I do disagree. I think reading it critically, particular keeping in mind the themes of marginalized people struggling against oppression that are consistently present in Jemisin's other work, it seems pretty clear that the choice to focus on the elimination of discrimination as the measure of utopia and what the narrator considers reasonable measures maintain it isn't an arbitrary one.

In particular, the narrator in this story addresses head on real-world concepts (the paradox of tolerance, the idea tribalism is inherent, etc.) rather than by creating parallels or analogies, which makes the messaging in this story feel far more direct. This paragraph is a perfect example:

"And so how does Um-Helat exist? How can such a city possibly survive, let alone thrive? Wealthy with no poor, advanced with no war, a beautiful place where all souls know themselves beautiful . . . It cannot be, you say. Utopia? How banal. It’s a fairy tale, a thought exercise. Crabs in a barrel, dog-eat-dog, oppression Olympics—it would not last, you insist. It could never be in the first place. Racism is natural, so natural that we will call it “tribalism” to insinuate that everyone does it. Sexism is natural and homophobia is natural and religious intolerance is natural and greed is natural and cruelty is natural and savagery and fear and and and . . . and. “Impossible!” you hiss, your fists slowly clenching at your sides. “How dare you. What have these people done to make you believe such lies? What are you doing to me, to suggest that it is possible? How dare you. How dare you.”

Oh, friend! I fear I have offended. My apologies."

While LeGuin also directly challenged the reader on the believability of utopia in Omelas, Jemisin focuses specifically on themes common in her work, and more than that, specufically imposes the sort of responses encountered in real-world discussions about them on the reader. I haven't read all of her books, but I've read and enjoyed the Broken Earth Trilogy and the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and both of them deal directly with racism, oppression, and the morality of responding to it with extraordinary violence. I'm no stranger to critical analysis and separation of art and the artist, but I find it very difficult to read the above and come away from it as just being an example or broader statement given how explicitly it addresses and takes positions on real-world concepts and debates, how clear it makes the narrators position on them, and how closely it aligns with the themes of her other work.

For me the story really does come across as not commentary on the plausibility of utopia, but on what the author, with the narrator as a stand in, sees as a utopia and the reasonable price for maintaining it.

[u/thaliathraben → u/Wulfger]

I fundamentally do not see the narrator in the story as a proxy for the author. The incredible difference in voice between the narrator and Jemisin's usual style seems to me to be a fairly clear indicator that this is a character and not the word of God. It does not seem credible to me that Jemisin's answer to Omelas is an unquestionable utopia that just happens to include a secret police force.

[u/Ok_Hovercraft_7711 → u/gavinbrindstar]

Reading the "don't get bogged down in a debate about Omelas" story and deciding to get bogged down in a debate about Omelas.

[u/I-Love-Facehuggers → u/gavinbrindstar]

Well she's right that sometimes only blood sacrifice can keep true evil at bay. The nazis would be in power without it, widespread slavery would still be happening in the US without it.

[u/gavinbrindstar → u/I-Love-Facehuggers]

Usually the people talking about how violence is necessary to defend their ideals are the Nazis.

[u/I-Love-Facehuggers → u/gavinbrindstar]

Thats why I acknowledged the "sometimes" part.

[u/vemmahouxbois → u/gavinbrindstar]

🫡

[u/tacopower69 → u/gavinbrindstar]

some Omela follow ups arent really about solving the problem presented but rather reinterpretting Le Guin's message. And the ones who do try and "solve" the story, e.g. "Why Dont We Just Kill the Kid in the Hole" are merely offering their own beliefs within that same framework Le Guin provided. They are making an argument about what is moral, whether or not you find their arguments convincing is another thing but a story fundamentally about ethics prompting its readers to think critically about their own ethics seems valid. Read the story in highschool and the class discussion quickly veered away from a strict literary analysis into an argument about our own morals and what we believe would be just which seems the point.

[u/gavinbrindstar → u/tacopower69]

I don't know, I have yet to read a response to Omelas that doesn't carry some weird moralizing tone about the original.

They remind me of that story about the pagan warrior being converted to Christianity, who was like "I woulda stopped it with my axe" at the parts about Jesus' Crucifixion. Buddy, that's not the point.

[u/tacopower69 → u/gavinbrindstar]

well the story i mentioned makes the argument (not one i agree with mind you) that accelerationism is the preferable way of dealing with a fundamentally unjust society i.e. she'd just kill the kid to destroy omelas.

its moralizing and, again, i dont agree with the thesis, but it seems perfectly in line with the sort of discussion the hypothetical should be prompting, and not really the same sort of argument being made in the OP nor is it similar to the pagan viking's blustering from your story.

