BIOL1008 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Doublethink, Ingsoc, Newspeak
Mod A
Introduction
Context Paragraph
1984
• Constructed during the unstable aftermath of WW1
• Encapsulates the shifting scientific and philosophic paradigms resultant
• Influenced by the arise of Stalinist and Nazi despotism
o “We are living in a world where nobody is free . . . in which it is
almost impossible to be honest and remain alive”
• Littered with satirical entities, “Thought Police”, “The Party”, “Proles”, all
of which either appropriate aspects of Marxist theory, or elements of
Stalin’s contemporaneous police state
• Satirical critique on the abuse and manipulation of such totalitarian
regimes, which serve to void the individual of humanity
Metropolis
• Constructed in Weimar Germany’s industrial and mechanized society
• Encapsulates the impacts of the economic paradigm on humanity
o Spinning cogs, Mercedes clock, ‘heart machine’
• Extrapolates from a socially divided, industrialized world to one where
the protagonist searches for existential meaning in a dehumanized and
mechanized society
• Ambivalent examination of technological proliferation aligning with
Marxist theories of ‘capitalist oppression’, which serve to void the
individual of humanity
1984
TS – Social structures where oligarchs undermine individual autonomy and stifle
expression for their own benefit carry the potential to construct the identity of
the powerless whilst distorting perception
Power Abuse – Perspective abolishment of freedom of thought and truth
• Political ideology of “Ingsoc” and hegmonist language “Newspeak”
evidences the limitations of individual ability to challenge society
• “It’s a beauty thing, the destruction of words” – Simon
• “Double think” neologism, apogee of power, ability to override cognitive
dissonance – freedom of thought
• “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength”
o “Deliberate exercises of doublethink”
o Axiomatic ironic distortions – accepting by society
o Appropriations of ‘Ministry of Information’ – WW1
• “Sometimes there a five. Sometimes there are three. It’s not easy become
sane”
o Paradoxical perception, emblematic of inability to question and
highlights the abolitions of absolute truth in an despotic
environment – “Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4”
Metropolis – Perspective Machine era suffocating individuality
TS – Abusive technological pervasiveness can ironically stifle, manipulate and
limit a society’s humanity and can pervert the search for enlightenment.
Power divide
• Emphasis on social stratification and disparities of the upper and lower
• Upper world characterised as lavish and decadent
o Yoshiwara Nightclub, art deco, unabashed embracement of
modernism
• Under world characterised as dehumanized and hellish
o Homogenized choreography
o Denatured and hellishly connoted by steam and disproportional
machine size
o Suffering denoted by frantic rigid movement and crescendo of
score
Technology
• Lang transposes the qualities of machines and humanity
• ‘Moloch scene’ – sacrifice connotation
• Slave to the machinery, an explicit critique of the economic paradigm
o Conformity in death march – metaphor for machine superiority
o Accentuated by bleak cinematic sequence of long-shots,
representing the ant-like nature of mankind
• Rotwang’s Robot Maria incarnation – Hupertz romantic orchestral score
o Emphasis on the seductive charm of machinery
1984 – Perspective - Individual autonomy and nihilism
TS – A priori knowledge is knowledge that exists independent of the denials of
the powerful, that is intrinsic or inherent to the individual, and thus beyond the
reach of manipulation.
Individual autonomy
• Innate desire for self-expression, fundamental to the human condition, is
characterised as “insane” by oppressive regimes
• Winston’s epiphany “Nothing was your own except the few cubic
centimeters inside you skull”
o Function for independent thought and separate from environment
• Expression of self-autonomy
o “You’re only a rebel from the waist down”
o “Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a
blow struck against the Party. It was political act.”
• Nihilistic
o Despite ‘a priori knowledge’, the parties manipulation and power
exceeds individual autonomy
o The destruction of Winston in “Room 101” due to his self-
expression, resonates with the Nihilistic philosophy, expressing
Orwell’s premonition that the loss of all moral and sane judgement
will be consequence of totalitarian regimes
▪ “I shall save you, I shall make you perfect” – O’Brien
▪ “He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother”
• Epitome of loss of self expression, and decimation of
cognitive dissonance
Metropolis – Mediator solution to injustice
• A priori understanding of injustice and wrongdoing as opposed to
Winston’s more personal yearnings for self-expression
• The uprising of the workers in Metropolis embodies the collective
revolutions to ‘rebalance’ social inequities
• Symbolic of Marxist assertion that oppression exists at the heart of the
capitalist political structure
o Allegorically evident in metaphorical role of Freder as the
mediator between “hearts and hands”
o Able to separate from upper class position of ostensible
superiority through the intrinsic empathetic feeling
▪ Displays the ability of the self to separate identity and
consciousness form the manipulative and conformist
nature of the environment
▪ Exchange of position with worker ‘11811’ in
“nastormachine”
o Advocates class conflict can be resolved by appealing to the
common morality inherent within all
▪ Lang positing in a Christian context, religiously inspired
mediation, as can satisfy intrinsic moral knowledge
▪ Mise-en-scene – Church setting, long shot, affirms
‘mediator’ assertion, arrow of workers pointing to Freder
illuminating the resolution
Document Summary
Marxist theories of capitalist oppression", which serve to void the: ambivalent examination of technological proliferation aligning with individual of humanity. 1984 evidences the limitations of individual ability to challenge society expression for their own benefit carry the potential to construct the identity of the powerless whilst distorting perception. Ts social structures where oligarchs undermine individual autonomy and stifle. Power abuse perspective abolishment of freedom of thought and truth: political ideology of ingsoc and hegmonist language newspeak . It"s a beauty thing, the destruction of words simon. Double think neologism, apogee of power, ability to override cognitive dissonance freedom of thought. Ignorance is strength : deliberate exercises of doublethink , axiomatic ironic distortions accepting by society, appropriations of ministry of information" ww1. It"s not easy become sane highlights the abolitions of absolute truth in an despotic: paradoxical perception, emblematic of inability to question and environment freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4 .
