Dystopian Societies Today

This news article gave me a grim realization that the dystopian worlds I read about in books actually exists in the world today. The concentration camp which Shin Dong Hyok spent most of his life in is very similar to that of Oceania and the One State, in We. Like in the dystopian novels we have read, Shin did not hate the people who were oppressing him, he did not know that bad things were bad, he was not permitted to have feelings, and the aspect of family was obsolete. These characteristics are very similar to the lives that D-503 and Winston face in their respective worlds. In their dystopian societies, the citizens, for the most part, love their rulers, they do not see the worth in feeling and rather prefer mathematical reasoning (especially in We), and the establishment of family does not exist. Shin Dong Hyok suffered a sort of Stockholm syndrome in the sense that he, although he did not necessarily enjoy the surroundings he was born into, he did not think he was being treated unfair. Not until he learns of the outside world, just like in We, does he start to yearn for the outside. Another similarity between the world he lived in and we was that to some extent, he wished he had not known of the outside world. “Shin said he sometimes wished he could return to the time before he learned about the greater world, “without knowing that we were in a prison camp, without knowing that there was a place called South Korea.”” This is so shocking. The fact that he was more content in a totalitarian world than the free one he is now makes me wonder if man actually likes to be controlled. If I was freed from such a hell, I imagine that I would rejoice and celebrate and finally live my life, but after reconsideration, especially after reading this, I do not if I would be able to be content with the power I had. It would be like me getting sent to a place which no one in the world knew about and told to do whatever I want. This example can’t even begin to brush on the extremity that Shin faced but it really makes me wonder.
Along with similarities to We this article has some similarities to 1984. In both worlds, the idea of marriage is not believed to be beneficial and couples are allowed to see each other only as “award marriages.” Also, there is a slogan similar to that in 1984. “Everyone obey the regulations.” The similarities between the dystopian worlds we have read about in novels and the one the Shin actually lived are extremely similar. It begs the question, was the concentration camp world Shin was living in, actually hindering him? Not until he learned of the outside world did he try to escape. It seems that either he was too weak both mentally and physically to try and escape, or that he was too scared and found no extreme grievance in the world he had. I am in no way saying that these North Korean concentration camps are at the slightest bit humane or worth any praise, but rather raising the question, what would you do if you woke up tomorrow and realized that the world that you called your own was merely a façade and that the truth laid miles away?

Is There Any Absolute Truth?

After the presentations we did in English today, I realized that not a single piece of evidence was voted to be completely absolute. There was always a counter argument or a loophole that disproved what one was trying to argue. I tried to prove that the edge of a circle is never ending and that it can go on forever, which I believed to be a very strong argument, but I was wrong. Students said that the end point would be the same as the starting point and that a circle was not really infinite. It seems that all the absolute truths revolved around mathematics. In We a constant reference is made to mathematics as D-503 feels safe around something that he knows and that can be proven. A common argument that came up for majority of the students presentations was that of opinion. Each person has a different way of viewing the world, and the only thing in the world that can be viewed in one way, for the most part, is math. This begs the question though, why is there so much absolute truth in Orwell’s 1984?
The people of the Party in 1984 are extremely malleable. They believe anything they are told by the Inner Party and Big Brother because they view them as God. The only reason there is little evidence of absolute truth in today’s world is because people are allowed to have opinion and are free to believe what they want. In 1984 the Thought Police control the thoughts of the Inner Party and, because of fear, the members to don’t believe what they shouldn’t. The Inner Party takes advantage of their member’s credulity. How else can the enemy of a country be completely changed without any negative reaction from its citizens.
In Oceania, religion is disallowed, and instead, to some extent, Big Brother is God. I did not realize this until today, but the things that the Outer Party is digesting are believed to be the word of God. It is like if Jesus Christ himself said that “Blue is now called peanut butter.” After the initial shock, many, if not all people, would follow what he is telling us because He is the greatest character of one’s mind. The sole factor that increases the amount of absolute truth in the world is the presence of a higher being telling us that is what it is. Also, the allowance of opinion and free thought makes it hard for there to be a worldwide consensus on certain issues.

Polititains Love Ambiguity

This activity was much harder than I thought it was. It was one thing to add nonsense vocabulary that I know for whatever reason and using it in a pretty much inappropriate way, but the more difficult part of this experience was actually condensing the speeches in order for them to make since. For example it was extremely difficult to digest what Wallace was talking about. I was about fifty percent sure it was about slaves, but I really don’t know. This connects to what Orwell was saying about the use of politics to manipulate the audience. Politicians utilize vocabulary to present very wish washy message so if things go wrong, they cannot get full blame. They use very sophisticated language to both make them seem smarter, make their points seem more acceptable, and to confuse the audience. I experienced this first hand because when I tried to reword the speeches to make them more straightforward, it was difficult. The only hard thing about going against Orwell and using unnecessary vocabulary is find vocabulary that seems smart. It is easier to protect your main thoughts with unnecessary words than it is to present facts that are strong enough that they do not need any buffer. The hardest thing about this activity was siphoning through all the text and fishing out the words that actually meant something.

