MacGuffin

And so the vile bloated carcass of the Emperor doesn’t appear stark naked and thus offend our delicate Antipodean sensibilities, our leader’s drape the Aussie flag over all the repulsive bits and whisper their safe word in unison - “Realpolitik”.

Agree from a realpolitik perspective now-but protracted appeasement by bystander nations inc our own was an utter failure as well and we need to own that. Sadly, sabre rattling cosplay with partner nations in the aftermath of an horrific genocide is far too little far too late’ for Palestinians.

Philosophy & Literature on Instagram: "A Final Warning from George Orwell . . . . . #philosophy #georgeorwell #books #1984 #warning" 10K likes, 267 comments - philosophyofexistence on July 8, 2025: "A Final Warning from George Orwell . . . . . #philosophy #georgeorwell #books #1984 #warning".

www.instagram.com/reel/DL2fWSN...

Yes it’s a devastating coda and the fulfilment of O’Brien’s prophecy thus: “You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves”.

By making the reader carry the emotional truth his characters can no longer bear, Orwell puts it all on on us to see that totalitarian tyrants of any persuasion never get the chance to realise the author’s terrifying vision of a jackboot “stomping” on the best aspects of our humanity forever.

But Orwell is not finished with us yet. Julia & Winston’s individuality & feelings have been erased but WE remember exactly who they were and therefore We feel their grief, their shame, the devastating loss of their love on their behalf.

At the most primal level humans are hardwired to survive - everything else is subordinate to that fundamental priority when we are placed under unbearable stress.

I hasten to add that while the lovers still vaguely sense they have betrayed each other, it isn’t really a betrayal at all. Orwell knew from his experiences in wartime that courage can be exhausted & torture does not appeal to reason, loyalty or love.

Furthermore human beings can indeed be annihilated & everything we hold sacred can be taken away from us. Under relentless torture humans will eventually do anything to end the suffering including giving up loved ones. Not a very ‘Hollywood’ ending is it?

The ending to 1984 is one of the most heartbreaking in all of literature and Orwell achieves this in two main ways. Firstly by reiterating an unnerving truth: Past a certain point & given the right circumstances love cannot save us.

YouTube video by Bebert Legland Noam Chomsky tells Andrew Marr why he got his job at the BBC

Old clip but still how the game works…

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Indeed…👏

Syme doesn’t just “tolerate” the act of cutting — he revels in it. His enthusiasm shows how totalitarianism can seduce even the clever and cultured by appealing to intellectual vanity. His enjoyment is itself part of the evil Orwell wants us to see.

With respect, Syme loves language but only as an instrument of control. As he says: “The whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought”. So while Syme enjoys the linguistic challenge, it’s a love of linguistic architecture in service of tyranny, not a scholar’s innocent delight.

Well said Dave. I will never forget. Israeli Zionists have ruptured the moral universe & started an ice cold war with mankind.
Fiat justitia ruat caelum.

“ADF personnel say they’d be very happy for Tony Abbott to lead the unexploded mines recovery team”.

Their compelling struggles and experiences under the yoke of a brutal all pervasive surveillance state are nightmarishly real. Orwell hoped they’d be real enough to make readers question the stability and trajectory of their own nation states while there was still time to avoid political tyranny.

It’s not realistic or particularly plausible that the Party could restrain or completely control the human spirit. But put aside the outlandish setting and you’ll see 1984 is grounded by the very real drama of its characters.

Julia: ingenuity/creative thinking in arranging secret rendezvous with Winston; smuggling real tea, coffee
makeup; the reclamation of her body and sensual pleasure are all acts of subversive creativity - small human assertions of individuality over stifling state control.

Examples: Winston’s diary, old poetry fragments (Oranges & Lemons) his dreams of Julia & the Golden Country, the coral paperweight, the unrestrained spontaneity of the washer woman’s voice - these are all small acts of rebellious creativity, doomed perhaps, but deeply human.

Since creativity is a form of self-expression and as Syme explains, “Thoughtcrime is death” creativity cannot “flourish”. However a few notable traces of creative rebellion exist above and below the surface of 1984.

There are no explicitly hopeful messages in the novel - quite the opposite:
“If you want a vision of the future imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
That said, 1984 was written precisely in the hope that the totalitarian hell hole depicted in the work would never come to fruition.

As the personification of Arendt’s “banality of evil” in its most intellectual & self aware form he has no literary contemporaries that I’m aware of except maybe Cormac McCarthys extraordinary Judge Holden (Blood Meridian) a far more
recent creation.

O’Brien is an original, frightening, extremely complex & compelling villain - a man of great intellect & charisma who also happens to be a vivisector of the human condition and an utterly amoral destroyer of minds.

Taken out of context mass surveillance of dreams is a rather ludicrous concept but Orwell knew that the Party trick was making people believe you can do it. From here, fear, guilt & self loathing take over. The mind can never be allowed to wander! It must be self imprisoned and guarded 24/7.

👆unconsciousness
More overtly the persecution of the loyal, ‘useful idiot’ Parsons is a terror inducing control act designed to say: everyone is always a suspect, no one is safe, ever - not even from your own family in your own bed asleep.

As I recall Parson’s daughter dobbed him in for dissing BB in his sleep!
To focus on one aspect of this layered sequence Parson’s subconscious transgression is consistent with Syme’s dictum that “orthodoxy is unconscious” IOW true loyalty means not thinking ever - even in the realm of dreams.

He also understands language mechanisms far too well to ever be an ideal (unconscious/orthodox) citizen himself. Winston senses that Syme’s intellect & his knowledge of the inner workings of the Party will eventually be his undoing and his intuition proves to be entirely correct.

“Orthodoxy is unconsciousness” in practice describes a mind that has been trained to automatically accept everything the Party says & does without even noticing.
Paradox: Syme zealously believes in the Newspeak project yet he’s highly articulate & loves language & ideas etc.

👍