what was george orwell describing when he used things like Slavery=Freedom?

Question

I am trying to compare George Orwell's 1984 to today's world. What is now happening today that could be comparable to Orwell's descripiton in his book of opposite statements being told for us to believe is equal?

Any modern day comparisons?

Answer 1

Political correctness is a good example of the "though police".

Orwell was discussing the fact that by forcing people to live under one rule they would be free of independent thought and personalities. to be enslaved by the system you would be free from the burdens of an independent life.

As I said before PC is a great example of this. If you don't go along with it you are attacked and humiliated in to going along with it (i.e. sensitivity training). a form of though police forces you to conform to their way, if you like it or not.

Answer 2

George Orwell was trying to picture a future world taken over by a 'communist' dictatorship based in UK. The book 1984 was written by Orwell in 1948, he simply reversed the last two digits of the year.

Lots of things were going on at the time Orwell wrote his book. Most important was the landslide victory for Labour in the 1945 election. During the election campaign, Winston Churchill had claimed that in order for Labour to remain in power, they would need to create a Gestapo to control the lives and minds of the people.

Bearing in mind that Geo.Orwell had fought in the Spanish Civil war against the Franco Fascists and had been an intelligence officer in the British Army during the war, it is not surprising that these events should have played upon his mind.

1984 is a warning of what could happen if we allow government to just do as it pleases. We should show out discontent throughout our political lives and not slip into a slumber thus allowing things to happen without our doing anything much to stop it.

Looking at the amount of CCTV coverage we've got here in London where I live and in most town and city centres today, one wonders if Orwell was on to something.

Slavery=Freedom was just part of Geo.Orwell's "New Speak" language, often used by politicians to cover up the truth of what is happening.

Answer 3

George Orwell's novel "1984" is a work of FICTION!!! It's not EVEN true. There is a close comparison in the old Soviet Union and present day China under communism. But other than that, it is all FICTION!! Most books, TV shows, and movies are FICTION. They never really happened, never will happen, and aren't happening right now even if you are watching the show or reading the book. And "1984" was NOT meant to be a pattern for the liberals to follow and try to make this country into a FICTIONAL country of totalitarianism misery.

Answer 4

I think Orwell was saying that no one is free or ever will be. Even those that abandon the rat race and go to live on self sufficient communes are not free as they must struggle everyday to survive.

I would say that Orwell's expression still holds true. Think about it most people have a job, will own a house, a car and will have credit card repayments. They are free to spend the money they earn as they choose, but that freedom comes at the price that they must keep working to pay for the goods. Thus they are slaves to their own concept of freedom.

Answer 5

GIVE UP YOUR LIBERTY FOR FREEDOM!

this is particularly true of the draconian measures that have been taking place in the UK since 7/7.

id cards, cctv, scanning

this is what Orwell would describe as 'double think'

how can you give up your liberty for freedom - they mean the same thing. But in many peoples minds this makes perfect sense due to the barrage of propaganda that they dont have the intelligence or willingness to filter.

Answer 6

To put it in proper context:

War is Peace.
Slavery is Freedom.
Ignorance is Strength.

Those were the slogans of the distopian government that Orwell described, not something that Orwell would have advocated.

He was taking government propaganda to it's logical conclusion. A government that tells you black is white. And today that kind of language is called "Orwellian", even when it isn't as extreme as black-is-white.

For example, government military departments are always named for "Defense", never offense. "The Defense Department", "Ministry of Defense", etc. This is conceptually similar to "war is peace". We are supposed to believe the government only protects us from wars, it never starts the wars.

Another example would be when a politician says something like "we must sacrifice some liberties for security". This is similar to "slavery is freedom". Our loss of liberty is supposedly "setting us free" from terrorism, or securing our freedom in the future by protecting us from some present threat.

"Ignorance is Strength" is something like when we are told that whistleblowers or journalists are doing something unpatriotic by exposing wrongdoings of the government. They would have us believe that the country would be stronger if we were kept ignorant of these matters.

Answer 7

It was called doublespeak. In Bush's America if you are not in line with those who would take away are freedom(Bush and his cronies) than you are non patriotic.
Also where Orwell had his Goldstein, Bush has Bin Laden. Also when Bush was trying to convince the American people and Congress that we had to invade Iraq he used false intelligence of wmds and Hussein trying to obtain Nuclear weapons. Because of fears based on the 911 attacks and his insisting that there was irrefutable evidence that Hussein was tied to them as well he convinced many Democratic leaders to sign on with the invasion. Later he used them signing on as reason to call them wafflers on the war. Taking peoples attention away from the fact that he had misrepresented the facts to begin with. Its like a con artist blaming the victims of a con for being conned, and shifting the blame from himself to the victims.

Answer 8

How about bush calling everyone a "TERRORIST" when he is the real terrorist.