Book Club

I disagree with you that there are few corollaries to America today and the London of 1984. I think there is a LOT to the thought crimes- more than we even know. A few years ago, there was a huge scandal because the IRS went after people who belonged to the Tea Party movement and audited them aggressively because they are people who commit "thought crimes", thinking that government is too big and that taxes should be severely limited.

Also, people who own small businesses are being prosecuted for "thought crimes"- sued for not baking a wedding cake for a homosexual couple, or pharmacies being sued for not selling the morning after pill or other birth control pills that are actually abortifascients - these things can be termed "thought crimes" because the people are thinking differently from what the culture at large has accepted as good behavior. Right now, it is just hurting people's pocket books- they are not being thrown in jail, but they are being punished for thinking differently.

I don't think feminists are individualistic at all, they seem to have a collective mind set- mostly focused on abortion.

Well I suppose that could be seen as thoughtcrimes against the American Law and system. American Law is very prized on individualism. "My body my choice", "the customer is always right", "no taxes", etc. The difference between that and 1984 though is the people denying service or products aren't really committing thoughtcrimes because they are holding to their conscience, they are not guilty in their minds of doing such things. In 1984 Winston's thoughtcrimes, he knows are thoughtcrimes, and so because he knows he is guilty he has to try to hide his conscience.

Yea I kinda see what you mean with the feminists being collectivist insofar that they are a group, but at the same time the whole premise of their various protests are very individualistic, even if we relegate their movement down to just abortion. Abortion should be an individual's choice in their view rather than the choice of the collective society, which is essentially what American Law all ready says.

I meant they are thought crimes against the current culture- the current culture wants to dictate how people follow freedom of religion. They think there is no freedom for religion in business. Many people who are not Christian do not see the big deal about why these business owners are not separating their business practices from their religion- they can not see that Christians want to live for Christ not only on Sunday, but to stand up for their beliefs in their business, too. The customer is not always right if it violates a person's religion. Your body is free to do with as you wish, until you kill the life of another citizen. Sure, the people who are doing these things are following their consciences, but it could be seen by a very large segment of our culture as thought crimes- wrong thinking. Even Clinton said that people would have to change their old way of thinking. This is what is scary to many Christians.

Many feminists want taxpayer money to fund abortions here and abroad- they are also against laws that would curtail abortion in any way, even if it means not signing in a law making it illegal for an abortionist to practice without hospital clearance. They want to force us to pay for the murder of the unborn. Planned Parenthood is a behemoth, and a bureaucratic institution receiving billions of dollars every year. It's pretty collective.

I mean personally I agree with your views pretty fully actually, but that's unfortunately not how American Law sees it at all. America is a very secularist nation, maybe the most secularist nation ever made, it is also the most individualistic. I cited those slogans, not that I agree with them, but they are pretty indicative of the society and the US Law structure.

For instance with the gay wedding cakes, the customer actually is right, it is quite illegal to deny a service to an American citizen based on sexual orientation no matter what the business owner's world view is. Not that I support them trying to call sodomy marriage, but that's just merely what the letter and spirit of Law is in this country.

On abortion, well yes there is a collective effort to maintain the law regarding abortion. However the issue itself and the SCOUTS ruling which makes it legal is based on individualism; that a woman has the individual right of choice to have an abortion, that the collective society and/or government cannot prevent her from making that choice. Not that I like abortion at all, but that's the law.

Being for or against either of these issues is not really a thoughtcrime in the vein of 1984 because you will find pretty generally both sides of those issues do not feel guilty for their opinions and the Thought police pretty much can't do anything for holding any view on those issues besides opinionate about it.

Getting back to the book, is it a thought crime if the person does not feel guilty? Winston feels guilty, but does he feel guilty because he has subversive thoughts or because he is having private thoughts? Is he having misplaced guilt? If O'Brien has subversive thoughts, but feels not one whit of guilt, then is he guilty of thought crimes? Is it the guilt only that is the crime and not the thought itself?

If I lived in the London of 1984 and thought the government was a big bully and Big Brother a jerk, and not guilty about thinking it, are you saying the Party would not consider it a thought crime?

We haven't talked about the helicopter police yet, looking into people's homes. It made me think of drones. Apparently, there is a drone the size of a bee that the military has now. It's interesting, we also haven't talked about the NSA and the phone tapping as a corollary of the telescreens.

Lol well it's a society built on lies with no laws at all. So all Winston's personal thoughts are also subversive thoughts. Winston feels guilty because he knows he hates Big Brother and the Party and he is committed to hating the Party, so he is very guilty of thoughtcrimes. Lol really there is no crime for his thoughts or his guilt, because there is no law. It's all a big contradiction in the 1984 universe and we can just keep running in circles with it lol because it is all about Truth vs Lies.

As for O'Brien, note that we only know Winston's perception of O'Brien we don't actually know what O'Brien is thinking and neither does Winston. Though I've read the book before, so I think we'll save pondering on O'Brien for later on.

If you lived in the 1984 universe you'd probably be the lovely Julia with that mindset, we've met her character though unnamed at the moment, and we'll find out about her later on and her thoughtcrimes against the Party.

Yes I suppose indeed the technology and mass surveillance of the population in today's America is indeed the most striking similarity to 1984. Lol Snowden fled to Eurasia, we've always been at war with Eurasia. Snowden is traitor for his thoughtcrimes against the State and Big Brother! Ignorance is Strength!

I haven't read it for twenty years, and apparently remember not as much as I thought I did. I would not be Julia, as I certainly would not worship a Party. Also, if she is emblematic of feminism, I am certainly not a feminist. My point is this- are thoughts alone thought crimes or is feeling guilty about having opposing thoughts thought crimes? Sure, there is no law in 1984, the Party is a law unto itself- nothing is codified. This is what makes Conservatives claim the book as a cautionary tale. We are scared of a government where the Constitution is thrown out the window. SO many people have remarked that the Electoral College is no longer relevant, and the Constitution needs to be amended to abolish it- in effect giving electoral power to big states only and disenfranchising small states.