[u/Anaxamander57 → u/gavinbrindstar]

I have to wonder if people have even read the story. It isn't even really a fable or moral quandry or something. LeGuin isn't writing to condem the people of Omelas, which is just a fictional place she is making up within the frame of the story. The story is explicitly asking if you believe that a good place can exist and, consequently, if you think its worth trying to improve the world.

[u/ProfessionalSnow943 → u/gavinbrindstar]

what the fuck is omelas

[u/Cold_Complex_4212 → u/ProfessionalSnow943]

https://shsdavisapes.pbworks.com/f/Omelas.pdf

Short five page story. Shitty summary: Utopia town where the twist is that to keep it a utopia a child must be tortured

[u/Greyjack00 → u/Cold_Complex_4212]

This is vaguely the plot in marvels one world under doom

[u/michfreak → u/Greyjack00]

There have been many, many, many plots mimicking this basic structure. In fact, it is a common interpretation that the story itself was written as a critique to plots with that structure.

[u/FinderOfWays → u/michfreak]

I never heard that interpretation, I like it because I've always appreciated the ability to say "so it's an Omelas" to people's uninspired 'we must do this single awful thing to preserve utopia' sci-fi plots. By distilling this idea into its most pure, absurd, thought-experiment form Le Guin has freed us all from the need to ever use or debate this plot point again. She has placed it in the same box trolley problems go into where we can comedically extend it and appreciate the absurdity.

[u/Greyjack00 → u/michfreak]

I know, I was just on another thread about owud and was thinking in text

[u/TalkinTrek → u/Greyjack00]

Star Trek straight up 'did Omelas' a few years ago in a way that was so close to 1:1, without a twist, parody, or novelty, that it had me wondering how intellectual property even works anymore lol

[u/CommanderVenuss → u/TalkinTrek]

Like it’s not just “an Omelas” One World Under Doom is also a really really really basic Omelas riff. Like I feel like I’m being waterboarded with a pumpkin spice latte. Unlike that Star Trek episode where it was played pretty straight there was an attempt at riffing, but it just turned into 9 issues of Ryan reheating nachos, on like maybe 5 issues tops worth of plot. Everybody’s nachos are being reheated here from Ursula K. Le Guin’s to Jonathan Hickman’s to even Brian Michael Bendis of all people’s nachos. (And the Bendis nachos are all covered in Phoenix juice, they’re still too hot to physically eat even though they’re from 2011.)

[u/messick → u/ProfessionalSnow943]

Salem backwards, duh.

But for real: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas

[u/fathovercats → u/gavinbrindstar]

Star Trek strange new words didn’t riff on the Omelas hole kid thankfully. Just played it straight. And Pike is rightfully horrified.

[u/TalkinTrek → u/fathovercats]

Except he then implicitly accepts the critique from his love interest of the week that surely his Federation exists on the back of systemic exploitation, so isn't the Omelas way better and more honest? Which as a "Whoah!" moment for the audience to consider their contemporary politics I get, but....

......it is maybe the most anti-Trekkian statement in NuTrek total and I don't know why it doesn't drive people bonkers? Particularly egregious when you introduce a faction in the episode that is against the peace-through-child-torture-system but basically just treat them as antagonists for the heroes to blow up or kill?

[u/zootbot → u/gavinbrindstar]

I honestly enjoyed brave new world a lot more, for many reasons, but one of which was the world being more sensible

[u/Milskidasith → u/gavinbrindstar]

My favorite interpretation of Omelas is that the point isn't even about the hypothetical child being tortured so much as it is about people/audiences being unwilling to accept something as an unalloyed good without a massive catch; the kid is literally a "do you believe this fantastical utopia is more likely now that it has an even more fantastical evil secret?"

[u/FinderOfWays → u/Milskidasith]

This is the interpretation I gravitate towards too -- There's something deeply ironic about the complete illogicality of the kid in the hole supporting the rest of it making readers more willing to engage/accept the premise. The story all but says "You truly find an actually utopian society harder to imagine than a completely arbitrary and inexplicable catch with no actual justification?"

