“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” (George Orwell, 1984).
“I guess it’s worth pointing out the obvious – that the very governors and politicians who loudly exalt the values of free speech are among the most aggressive prosecutors of ‘divisive concepts’… But the simple fact that these people were liars, and to take them seriously, to press a case of hypocrisy or misreading, is to be distracted again.” (Ta Nehisi Coates, The Message).
Now I guess most of you have probably heard of George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984. A few of you may even know that the phrase “Big Brother” is not simply a reality TV show but the omnipresent image which was always watching you… Sort of like Santa without the presents…
Lots of people have been quoting dystopian fiction lately. Comparing the way we’re encouraged to only accept what the party tells us to the Orwellian nightmare. Linking banning books to the book burning of “Fareheit 451”. Comparing reality TV to the soma of Huxley’s “Brave New World”. Still, linking Elon Musk to a Bond villain may not be quite the same because 007 wasn’t dystopian fiction and Musk seems closer to Dr Evil from Austin Powers than Goldfinger.
Whatever, there’s something reassuring about looking at all these novels from the past or watching things like “Silo” or “Gattaca, and going, “Well, things are bad but at least things are not as bad as Orwell’s world where the public were fed propaganda and just accepted that the past could be rewritten and that yesterday’s enemies were today’s allies and vice versa…”
Of course, most dystopian fiction has one thing in common and that’s the fact that most of the general population don’t realise how bad it is and that does raise the possibility that, in fact, we’re in a worse place than any of those scary novels because it’s actually real and we don’t even realise it yet…
Oh, I know. This sounds like I’m buying into all those conspiracy theories…
Actually, someone reposted something I wrote on Bluesky with a heading “Conspiracy Theory Alert”. This disturbed me because what I posted was:
“However, with Robodebt it was fine to extort money from people and, when caught, suffer no consequences… oh, strike the ‘however’. Powerful robbing from powerless is just fine; it’s when people take a loaf bread they need transportation to Australia…”
It disturbed me because it suggested that the person calling this a conspiracy theory must either think that no money was extorted from anyone when the Royal Commission found that, not only was money being demanded from people who didn’t owe it, but that many of the people involved knew that what they were doing was illegal. Although maybe they didn’t believe that people stealing loaves of bread were transported to Australia because they didn’t pay attention in history class, just like they didn’t pay attention to just about anything that’s happening in the world today…
When I say it disturbed me, I just mean that it worried me for a few moments in the same way that someone commented that they wouldn’t read my: “Is Peter Dutton A Political Genius Like Donald Trump?” because it was clickbait, which completely overlooked the ambiguity the question. To me, it was sort of like asking if Barnaby Joyce has the sex appeal of Bob Katter, but then I’ve always had a strange way of looking at things.
Anyway, as I’ve always argued about conspiracy theories: The problem is that they start from the reasonable position of we always shouldn’t trust what we’re told by people in power, before ending up in the paranoid position of never trusting anything from people in power. Doing one’s own research is not something to be sneered at, but this doesn’t mean going to a point where I don’t trust a doctor because they’re all part of the system but I’ve researched this and I just read on the internet that some organisation I’ve never heard of has discovered something that contradicts everything I’ve been told by the doctor and I know it’s true because the mainstream media won’t report it.
When I tell you that the algorithms of the internet companies are designed to keep you online and consequently, if you start to look at anything, there’s a danger of falling into the rabbit hole where you’re given more and more doubtful information, I sound like I’ve fallen victim to a conspiracy theory… Except this one is actually true… I know. I’ve done my own research!
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There’s more truth in ‘fiction’ than anyone realises!
There always a grain of truth and we know how that’s been manipulated to death as to be surreal.
Orwell noted that economic forecasting in the dystopian society was at best erratic and had many features recognisable in the Dutton oeuvre, for example *”the Ministry of Plenty’s forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at 145 million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston [Smith] however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than 145 millions. Very likely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population [of Oceania] went barefoot”*.
The coalition approach to this is to take Orwell off the recommended reading syllabus in schools !
I note that the * feature for italics and ** for bold no longer works ??
To ask people to actually THINK, check facts, look beyond the first thing they read on Tiktok or x or facebook is all a bit much really.
People should just accept what they see and hear in their life bubbles as truth, and dare not question truth/
The internet and social media seem to be driving this, but when history is examined, even just a little bit objectively we find that people have died for not believing the perceived truths they have had foisted on them.
The time of the Reformation, instigated by the invention of ‘moveable type and the printing press led to printing of the bible and having people read it, examine it, see the distortions created by the power elite, in that case the power of the Papacy, and in the ensuing wars over which truth is the real truth, half of Europe’s population died for believing or not believing.
Truth, and what to believe is a tricky conundrum when power is being protected.
The press has deliberately distorted truth, for as long as press barons have controlled the news. Eric Beecher, the journalist who started Crickry.com wrote his views on that in ‘The Men Who Killed The News’.
Yes, he had an axe to grind, having worked within the Murdoch empire, and his views are at times quite cynical, but worthy of reading and considering when reading or listening to news and opinions…. the more diverse the sources, the deeper the thinking, the better we can understand the world we live in.
But we need to THINK!
Terence, I noticed that too.
On that particular occasion I was able to edit the comment and add them there.
I’ll look into it.
Terry, it’s fixed.
I stumbled upon a way to fix it.
The other day I spent hours looking for it.
At least with fiction you can read about, or write, a happy ending. Reality however…
Dutton, with his coalition party, hates the common people in Australia.
I believe this is fact.
Rossleigh,
A small query:-
“Well, things are bad but at least things are (NOT?) as bad as Orwell’s world….”
Sorry if I have taken the wrong interpretation.
Random fact: Jimmy Carter was the first US President to be born in a hospital.
I like US presidents who were peanut farmers.
Think it goes back to the Reagan years then especially Paul Weyrich at both Republican National Committee and (now Koch) Heritage Foundation, with RW MSM avoiding ‘fairness doctrine’ for Fox ‘fair and balanced’ to influence and mislead voters.
Using PR techniques to frame issues, on the now, to avoid context, deeper meaning and explanations to condition voters*, hence, repetitive media slogans eg. nowadays immigrants, population, climate science denial, anti-renewables, anti-woke, cost of living crisis, housing crisis, university/international student crisis etc.
*Much was inspired by the view that the right or GOP can no longer win fair due to ‘liberals’, so the need to develop RW voter coalition including conservative/pro-life Christians, Evangelicals, faux free market libertarians, RWNJs, alt right and now BigTech Bros crossing over the with manosphere and intellectual dark web (Rogan, Peterson et al).
Hidden in the background, locally too, are a heaving mass of 8 million middle aged GenX, boomer ‘bomb’ and silent generations, often misled into voting for the right.
This demographic phenomenon is intentionally ignored by RW MSM and influencers to attack ‘the other’ esp ‘immigrants’ and the ALP government. Too easy with ageing, low info, cynical and narcissistic voters who demand that they are catered to; induces ‘pensioner populism’ and ‘collective narcissism’.
On our permanent population ‘grey tsunami’ The Senior has a good article and explanatory trend graphic over past decades embedded highlighting how years cohort is our fastest growing permanent and long term population cohort (till mid century).
ABS data shows Australia is ageing, prompting a workforce, retirement and health wakeup call
https://www.thesenior.com.au/story/8271715/an-ageing-australia-can-we-handle-it/
I note that the * feature for italics and ** for bold no longer works??
You need to put the asterisks inside the quotation marks (directly next to text, no spacing) and it works fine. It’s always been like that for me.