I have found it curious that people on the far left and people on the far right have something in common- most people on both extremes of the political spectrum are very wary of the NSA and privacy breaches. The people in the middle don't really care.

Well if you were a female in 1984 and thought all that about Big Brother and the Party you'd be Julia, lol so without giving away too many more spoilers, we'll find out very soon.

As for you question; "are thoughts alone thought crimes or is feeling guilty about having opposing thoughts thought crimes?"

They're both and neither. Everything in 1984 is contradiction. It's not a crime to have opposing thoughts so you're not guilty, but you're still guilty because your thoughts oppose the party. You'd feel guilty because indeed you are guilty. Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! If it sounds like a contradiction that's because it is, the law of the 1984 society is contradictions and lies.

Really the Party isn't even a law unto itself. Not how the proles are free to express themselves and not get vaporized, written off as typical stupid proles. It's the Party members like Winston that fall under the nonexistent laws and whims and punishments of being subversive to the Party. We'll be able to elaborate a bit more on that a lil later in the tale also.

Coming back to American politics in relation to 1984, lol the US conservatives are way more like the Party of 1984 than the leftwing faction. The right-wingers always are chiding and putting their own Party members through purity tests and punishing them for thoughtcrimes against the GOP, for not being "conservative" enough. The left-wingers are more like Brave New World, anything goes, total self-gratification and hedonism.

As for the Electoral College and federalism, that' really totally different than 1984 entirely. Obviously in 1984 there is the Suprastate of Oceania (and presumably also Eurasia and Eastasia if those are even real and not just zeitgeist made up by the Party). Really the way America is a sorta patchwork of squabbling states and factions is what indeed makes a system like 1984 pretty much impossible to ever fully realize in America.

As for NSA, actually the far right and far left are in agreement on keeping NSA spying and hanging Snowden lol. After all that's one of the rare bipartisan things they voted on doing.

It occurred to me that the two minutes of hate is deliberately designed to cause confusion in the minds of those forced to participate in such a polarized portrayal of "us against them." Goldstein, the enemy of the Party, advocates for freedom, which nobody really has, and everyday, people are unmasked as having come under his influence to become enemies of the State.

Meanwhile, essentially everyone is being controlled by fear of discovery. All are coerced into living a lie whether they are smart enough to discover the truth of it or not, living lives of quiet desperation while putting on a face of quiet optimism, to subvert detection by the swallowers of slogans. The slogans are a paltry substitute for any safely universally acknowledgment of truth, which is itself the underlying catalytic structure of civilization. On the face of it, it would seem that no real progress can be made in a completely polarized society. Where is a safely recognized universal truth in a world that is controlled by the media bent on creating false news?

This first chapter of 1984 very much reminded me of what I have read of communist Russia during their worst days, when people could be arrested, interrogated, tortured, and thrown into a gulag for any reason whatsoever. Totalitarianism brooks no opposition. Regimes like that are a dime a dozen.

I think you are both wrong here. I think the true controlling agent of culture is the "Media Party." And I think that they will one day soon emerge as somehow a serious third party that will just bulldoze every other political influence.

I think you are both wrong here. I think the true controlling agent of culture is the "Media Party." And I think that they will one day soon emerge as somehow a serious third party that will just bulldoze every other political influence.

No way, man. The Party of 1984 is more like the Democrats than the Republicans. Who is the current head of the Republican party? Donald Trump, the man very few Republicans wanted as their head. The Republican party is not so homogenized. Also, if you will remember the scandal about Debbie Wasserman Schultz, there was a concerted effort amongst the Democrats to keep Bernie out and secure Clinton's nomination.

Yes, the POLITICIANS denounce Snowden- but the far right people and far left people are highly concerned about privacy and the NSA.

I voted for this book because I had to read it for class anyways.

I really dislike it and I've barely finished the second chapter

I don't think so- most people distrust the media, and mainstream media is totally irrelevant to the younger generations. Newspapers aren't read and kids don't watch the Nightly News. They get their information from the internet- which is still a Wild West of information, it's not censored- YET. I kind of deplore the idea of cracking down on fake news online, who decides what is fake news and what is newsworthy? Zuckerberg? I think most people have enough sense to figure out that a story about Bigfoot being found at last is fake news, even if it looks legitimate online.

I know the internet has anything and everything- that's bad in a way, because of pornography. But it's very good in a way because it is another platform with which Christians can use to witness to the world- the Word of God literally going around the world.

For the record, I don't belong to either party, but vote Republican because I am staunchly anti-abortion. Both parties are corrupt, of course. One just happens to be a little more socially conservative than the other.

I voted for this book because I had to read it for class anyways.

I really dislike it and I've barely finished the second chapter

Heh this made me look at the OP and realize we were supposed to read 3 chapters, not just the first one O_O. I never was good at keeping up with homework lol. Well I guess I'll have to go read the second chapter then later today and post about it here.

Thank you to all the people who voted and are interested in reading a book and discussing its merits, or lack thereof, and our impressions- whether they are brand new or if they are second or subsequent impressions. The book with the highest number of votes was 1984 by George Orwell. Here is a link to a downloadable version of the book as well as an audio version for people who may not want to read, but may want to listen to the book.

After looking at the book, I think we can read the first chapter in a week- it comprises twenty-five pages, so that should not be too much to read in a week's time. I propose that we meet again next Wednesday to discuss the first three chapters. Anyone is welcome to join, even if you did not vote, or if you choose not to read the book but want to post comments to what others post. It is all inclusive.