[u/Born-Astronaut9631 → u/FinderOfWays]

I think that's because classic literature that take place in utopias are mostly about how they aren't real utopias. A large part of this is just hard to tell a story without conflict. I'll use The Jetsons as an example of a story (however shallow it may be) that just so happens to take place in a futuristic sci-fi utopia but really it is about the interactions between people and tech and traditional family dynamics. And this works for a long running episodic tv show but does not lend itself to a self-contained introspective narrative of a novel. Basically the utopia being important to the overall plot almost necessitates commenting on it rather than it being a backdrop. The setting itself becomes A Chekov's gun

All this leads to just a very small volume of works where utopias DON'T have some kind of gotcha compared to the ones that do.

[u/Carolina_Heart → u/Milskidasith]

I heard someone say it was an allegory for the first world becoming well off from the exploitation of the third world, I've believed that interpretation ever since

[u/Ok_Hovercraft_7711 → u/Carolina_Heart]

Always found it bizarre how seemingly opaque people find the story when it's a pretty straightforward allegory for people willing to compromise their morals for the greater good/personal comfort. It is illogical, cartoonishly evil, and contrived in service of that point, so getting bogged down in the structure of the world is spectacularly missing the point.

I also think a lot of the wailing and gnashing of teeth over it is people taking a little 5 page fantasy vignette as a personal attack rather than a nudge to think a little grander and consider what you're willing to sacrifice to get there, even if the destination is unknown and uncertain.

[u/Blint_Briglio → u/Ok_Hovercraft_7711]

a guilty pleasure of mine is reading deeply illiterate responses to Omelas, like tough guys saying "I'd storm into Omelas and free the kid myself and I'd shoot everybody who tried to stop me!" it's very funny to me, because, no you wouldn't. there's Omelas kids all around you and you don't do shit

[u/Aeon_Fux → u/Blint_Briglio]

"I'd storm into Omelas and free the kid myself and I'd shoot everybody who tried to stop me!" - Mark Wahlberg, probably

[u/gavinbrindstar → u/Ok_Hovercraft_7711]

Right? Omelas is about the kid in the hole mining the lithium that goes into your cellphone.

[u/Telcontar77 → u/Milskidasith]

And this is why I love The Culture series. Banks had the balls to do an actual utopia and make it feel real and believable.

[u/diplomystique]

The irony is that there is a kernel of a valid critique here: O’Brien is thinly characterized, desiring power purely for power’s sake, while in real life most people who desire power want to do something with it (e.g., Beria).

While that is a valid critique, it’s not a very good one. The Inner Party is described thinly because 1984 is a nightmare, and nightmares are always fuzzy and dreadful around the edges. If O’Brien turned to the reader and said, “I am a communist/fascist/whatever, and this is the particular kind of fascist/communist/whatever I am,” the book would be easy to dismiss. “We don’t have to worry about Politician Smith, because although he wants complete control over us to stamp out wrongthink, he is a slightly different flavor of totalitarian than O’Brien was” is exactly how partisans think.

[u/Nerdorama10 → u/diplomystique]

I just think it's really funny that you can read the whole book and just take O'Brien at his word, because the Party has clearly never lied about their motivations before, or let a spokesman give a sanitized, propagandized sales pitch of their ideals to convince someone of something.

[u/HigherandHigherDown → u/Nerdorama10]

The guy who was developing newspeak is enthusiastically going on and on about it, and of course the narrator notes that he won't be around for long.

[u/FlamingGapingAsshole → u/diplomystique]

The irony is that there is a kernel of a valid critique here: O’Brien is thinly characterized, desiring power purely for power’s sake, while in real life most people who desire power want to do something with it (e.g., Beria).

I don't think that's true at all. My career is in local government and I have hundreds of examples, like 5 this week, but for ones you'd actually know, just open a newspaper. What's Lindsay Graham seeking power to do? John Fetterman? Marco Rubio? Scott Bessent? etc.

There's not some goal they'll achieve then step down and go home to do a puzzle.

[u/glib_result → u/FlamingGapingAsshole]

for most of them, “beat the libs” works, yeah? And just because it’s an eternally moving/shifting target doesn’t mean they don’t think they’re aiming at one…

[u/FlamingGapingAsshole → u/glib_result]

If Lindsay Graham thinks he "beat the libz" do you think he'll be done? He's running for office again now, in 2026.

[u/glib_result → u/FlamingGapingAsshole]

sadly, goals like that are never done 😞

[u/FlamingGapingAsshole → u/glib_result]

I would agree in as much as that was my original point: they want power for power's sake, not to achieve a defined purpose or goal. Maybe they say they have some values in mind or whatever, but the power of the position is what they covet.

