Chapter 1
Ignorance Is Strength
• Perpetual Class Struggle of Human Societies
• A hierarchy has always been present
• High, middle, low
• High = ruling class, their goal is to remain
• Middle = works for the high, their goal is to replace the high
• Low = only goal is survival, occasionally desire a society where all are
equal
• Cycle of history
• High becomes complacent
• Middle enlists the low to overthrow the high (by pretending they are
fighting for them
• Middle becomes high and puts the low back in their place
• New middle is created from one or both remaining groups
• Cycle begins again
Chapter 1
Ignorance Is Strength
• New Movements Aim to Stop This Cycle
• Ingsoc (Oceania) = Neo-Bolshevism (Eurasia) = Death
Worship (Eastasia)
• All have the conscious aim of perpetuating unfreedom &
inequality
• Off-shoots of Socialism
• Purpose of all three is to freeze history at a chosen moment – to
stop the cycle of history
Chapter 1
Ignorance Is Strength
• New Movements Aim to Stop This Cycle
• How?
• New aristocracy’s characteristics:
• Less interested in luxury
• More interested in pure power for power’s sake
• More intent on crushing opposition (this difference is crucial)
• Tyrannies of the past were half-hearted and inefficient
• Previously impossible to keep citizenry under constant
surveillance (telescreens)
• Invention of print = easier to manipulate public opinion
• Result of these last two makes it possible to enforce complete
obedience to the state & total uniformity of opinion
Chapter 1
Ignorance Is Strength
• New Movements Aim to Stop This Cycle
• How?
• Potential problems of perpetuating a hierarchy/ways in which a
ruling group falls from power:
• Conquered by an outside power
• This has become an impossibility, as we will see in Chapter 3
• Governing so inefficiently that the masses are stirred to revolt
• Allowing a strong and discontented Middle group to come into
being
• Losing confidence and the willingness to govern
• A ruling class that can guard against all four of these can
remain in power permanently.
Chapter 1
Ignorance Is Strength
• Structure of Oceanic Society
Chapter 1
Ignorance Is Strength
• Structure of Oceanic Society
• Big Brother
• Infallible and all-powerful
• No one has ever seen Big Brother
• No one is sure when he was born, and it can be assumed he will
never die
• “Every success, every achievement, every victory, every scientific
discovery, all knowledge, all wisdom, all happiness, all virtue, are
held to issue directly from his leadership and inspiration.”
• He is the guise through which the Party chooses to exhibit itself to
the world
• A focusing point for love, fear and reverence
Chapter 1
Ignorance Is Strength
• Structure of Oceanic Society
• Inner Party
• Less than 2% of the population
• Outer Party
• If the Inner Party is the brain, the Outer Party is the hands
• Proles
• The dumb masses
• 85% of the population
• Membership in these groups is not hereditary
• Rulers are not held together by blood, but by adherence to doctrine
• The Party is not a class in the old sense of the word
• The Party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood but with perpetuating
itself
• WHO wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains
intact
Chapter 1
Ignorance Is Strength
• Rebellion
• The Proles are not to be feared
• No hope = no future
• Thought Police
• A Party member lives from birth to death under the eye of the Thought Police
• Even when he is alone he can never be sure that he is alone
• Newspeak
• Eliminates the ability of Party members to even express the words necessary
for rebellion
• Doublethink
• The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously,
and accepting both of them
• The essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the
firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty
• To forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes
necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed
Chapter 1
Ignorance Is Strength
• Summary:
• This pursuit of naked power and utter lack of liberalism
distinguishes the Party from previous tyrannies, though the
Party initially justifies its control through dedication to
socialism. By focusing on collectivism, the Party can
consolidate their power and present Ingsoc as an inevitable
follow-up to capitalism in which the Low are no longer
exploited. In reality, the social castes are no longer
necessary, and collectivism only serves to prolong the
exploitation of the Low.
Chapter 1
Ignorance Is Strength
Chapter 3
War Is Peace
• The 3 Powers
• Oceania
• The Americas, British Isles, Australasia, South Africa
• Eurasia
• Northern part of European and Asiatic land
• Eastasia (the smallest of the three)
• China and the countries south of it, Japan, Manchuria,
Mongolia, Tibet
Chapter 3
War Is Peace
• No One Will Ever Win The War
• Militarily equal
• No material need to fight (i.e., each of the three powers are
possess enough natural resources)
• No ideological differences
• Insoc = Neo-Bolshevism = Death Worship
• If there is fighting (in the Disputed Zone), the fighting is
done by a few – no attrition
Chapter 3
War Is Peace
• Then Why Fight?
• “The primary aim…” (pg. 155)
• Produce goods to keep people working
• Use up the goods to create a perpetual need to continue
production
• Keep people poor but willing to continue to sacrifice
Chapter 3
War Is Peace
• Past Failures of the State to Perpetuate Hierarchy
• Developments in science & experimentation (aka, technology) =
failure
• Technology leads to luxury
• Luxury leads to education
• Education leads to rebellion
• Reversion to agricultural society = failure
• Ends technology (horse & plow)
• No technology = militarily weak & easily conquered
• Restricting the output of goods to keep masses in poverty = failure
•
•
•
•
People not working = unrest & rebellion
Land is not cultivated
Economy stagnates
Militarily weak & easily conquered
Chapter 3
War Is Peace
• Why WAR is the Answer
• Endless production of goods & need for labor
• Citizens get just enough to survive, surplus goes to the war effort
• Endless means to destroy those goods
• Making battleships, destroying those battleships and then making
more battleships…or call them obsolete and make “better”
battleships to replace the old ones
• Keeps citizens occupied
• War provides an emotional response
• Citizens will not be motivated to just build pyramids or dig holes
and fill them back up again. They will, however, be willing to do
anything for their country and its beliefs
Chapter 3
War Is Peace
• Why Big Brother Doesn’t Want to Actually Conquer the Other
Powers
• Easily conquered lands are too difficult to assimilate
• Big Brother doesn’t want citizens to associate with other cultures
• They might realize others are not so bad/different after all
• This is one reason why controlling information is so important
• Continuous war is not dangerous
• Fighting is restricted to the Disputed Zone
• Everyone knows at the outset that they can’t/won’t win
• Continuous peace is also not dangerous, but Big Brother/the Party
would lose power
Chapter 3
War Is Peace
• Summary:
• The war will never end. People will always be happy in
their poverty, working to produce goods for the war effort.
The people, then, will remain ignorant and Big Brother’s
power will be absolute and perpetual.
Chapter 3
War Is Peace
Chapter 2
Freedom Is Slavery