Goldstein's Book Notes 1984 #9

Chapter 1—Ignorance is Strength

·         Three kinds of people—High, Middle, Low—aims of these groups are irreconcilable

·         High—remain where they are in society

·         Middle—change places with the High

·         Low—abolish all distinctions and create equal society among men

·         Need for hierarchical society was required specifically for the High

·         Development of television ended private life

·         Collectivism à “abolition of private property” (Orwell 206).

·         Four ways a ruling group can fall from power:

o   Conquered

o   Masses are stirred to revolt

o   Allows strong Middle Group to come into being

o   Loses its own self-confidence and willingness to govern

·         Consciousness of masses needs to be influenced in a negative way

·         Big Brother is the guise in which the Party wants to world to see

·         Essence of oligarchic rule is not inheritance—persistence of certain world-view and a certain way of life

·         Proles lack education—therefore lack ability to rebel

·         Crimestop à protective stupidity—stopping short at the threshold of any dangerous thought

·         Reasons of alterations of the past:

o   Precautionary—necessary for people to believe they are better than their ancestors

o   Safeguarding— infallibly of Party

·         Doublethink à accepting two contradictory beliefs simultaneously

·         Euphemisms—contradictions are not accidental—deliberately exercises in doublethink

Chapter 3—War is Peace

·         Three super states:

o   Eurasia à consisted of northern Europe—and Portugal

o   Oceania à consisted of Americas, Atlantic islands, British isles, Australasia, and southern Africa

o   Eastasia à comprises of China and countries south of it

·         Three states are constantly in war

·         War has changed its character

·         Primary of aim of war is to use up products of the machine without raising general standard of living

·         Early 20^th century—people dreamed of a rich, leisured future—world is more primitive than it was before

·         There could not exist a society where wealth should be equally distributed while power remained in a small privileged caste—could not remain stable

·         Essential act of war is destruction of products of human labor

·         All Party (Inner) members believe in this coming conquest as an article of faith

·         Party’s goals:

o   Conquer surface of the earth

o   Extinguish the possibility of independent thought

·         Philosophies of super states:

o   Oceania—Ingsoc

o   Eurasia—Neo-Bolshevism

o   Eastasia—Obliteration of the Self (Death-worship)

·         Physical facts could not be ignored—philosophically, 2 + 2 = 5, but in designing a gun or an airplane they had to make four.

·         Thought police is only efficient in Oceania

·         “Cut off from contact with the outer world, and with the past, the citizen of Oceania is like a man in interstellar space, who has no way of knowing which direction is up and which is down” (198).

·         Peace that would be of permanence would be seen as a permanent, everlasting war.