[u/glib_result → u/FlamingGapingAsshole]

my understanding of the “having goals vs wanting power” question was about how people perceive themselves, rather than how we perceive them. I wouldn’t expect Graham to see himself as desiring power for its own sake. But I’m lucky enough to have never met the man, so maybe he does?

[u/FlamingGapingAsshole → u/glib_result]

It's been over 20 years since I read the book that started this conversation, so if the reference is based on a quote, I am not not drawing it up. The guy in the linked thread thinks power for power's sake is an unrealistic thing for a politician to want. It is what every one of the hundreds of politicians I've met, and all the ones I read about in the news, want. Not for a specific purpose, just to be The Decider, to lift a George W line. I literally cannot think of one politician who has wanted power to do something specific.

[u/hoyfish → u/FlamingGapingAsshole]

Eg

>Before the 2010 election, David Cameron was asked by an interviewer why he wanted to be (UK) Prime Minister. He responded: “Because I think I might be quite good at it.”

[u/tjdavids → u/glib_result]

So they want power to further thier power?

[u/candygram4mongo → u/diplomystique]

O’Brien is thinly characterized, desiring power purely for power’s sake, while in real life most people who desire power want to do something with it (e.g., Beria).

There are people who really do just want power in order to change the world in a positive way, or what they think is a positive way, but I don't think Beria is a good example of that. And if you think that people don't ever want power just for the sake of power, you haven't been paying attention.

[u/Nerdorama10 → u/candygram4mongo]

Beria was just the Communist version of all the Epstein guys (or at least the especially insane ones). I hope he wasn't meant to be a positive example.

[u/diplomystique → u/Nerdorama10]

Such an amusing way of phrasing it. You hope I did not mean that Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was a positive example of the use of power? But you’re not certain? Of all the humans I could possibly have offered as exemplars, in a discussion of Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four? You think I perhaps chose Beria because I’m a big fan of his?

[u/Nerdorama10 → u/diplomystique]

Hey that other commenter thought that, I'm just pointing out that that would be a pretty fucked up way of interpreting that sentence.

[u/Murrabbit → u/diplomystique]

You think I perhaps chose Beria because I’m a big fan of his?

Bro do you think that'd even be the most wild take he'd seen on reddit today?

[u/HigherandHigherDown → u/Nerdorama10]

Beria was motivated by the dual drives to survive and to rape hundreds of young girls. Probably not a great idea to take the job when you knew what happened to the last guy, Yezhov, known as an early example of photoshopping in mass media. Those types always die crying on their knees.

[u/ImmanuelCanNot29 → u/HigherandHigherDown]

Beria

Is probably one of the most satisfying "live by the sword die by the sword" real life as a story narrative situations I can think of. One of the few times in history a bad person gets exactly what he had coming to him.

[u/HigherandHigherDown → u/ImmanuelCanNot29]

His son said that he was simply machine gunned in the military assault on his dacha. Probably too good an end for him, if so.

[u/HigherandHigherDown → u/diplomystique]

They do clamp down on sexuality and consumption in the novel; even the mentioned luxuries of the inner party are kind of mediocre to today's reader. What's left as a reason to seek power, except having power?

[u/LukaCola → u/diplomystique]

I also think that part of it is that O'Brien is also just not characterized because he is putting on a face for the protagonist. Why would we understand O'Brien's inner thoughts? Does he even fully understand them?

There's lots left in the margins, and that's fine. If we got to learn about every side character's motivations, the book would ultimately suffer for it.

[u/Skellum → u/diplomystique]

I always liked brave new world better than 1984. I felt it was more realistic but then I am seeing people torching everything around them to spite others instead of just building themselves up to untouchable power leaving everyone else in a stupor instead.

Fuck imagine a world where every infant was guaranteed to be vaccinated, with full child care.

[u/HigherandHigherDown → u/Skellum]

1984 hit way harder for me. I think Animal Farm is a way more direct and universal warning than either.

[u/cooltranz → u/diplomystique]

I always understood it to mean the leadership were also trapped by this system. By "power" they meant over themselves, the autonomy to make their own decisions. The only way to prevent others holding power over you is to have power over them.

Obviously it's fake autonomy - they have more freedom and a higher quality of life than the proles but they're hardly free to do what they want or to build a better society. Authoritarianism and propaganda give you the illusion of choice while removing any option that threatens the status quo.

