1984: New Classic Edition

" ' How is the dictionary getting on?' Said Winston, raising his voice to overcome the noise.'Slowly,' said Syme. "I'm on the abjectives. It's fascinating.'He had brightened up immediately at the mention of Newspeak ...'The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,' he said. ' We're getting the language into its final shape -- the shape it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we've finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We're destroying words -- scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We're cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won't contain a singe word that will become obsolete before the year 2050 ...'It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words' ...'Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.' "- George Orwell, '1984'"Logic, therefore, as the science thought, or the science of the process of pure reason, should be capable of being constructed a priori."-Arthur Schopenhauer, The Art of Controversy("a priori" is defined as deduced from self-evident premises)By revealing the concept of "Newspeak" in his great dystopian novel '1984', George Orwell, while dying of tuberculosis, cryptically attempted to expose to the world one of the great crimes of government against humanity; the systematic suppression/subversion of essential tools of reasoning; both in language and science. Central to this crime is the deliberate suppression of the science of formal logic. (Formal logic, invented by Aristotle in the fourth century B.C., is the science of evaluating arguments in order to determine if they are correctly reasoned. ) I will fully explain.You see, the masses haven't been taught formal logic by State controlled public schools or media for many generations. (In his book ' The Underground History of American Education' John Taylor Gatto informs his readers that this deliberate dumbing down of the population through State controlled schools was adopted nationwide just after the completion of the U.S. Civil War.) Don't believe me? Just go out and ask some average U.S. adults how to determine if a deductive argument is both valid and sound; or the difference between a formal and an informal logical fallacy. (Both are very basic and essential knowledge of formal logic.) You'll find that not one in twenty have any idea. This is not an accident.The terrible and murderous lies of our governments rely upon the masses being misinformed, ignorant, and intellectually crippled. And our State controlled schools and media have done this job very well, I'm sorry to say."Ignorance is strength."-George Orwell, 1984The list of criminal conspiracies, committed by the oligarchs who control our governments, are difficult for most people to psychologically accept. They include the subversion of free systems of government, fraud, illegal war, and genocide on an almost unimaginable scale. Here are a few for which the available evidence is simply overwhelming:(1) Arab terrorists did not carry out the attacks of September 11, 2001.(2) Man never walked on the moon.(3) HIV does not, and never did cause AIDS, and our governments have always been aware of this fact.(4) JFK was not murdered by a lone assassin.(5) The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, which justified U.S. entry into the Vietnam War was a hoax.(6) The homicidal cyanide gas chambers of the holocaust are a fraud, devised by the Allies to dehumanize the German enemy, and generate support for the people and state of Israel. The Germans never murdered anyone with cyanide gas.There are many, many more bloody lies, as you will see, if only you will accept George Orwell' s invitation to finally become conscious."If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses, 85 per cent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated. The Party could not be overthrown from within... But the proles, if only somehow they could become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it? And yet--!"-George Orwell, 1984-------------------------------------------------------Here are few quote/definitions regarding formal logic that I hope you will find useful."Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong."-Thomas Jefferson"We ought in fairness to fight our case with no help beyond the bare facts: nothing, therefore, should matter except the proof of those facts."-Aristotle, Rhetoric"The truth or falsity of a statement depends on facts, not on any power on the part of the statement itself of admitting contrary qualities".-Aristotle, Categories"We suppose ourselves to posses unqualified scientific knowledge of a thing, as opposed to knowing it in the accidental way in which the sophist knows, when we think that we know the cause on which the fact depends, as the cause of that fact and of no other, and further, that the fact could not be other than it is"-Aristotle, Posterior Analytics "The province of Logic must be restricted to that portion of our knowledge which consists of inferences from truths previously known; whether those antecedent data be general propositions, or particular observations and perceptions. Logic is not the science of Belief, but the science of Proof, or Evidence. In so far as belief professes to be founded on proof, the office of Logic is to supply a test for ascertaining whether or not the belief is well grounded."-John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic (1843)"Fallacious reasoning is just the opposite of what can be called cogent reasoning. We reason cogently when we reason (1) validly; (2) from premises well supported by evidence; and (3) using all relevant evidence we know of. The purpose of avoiding fallacious reasoning is, of course, to increase our chances of reasoning cogently."