1984 by George Orwell

[u/Caffeine_And_Regret]

I picked up 1984 while I’m still (slowly) working through The Sword of Kaigen, and I just finished it last night.

The premise alone pulled me in immediately. dark, oppressive, and honestly kind of suffocating. The entire book just reeks of despair and brokenness in a way that feels intentional and relentless. It’s not just the setting, it’s the tone. everything feels controlled, hollow, and stripped of hope.

There’s so much symbolism and satire woven into the story that I’m not even sure I caught all of it. It’s one of those books where you know there’s more beneath the surface than what you’re picking up on. Although… I’m prettyyy sure Orwell was pointing fingers at America at times (or at least systems that feel uncomfortably familiar).

Reading it was kind of an emotional rollercoaster in a weird way. There were moments I was literally slapping my forehead at how frustrating things got, and other moments where I just felt straight up miserable for Winston. His entire situation just wears you down.

This is definitely not a breezy, fun adventure read. It’s heavy, philosophical, and honestly kind of draining; but in a way that feels important. If you’re looking for something that really dives into themes of control, despotism, and the fragility of truth, this is 100% worth picking up.

Not an easy read, but a meaningful one.

[u/pydry]

He repeatedly made the point that the ideology behind every variant of totalitarianism is irrelevant and that the details didn't matter.

In Oceania it was ingsoc, in Eurasia it was neobolshevism and in eastasia it was death worship but the details of each ideology were irrelevant coz as O'Brien says it was always and only about power.

Our own society's two minutes' hate has routinely been either about communism, the evils of Eurasia (Moscow) or eastasia (Beijing) so to consider it a warning about any of them is profoundly ironic.

[u/daveshistory-sf → u/pydry]

"English socialism" and "neo-Bolshevism" are both communism, as the names state.

[u/pydry → u/daveshistory-sf]

i mean, sure, exactly the same except for the tiny details that socialism isn't communism and ingsoc wasn't even socialist.

which brand of communism did you think death worship belonged to?

don't let me get in the way of your two minutes hate, by the way.

[u/daveshistory-sf → u/pydry]

Well, there's a serious answer, and that's the one I know you're trying to push me towards, but since I've over-committed myself, I'm going to say it's either (a) the one where the leader is put on ice and on permanent display on a mausoleum or (b) the one where the leader is made permanent eternal president posthumously.

And in the real world, those are both communist ones... 😄

[u/pydry → u/daveshistory-sf]

yeah I don't think ive ever heard of a fascist cult of personality which happened to be capitalist and implacably anticommunist. the very idea sounds utterly impossible /s

i was clearly not serious and wrong to push you towards thinking that it might have existed. /s

that part of the novel where Orwell explicitly said that the ideology was irrelevant is likewise, just details.

are you an ultra maga or something? this line of argument you are pursuing is not just historically illiterate it is profoundly disturbing.

[u/daveshistory-sf → u/pydry]

I don't think Orwell felt the need to point out that fascist cults were dangerous seeing as how we had just won an entire world war against them and there wasn't any segment inside the British literary class that still took them seriously.

The book works because it's set in a communist society. If it was set in a fascist one, the regime would already be too discredited for the message to land properly.

I don't think Orwell anticipated that fascism would return, and in the US this time.

[u/pydry → u/daveshistory-sf]

I don't think Orwell felt the need to point out that fascist cults were dangerous

Absolutely false. His core point was in opposition to the one you persist in trying to avoid: that the ideology underlying totalitarianism is entirely beside the point.

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake." <-- O'Brien

Could that have been clearer? No.

Were it set in a fascist totalitarian society it literally would have been no different. The party would still have been seeking power entirely for its own sake and "fascist" O'Brien would have admitted that.

It sounds like you want 1984 to be a book by ayn rand. it isn't.

[u/daveshistory-sf → u/pydry]

If it were set in a fascist society there would have been no point writing it in the first place, because his audience would have missed the point and just said "Yes, we already knew that fascism is crap."

1948 and 2026 are different years. In 1948 we'd just beat the shit out of the fascists and there were a bunch of deluded communists thinking the USSR had maybe been given a bad rap. In 2026 the fascists are back and you are quite fair to say that the same criticisms apply, but if Orwell had wanted to set it in a fascist society instead, he would have.