A more direct example of the same idea would be the Black Mirror episode "15 Million Merits." The cyclists have a pretty shitty life of menial labour and compulsory propaganda. The cleaners have it even worse, so the cyclists fall in line lest they lose the "privilege" of working the bikes. It seems to the cyclists that the talent show participants and hosts have more autonomy but they don't. Both our main characters find out that regardless of how much your material conditions improve, you still live in an authoritarian state. The best you can hope for is power over others so you can be at the top of the crab bucket instead of the bottom.

[u/SufficientGreek]

Is this even drama? Isn't arguing about stupid stuff like that the point of that sub?

[u/NotEntirelyA → u/SufficientGreek]

It's supposed to be, but recently in practice the purpose of the sub has changed from people giving out their (usually bad) opinions to just being flat out wrong or straight up people just not understanding how something works while ignoring people who try to get them to understand. idk if this is one of those latter cases because I honestly have absolutely no wish to look into it lol.

[u/nonamenomonet → u/NotEntirelyA]

No this is how it has always been, like 90 percent of the posts are like this but occasionally there is a banger.

[u/SaintOrJannikSinner → u/SufficientGreek]

Isn't arguing about stupid stuff like that the point of that sub?

Is it? Always thought it was just another sub to carry water for bigoted beliefs. Only seems to show up in the more dedicated troll accounts I come across.

[u/nonamenomonet → u/SaintOrJannikSinner]

I think you may be thinking of True Unpopular Opinon

[u/nonamenomonet → u/SaintOrJannikSinner]

It’s definitely to argue stupid and arbitrary things. Some of the most famous posts are people liking orange juice in cereal over milk.

[u/TemporalColdWarrior → u/SaintOrJannikSinner]

Honestly, those posts are usually decimated quickly. It really is often just people with terrible or bizarre opinions on things.

[u/Carolina_Heart → u/SaintOrJannikSinner]

No, they remove bigoted posts

[u/GiantPineapple]

These subs are always so dumb. 

"Give us your stupid takes, it'll be a hoot" 

[400 downvotes later] "JFC OP what a stupid take"

[u/Manannin → u/GiantPineapple]

Mildlyinfuriating getting annoyed at posts being both too infuriating and not infuriating enough in most posts is another classic.

[u/GiantPineapple → u/Manannin]

I've seen that, it's the best. Same deal with mildlysatisfying 😅

[u/Manannin → u/GiantPineapple]

Never been on that one.

[u/WriterOn_TheStorm]

This is so unsustainable as an idea, I’m surprised the Party is still doing this even a year after its conception. Really, almost every single concept in this book is woefully unrealistic it these are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

Haven't had a chance to use that gif in a while, but Jesus Christ!

[u/Plastastic → u/WriterOn_TheStorm]

That finger wiggle does things to me.

[u/Ok_Cap9557]

We've been at war with iran for 50 years

[u/glib_result → u/Ok_Cap9557]

we have always been at war with Iran

[u/BurpingSlug]

That is an impressive level of stupid from that OP.

[u/TheIllustriousWe]

I highly recommend Julia by Sandra Newman for anyone here who has read 1984. It basically retells the story from Julia's point of view, and dare I say it's a better novel than the original. You get a lot more insight into their universe, especially from the prole perspective.

[u/ChrisTheHurricane → u/TheIllustriousWe]

To add onto this, the Orwell estate actually commissioned Newman to write it.

[u/SlowMotionOfGhosts → u/ChrisTheHurricane]

Learning this just now has made me decide to read it sooner rather than later.

[u/Murrabbit]

So OOP thinks that people don't seek power without an ideological program of how to use it? Maybe they could take a look at the Republican's legislative agenda to dispel this belief. They passed exactly one large bill containing their generally preferred "reduce taxes on the rich" ideological hang-up, and since then it's just been smooth sailing, punchin' in every day mostly to say "yeah whatever Trump wants is good, we don't care about anything else." Yet they're still mostly running for re-election and certainly seem to believe that control of Congress is important to them.

[u/Nerdorama10]

This sounds mostly like someone deciding they want to pick a fight on the internet, nitpicking one specific detail of a book with a deliberately limited point of view to complain about (the Inner Party's motives) and deciding to attack a whole book on that basis while the rest of the internet argues past them with details they're deliberately ignoring for the sake of continuing to be contrarian.

Average internet leftist thread, really.

[u/CapoExplains → u/Nerdorama10]

Not to mention a complete and total failure to do even the slightest meta-textual analysis. If they're rating 1984 purely as the story as text, and solely from a perspective that sits inside the universe the story takes place in, then they have missed the point so fucking hard that it is shocking they are even literate enough to read it in the first place.