-Howard Kahane, Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric, 1976, second edition"The fallacy of suppressed evidence is committed when an arguer ignores evidence that would tend to undermine the premises of an otherwise good argument, causing it to be unsound or uncogent. Suppressed evidence is a fallacy of presumption and is closely related to begging the question. As such, it's occurrence does not affect the relationship between premises and conclusion but rather the alleged truth of premises. The fallacy consists in passing off what are at best half-truths as if they were whole truths, thus making what is actually a defective argument appear to be good. The fallacy is especially common among arguers who have a vested interest in the situation ttho which the argument pertains."-Patrick Hurley, A Concise Introduction to Logic (1985)"Aristotle devides all conclusions into logical and dialectical, in the manner described, and then into eristical. (3) Eristic is the method by which the form of the conclusion is correct, but the premises, the material from which it is drawn, are not true, but only appear to be true. Finally (4) sophistic is the method in which the form of the conclusion is false, although it seems correct. These three last properly belong to the art of Controversial Dialectic, as they have no objective truth in view, but only the appearance of it, and pay no regard to truth itself; that is to say, they aim at victory."-Arthur Schopenhauer, The Art of Controversy"The hypothesis most likely to prove right must do the following: 1. Include all known facts; 2. Not over-emphasize any part of the evidence at the expense of the rest; 3. Observe the laws of probability as established by previous investigation; 4. Avoid logical contradictions; 5. Stay as simple as possible without ignoring any part of the evidence. Hypotheses which violate any one of these requirements are Forced Hypotheses."-James Johnson, Logic and Rhetoric (1968) "This is the argumentum ad verecundiam. It consists in making an appeal to authority rather than reason, and in using such an authority as may suit the degree of knowledge possessed by your opponent. Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment, says Seneca; and it is therefore an easy matter if you have an authority on your side which your opponent respects. The more limited his capacity and knowledge, the greater is the number of authorities who weigh with him. But if his capacity and knowledge are of a high order, there are very few; indeed, hardly any at all. He may, perhaps, admit the authority of professional men versed in science or an art or a handicraft of which he knows little or nothing; but even so he will regard it with suspicion. Contrarily, ordinary folk have a deep respect for professional men of every kind. They are unaware that a man who makes a profession of a thing loves it not for the thing itself, but for the money he makes by it; or that it is rare for a man who teaches to know his subject thoroughly; for if he studies it as he ought, he has in most cases no time left in which to teach it... There is no opinion, however absurd, which men will not readily embrace as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally adopted. Example effects their thought just as it affects their action. They are like sheep following the bell-wether just as he leads them. They will sooner die than think. It is very curious that the universality of an opinion should have so much weight with people, as their own experience might tell them that it's acceptance is an entirely thoughtless and merely imitative process. But it tells them nothing of the kind, because they possess no self-knowledge whatever... When we come to look into the matter, so-called universal opinion is the opinion of two or three persons; and we should be persuaded of this if we could see the way in which it really arises. We should find that it is two or three persons who, in the first instance, accepted it, or advanced and maintained it; and of whom people were so good as to believe that they had thoroughly tested it. Then a few other persons, persuaded beforehand that the first were men of the requisite capacity, also accepted the opinion. These, again, were trusted by many others, whose laziness suggested to them that it was better to believe at once, than to go through the troublesome task of testing the matter for themselves. Thus the number of these lazy and credulous adherents grew from day to day; for the opinion had no sooner obtained a fair measure of support than its further supporters attributed this to the fact that the opinion could only have obtained it by the cogency of its arguments. The remainder were then compelled to grant what was universally granted, so as not to pass for unruly persons who resisted opinions which everyone accepted, or pert fellows who thought themselves cleverer than any one else.When opinion reaches this stage, adhesion becomes a duty; and henceforward the few who are capable of forming a judgment hold their peace. Those who venture to speak are such as are entirely incapable of forming any opinion or any judgment of their own, being merely the echo of others' opinions; and, nevertheless, they defend them with all the greater zeal and intolerance. For what they hate in people who think differently is not so much the different opinions which they profess, as the presumption of wanting to form their own judgment; a presumption of which they themselves are never guilty, as they are very well aware. In short, there are very few who can think, but every man wants to have an opinion; and what remains but to take it ready-made from others, instead of forming opinions for himself? Since this is what happens, where is the value of the opinion even of a hundred millions? It is no more established than an historical fact reported by a hundred chroniclers who can be proved to have plagiarised it from one another; the opinion in the end being traceable to a single individual."-Arthur Schopenhauer, The Art of Controversy (1831)