Newspeak: The Light at the End of the Tunnel

It seems to me that I have learned more about the English language by reading Orwell’s Politics and the English Language than I have in my five or so years of taking an English class. There are many errors in writing that Orwell talks about that I can directly relate to some writing I do, especially first drafts. His main points are: passive voice is bad; pretention diction is used to dress up simple phrases to give them a more scientific feel, foreign words are used to give the author a feel of elegance and culture, and metaphors that are overused become redundant. Besides the English lesson I learned from this essay, there was an interesting point that shined through. In 1984 Newspeak is the official language and, instead of adding words, the people who work on it, strife to cut out unnecessary words. At first, I was surprised by this idea of control of language and thought it fit like a shoe to the dystopian theme of the book (notice the overused metaphor). Instead, I am compelled to believe that the destruction of words have some benefits.
“If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy… Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable…” In 1984 the implantation of Newspeak will eventually make this idea obsolete. With such a limitation of words, the underlying message will disappear. Citizens of the Party will have such a slim selection of words to choose from ambiguity and vagueness will disappear. Orwell argues that wordiness is an extreme crutch of the English language; this is something the Party is trying to eradicate. However, I suppose the reason that the Inner Party wants Newspeak is not so that English teachers disgusted with the misuse of language will be happy, but rather so that everything said will have one meaning. With Newspeak, there would be no room for interpretation and therefore no excuses.
“Political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.” This is not the case in Oceania though. For example, during Hate Week, the enemy of Oceania changes just like that, but instead of the members of the Party getting upset, they chose to destroy any evidence that the former enemy was really ever the enemy. With citizens like this, the message a Party is broadcasting does not have to be vague. The Party could state even the most horrendous act without any justification and the Party would revel. In today’s world though, this malleability of language is more than necessary. Certain words can be used to strike certain emotions and certain words can be used to make certain acts less intense.
In Politics and the English Language Orwell is trying to show his readers the disgracefully state that the English language is in, but also to demonstrate its power of ambiguity. Think of it this way: because of people’s ability to think for themselves, if a party is trying to say something less than desirable, the language needs to be clear, but if the people have no free will, extra words are not necessary to cloud meanings as people will believe whatever is told.

Haughty Lady

Although the author of Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Novel is arguing points I agree with for the most part, there are a few instances where she comes off extremely arrogant and haughty. She gets a lot of pleasure out of stating things that, I believe, majority of people know in the back of their head. For example, she takes a few pages to state how when the reader feels a particular kinship with a novel, she feels as if she is communicating with the author. This sort of connection between the reader and writer is and has been evident to me for a very long time. When you like a book, you become so engulfed in it, that it makes sense that you would believe the author is writing this book for you. “This is the essential pleasure of literature, ideas going into and out of words over and over and over, any time the reader opens a book, or the author takes up a pen” (84). The author argues that the writer, the book, and the reader have a sort of circular relationship. The author’s idea turns into a book which then turns back into ideas for the reader.
The second point I agree with is the idea of willing suspension of disbelief. The reader has to have some sort imagination and can’t question everything that he reads. The author uses the novel The Metamorphosis as an example. She talks about how some students in her class were unwilling to believe that the main character could just turn into the bug just like that. I agree with what she says because when you have the question of why did this happen? In the back of your head, it would be hard to enjoy the book to the fullest. For example, in Zamyatin’s We, the One State is far-fetched even though it is in the future but I still believed that something like that could exist and therefore, enjoyed the novel more. That was about all that I could agree with in this chapter.
The author argues that a good novel has to have an author that is common. She says it enables a reader to relax with a novel and it gives relevance to their own life. This isn’t true at all. The whole genre of dystopian novels totally disproves this theory. How do George Orwell and Yevgeny Zamyatin know what it will be like to live in the future? Although true they are basing the future on current issues, the authors do not have any commonness to the situation but it still seems to give an in depth look into what life is. All good novels have theme whether or not the author has experienced firsthand one he or she is talking about. In Zamyatin’s On Language he talks about how it is important to speak and think like the main character does. This is just as effective as if the author experienced the things he is talking about personally. She also states that books by Donald Trump, Albert Einstein etc. would not be interesting. I do not understand how the popularity or amount of fame one has can affect the strength of a novel. There is no direct correlation between commonness of a person to how good their novel is.
Overall, the tone of this chapter made me upset. The author made analogies and connections to things that were not necessary at all. For example, she took about five pages comparing a novel to a game. All of these analogies had the same basic idea: the author and the reader have to establish a connection; something I learned when I was in middle school.