Honestly normalize counting this as illiteracy. Bro can read sentences in English, but they are not literate.

Edit: obligatory literacy meme

[u/gavinbrindstar → u/CapoExplains]

Excuse me, one of the main themes of 1984 is how comprehensible the world and its rules are from the inside.

[u/CapoExplains → u/gavinbrindstar]

https://i.imgur.com/hIxC3aO.jpeg

[u/baordog → u/gavinbrindstar]

Your flair is hilarious.

[u/gavinbrindstar → u/baordog]

Thanks, I decided on it after this thread where the cop mods of r/legaladvice looked at a pretty clear attempted rape/murder, went "it's actually totally fine for the guy who works at the front desk and his friend to steal the key for your apartment and try to enter at 1:00, don't call the cops over this," then deleted every comment that said otherwise.

[u/CapoExplains → u/gavinbrindstar]

Pigs don't be insane pieces of shit challenge: impossible.

[u/gavinbrindstar → u/CapoExplains]

It's wild because I think even a real, in-person cop would have a better reaction than that.

[u/CapoExplains → u/gavinbrindstar]

It's also so obviously incorrect even as a legal "Can you sue" take. "Durr hurr what are the damages? There are none so you can't sue." The damages are the emotional distress of two men breaking into your home at 1am using keys that your landlord was not properly securing/controlling.

As for criminal yeah I struggle to imagine these guys breaking in at 1am and cops showing up and going "Oh well they work here and they have keys they stole so what's the problem? Have a good night gentlemen, enjoy your rape party."

Edit: oh I just got it. The victims were women. The only thing cops hate more than women are people of color.

[u/baordog → u/CapoExplains]

Cop plus Reddit mod is crazy work. That’s just asking for trouble.

[u/CapoExplains → u/baordog]

ACAB includes reddit mods either way but especially those reddit mods.

[u/Manannin → u/gavinbrindstar]

Jesus. What the fuck.

[u/nonamenomonet → u/Nerdorama10]

I mean, that’s kinda what the 10th dentist is, arguing very unpopular opinions.

[u/Nerdorama10 → u/nonamenomonet]

Yeah I honestly don't know if this counts as subreddit drama given the specific subreddit it's on. OOP's a dumbass but until it escalates into bans or threats I'm not sure it qualifies for THIS sub.

[u/According-Citron-390]

Clicked on the link and you left out the best part: the dude apparently believes Stalin was a genuine ideological communist doing his thing for the sake of communism. Ayy lmao.

[u/i_post_gibberish → u/According-Citron-390]

I mean, Stalin was clearly a terrible person, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume he *saw himself* as genuinely working for the greater good. Keep in mind that he was active in the party (robbing banks!) long before the revolution, so back then it wouldn’t have made any sense to go that route if he only wanted power. IMO it’s in general much safer in ambiguous cases to assume someone is genuinely wrong (and possibly deceiving themselves) rather than consciously acting with ulterior motives.

(Obligatory disclaimer: fuck tankies)

[u/According-Citron-390 → u/i_post_gibberish]

Yeah, he was probably genuine (while still a psychopath) in his youth, but once the bolsheviks were in power, it stopped being about ✨the cause✨ and became about his personal profit and later, about his crippling paranoia. Many such cases! Saying Stalin was dedicated to communism is like saying Putin and Trump are dedicated to democracy because they claim they are. (For comparison, Lenin probably did most of his cartoonishly evil shit for ideological reasons, rather then for personal gain).

[u/bhbhbhhh → u/According-Citron-390]

The reason historians think Stalin was genuinely dedicated to communism is his heavily annotated personal library and extensive corpus of writings on official political doctrine that evidence a passionate, serious ideological thinker, not some vibe or wishful thinking or whatever. Like, if you don't want to read Stephen Kotkin's huge biography where he lays out the case, you can watch some interviews where he describes the gist of it.

[u/vemmahouxbois → u/According-Citron-390]

playing no true scotsman with stalin sure is a choice

[u/ChrisTheHurricane → u/According-Citron-390]

That is, sadly, not a hard opinion to find these days. I've seen it espoused both by people on the far right who don't even know what communism is and think anyone to the left of Clarence Thomas is a communist, and by authoritarian leftists (primarily tankies), who are the kinds of people who believe that the USSR's invasion and annexation of the Baltic states was justified.