Going in, I knew there would be some similarities between his dystopia and our very own modern world. Then as I got further in, I was so terrified to find there were MANY more similarities. And then I read something that had just (allegedly) happened in our world that had already been happening in this not-so-fictional world. It’s as though whatever we are experiencing (reality, free will, a simulation… we may never know) is literally taking pages out of this book.But to read it is to understand we have two choices: to sit here and continue to let it happen, or to find out if we do have free will and knowledge to stop it and create an imperfect world that actually cares for everyone. Chaos will prevail, such is the human condition, but we also are still somehow considered the most intelligent species. We have complex brains, the ability to learn and un-learn, the capability of empathy. Yet we ignore ALL those things and stay comfortable in misery, fighting with each other. As in Oceania, we are living for fear, anger and hatred instead of unity, love, truth and understanding.I don’t think Orwell predicted the future, or even gave a “How to” guide like I was starting to think. I believe he simply understood human beings on levels that most of us can’t even fathom. I believe he was also highly intuitive, which can come across as oracle-like. I’m positive he had a depth that was rare in his time, and nearly non-existent in our time.

“Books like Orwell’s are powerful warnings, and it would be most unfortunate if the reader smugly interpreted “1984” as another description of Stalinist barbarism, and if he does not see that it means us, too” -Erich Fromm. George Owell’s book 1984 speaks about the questionable actions the government takes in order to protect and watch over the people living in their dystopian society. The themes outline the dangers of a totalitarian government and waves of manipulation as they suppress any sort of possibilities of citizens questioning their power. Some of these themes can be compared to our present day life. I recommend “1984”, because it is a controversial book that grabs the reader’s attention as it reflects on government manipulation and social class issues. “The Party” is described as an unknown higher power that has total influence over its citizens. It is clear that the Party has manipulated its citizens to think in a “certain way”. One way they manipulate the citizens is the rewritten text from the past. The mutability of history causes citizens to believe that some make believe figures and events actually existed when in reality, it was created in favor of the Party. This is described when Orwell states “Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” Winston participated in this when he invented a figure named “Comrade Ogilvy”. This idea is a parallel to real life because in different countries, certain events are rewritten to appear patriotic towards the country. Another example of government manipulation is the widespread propaganda. Citizens were forced to view advertisements of hate towards “The Brotherhood” (anti-government) group and Goldstein (Brotherhood leader). Citizens also participated in a week long event called “Hate Week” which was designed to ignite anger and hatred towards the “enemy”. Telescreens were also posted everywhere in order to keep track of the citizens' lives. These ideas are controversial to today’s society. Many are weary of the government spying on our actions through webcams and cell phones. During election season, propaganda of leaders can be seen to create hate similar to how the Party forces propaganda to its citizens. There are three slogans the Party lives by: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength”. Citizens of Oceania live by these quotes believing it is the correct ideas because the Party constantly repeats it. The parallel for this is that there are certain ideas that some countries live by that overall can be dangerous towards its citizens. The idea of government manipulation in 1984 is an eye-opening experience to read and will make any reader question whether any of these practices are happening in their real life. Social class issues were presented with the story through a concept called “Inner Party” and “Outer Party”. The “Inner Party” is the high and elite class of citizens of Oceania and they have less privileges than the “Outer Party”. The “Outer Party” is described as the “middle class” of the story. Most are given government jobs however, they are the most threatening to the government because they are intelligent enough to start a revolution. There are also the “Proles” that have poorer conditions than the “Outer Power” and makes up 85% of the population. The Party controls the “Proles” by exposing them to vices such as alcohol and pornography; furthermore, they are considered and viewed as animals. This social class system can be seen in today’s society. For example, in the United States, the “Inner Party” is compared to the “Top 1%”. The “Outer Party” makes up the middle working class. Though not as extreme as described in the book, the “Proles” can compare to the rest of America’s population: low working wages and mostly involved in vices as well. In the book, Winston writes “If there is any hope, it lies with the Proles” meaning that if there is any hope for change for the regime, it would start the majority of the population. This is an idea that is popular in American politics. Leaders tend to campaign towards the low working class population because they know there is more of “them” in the population to vote. This theme can bring attention to the reader and persuade them to understand how their society is composed and “controlled by the government”. “1984” was one of the first books to explore the ideas of change and “free thinking”. This caused many institutions to ban this book, which is ironic because censorship was one of the ways the Party manipulated its citizens. I would recommend this book to encourage conversations about individualism and power.

I have not even finished the book but I feel confident to write my review!!!This book makes you feel paranoid and anxious, which I imagine was the goal of George Orwell, and for that reason only I found it astonishing.The writer makes detailed descriptions of EVERYTHING, so accurate that you feel are there.I have bought the Kindle version, and surely, the best 2 spent Euros of my life.

This classic will always remain a classic. It remains a eye opener more then ever!I felt a sense of realism while reading this book since it reminded me of the actual power of manipulators who lie openly, narcissistically, on fictitious news to engage nations in a destructive track. The reader is made aware of the subtle tools, for instance political shows, that rely on the short memory of people to make up a false reality. A reality that profits to a very small minority.The invention of new and simplistic words reminded me of certains religiously read twits! Orwell shows how meaningless words are a sign of our inability to develop a critical mind.History demonstrates what dangers surround democracy. This book makes the reader reflect on what happens when powerful entertainers play with the memory of people. A false sense of security so to hide long-term goals ...Most of all we become more conscious of how the manipulation of information is a real and profound threat to the world and the environnement who sustains us.This book should be read by people who really care about their children. I mean... not only for their material confort, but for their freedom and... their future. Because the threat imagined in George Orwell's novel may become the REALity.

Absolute classic great vision and for thought to produce a book in the 50’s that is what we are living today

It is hard to quantify just how important this book is! Probably one of the most significant novels of the 20th Century, with increasing relevance as time goes on. If you've never read it, go for it.As for the product, it arrived on time in excellent condition and great value for money!

George Orwell's 1984 is a timeless classic that continues to resonate today. The book's ability to predict the future, with its themes of government surveillance, thought control, and propaganda, is eerily accurate. The vigilance society we now live in, with cameras on every corner and personal data being constantly monitored, feels like something straight out of the book. The control of language, with the manipulation of words and meanings, is also something we see in our world today. 1984 is a must-read for anyone concerned with the state of society and the dangers of unchecked government power.