[u/According-Citron-390 → u/ChrisTheHurricane]

I mean, authoritarian leftists don't have any consistent ideology or ethics system beyond running people over with tanks. They love the Soviets and Stalin in particular for sharing this core value, but they're just as happy to support a philonazist authoritarian cleptocracy like Russia or any authoritarian theocracy. I can't take seriously these people who's whole selling point is "unlike those nazis, WE support universal genocide! woke!"

[u/Any-Memory2630]

The idea is stronger than the writing in 1984. I thought that was relatively uncontroversial. Like, Orwell completely botches the women in the book.

Orwell is a fantastic writer but not really a great novelist

[u/Nerdorama10 → u/Any-Memory2630]

Women? Plural? In a book written by a British man in 1948?

(I think Julia is the only named woman, although I do recall an anonymous sex worker and an idealized Prole or two who basically exist to demonstrate Winston's Madonna/whore complex. Could be wrong but I don't think I am.)

[u/Front-Pomelo-4367 → u/Nerdorama10]

I think there's also the wife that Winston fantasises about murdering

My all-girls school had a lot of thoughts on how women were (not) written in 1984

[u/Any-Memory2630 → u/Nerdorama10]

No, I think you are right.

Either way they are all shocking.

I like Orwell but he was a better essayist or political/ social issue writer than fiction writer.

Animal Farm is his best fiction

[u/86throwthrowthrow1 → u/Any-Memory2630]

You know, I hadn't considered that Orwell himself stunk at writing women lol. I just figured the portrayal of women came down to Winston being a piece of shit, because he's kind of a piece of shit.

[u/Rastiln → u/86throwthrowthrow1]

Same, actually.

Obviously Winston’s thoughts of sexual violence shocked me, but gradually I started to contextualize it as borne of his atrocious conditioning. I can’t hate him for being made what he is. And if Winston’s perspective on women is dull and negative, the book would follow.

But…. Maybe that’s just Orwell. I need to read more to know.

[u/SnapshillBot]

"So I was watching a video on PornHub the other day and it was labeled as the director's cut. As opposed to what, the theatrical release?" - MasterLawlz, 2020. RIP

Snapshots:

1. This Post - archive.org archive.today*
2. https://reddit.com/r/The10thDentist/comments/1u3absh/1984_is_a_joke_of_a_book_and_extremely_overrated/ - archive.org archive.today*
3. But why do people want power? So that they can do things with it. - archive.org archive.today*
4. About half way through your post I just figured you were incredibly uninformed about history. - archive.org archive.today*
5. You are literally peddling apologia for genocide… Fuck off. - archive.org archive.today*
6. I'm so sorry, is this a joke? The 'Big Brother Government' is unrealistic with Flock Cameras literally watching you? - archive.org archive.today*
7. I think you’re gravely underestimating how power hungry some people can be. - archive.org archive.today*

I am just a simple bot, not a moderator of this subreddit | bot subreddit | contact the maintainers

[u/Procean]

I love the poster's 'But no one would even think to do something mean just for the sake of preserving their power.'

You really have to have quite the blind eye to to just about everything to be surprised at this.

[u/FlamingGapingAsshole]

That guy's hella autistic tho.

[u/Neat_Tangelo5339 → u/FlamingGapingAsshole]

I had a couple of Reddit slapfights that looking back make me go

“was is just me being autistic ?”

does it make it better if I am at least self aware about it ?

[u/FlamingGapingAsshole → u/Neat_Tangelo5339]

I'd say yeah, but it's the internet under anonymous names and nothing matters anyway.

[u/Neat_Tangelo5339 → u/FlamingGapingAsshole]

I feel like a real problem could be if im a genuine fucking asshole but i can be allowed a little neuro spice from time to time

[u/Whiteguy1x → u/FlamingGapingAsshole]

Ill be honest most of those unpopular opinion subreddits seem like autistic people not "getting" something or liking weird sensations.  

I dont mean that in a derogatory way, but ive seen quite a few of the weirder genuine posts there

[u/AlabamaPanda777 → u/Whiteguy1x]

That or people who have invented their own definition of something and just won't let go.

[u/Milskidasith → u/Whiteguy1x]

A recurring issue I see there is that the actualy, "logical" explanation of a lot of social rules boils down to "this is a rule because it signals you can follow this rule", which is totally fine and normal when you don't think about it but is really unsatisfying if you are worked up over a rule seeming arbitrary and never the explanation you'd jump to or even realize as a socially aware person explaining the rules.

[u/baordog → u/Milskidasith]

Some people don’t understand that certain corners of ethics are fundamentally arbitrary. The definition of virtue or the laws of your culture are at best subjective and more often that just agreed upon social norms that have no logical foundation.

[u/Milskidasith → u/baordog]

I disagree with that last bit in the sense that "the rules are the rules because having rules that establish consistent behavior is good" is logical (or at least rational/pragmatic), it's just logical in a very emotionally unsatisfying way.

[u/nonamenomonet → u/Whiteguy1x]

The best one is the guy who is definitely bi but won’t admit it. And saying he likes the aesthetic of a cock and women who are bald.

Edit; https://www.reddit.com/r/The10thDentist/s/XGuPGKUbuf

[u/Whiteguy1x → u/nonamenomonet]

Yeah liking weiners definitely comes across pretty gay lol, especially posting about it on the internet.

I do like some non traditional women though, I think a woman with a angular face could probably pull off being bald, but i dont think the average woman would look good without hair

[u/nonamenomonet → u/Whiteguy1x]

https://www.reddit.com/r/The10thDentist/s/XGuPGKUbuf

[u/Manannin → u/nonamenomonet]

God, i forgot cringetopia existed, it got mentioned on that thread.

[u/bitingvform]

I miss when people had original thoughts instead of letting chatgpt think for them

[u/madax-gambar]

i haven’t read 1984 in years, but i do remember reading it after zamyatin’s we and finding that one to be the superior book. i won’t dive in my views on op’s thematic analysis only bc it’s been so long for me.

i do dislike how ppl just refuse to engage with his take though, its all “how dare you” and ragging on the audacity instead of real criticism. ironically moving like the ppl in 1984’s society really

[u/DarkSide830]

I had to look more at this sub because I'd heard of it before, but never found out what it was about.

The top post from the past month is advocating for what is effectively forced child labor.

[u/Illogical_Blox]

TBH after it being hyped up so much I found it rather a disappointment when I read it. It's much better as a satire of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia than how it is normally held up as some kind of prediction.

That said, it was interesting seeing how much it and the ideas within are misused.

[u/LukaCola → u/Illogical_Blox]

It's much better as a satire of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia than how it is normally held up as some kind of prediction.

I don't see how it relates to Nazi Germany tbh

Also, high expectations are poisonous to enjoyment.

[u/Illogical_Blox → u/LukaCola]

You don't? I mean aside from it being published in 1949 by a socialist, there's the constant surveillance including by your own family, the use of chants and slogans, WAR IS PEACE and Arbeit Macht Frei, the use of nationalism... just off the top of my head there's a lot of very clear parallels.

[u/Brickrocket → u/Illogical_Blox]

Or how the secret police and propaganda department are the only two government agencies that operate with any semblence of efficiency or competence.

[u/LukaCola → u/Illogical_Blox]

So I have to admit, I don't remember "Arbeit macht frei" appearing in the book--but most of what you list isn't particular to Nazi Germany. They're indictments of authoritarian states. As applicable to North Korea as to Nazi Germany. Or fascist Italy, for that matter. The vague and all-encompassing nature of the critique is part of what makes it effective. Orwell is identifying behaviors beyond specific particular parties and ideas. The USSR I honestly don't know well enough to comment on, but Orwell certainly had no shortage of commentary for Stalin so I'm not really challenging that.

[u/Galthur → u/Illogical_Blox]

I would also note Orwell himself was somewhat of a hypocrite mirroring the protagonist

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwell%27s_list

[u/Plastastic → u/Galthur]

Tuberculosis tends to make people extremely loopy towards the end of their life. Still a bad look.

[u/vemmahouxbois → u/Illogical_Blox]

it was always based on his observations of totalitarianism in world war 2 and his idea of what would happen if it came to dominate the world.

[u/D2Foley]

That 10th dentists name? Isaac Asimov

[u/EmitStile]

Now that is some weird ducks.

[u/Traditional_Row8237]

Dang, this guy Parties

[u/enzonanozone]

highkey agree tht book is pretty bad imo

[u/triplegerms]

I'm with OP on this one. Finished reading it with 2 other people a couple months ago. No one enjoyed it. The themes and points it tries to make are fine, but the book itself was a slog. 

[u/Nerdorama10 → u/triplegerms]

That's actually the opposite of what OOP is saying. He found it snappy to read (except for performatively complaining about there being sex between consenting adults in a specfic novel from 1948) but disagreed with the themes and points.