George Orwell's 1984 and How Power Manufactures Truth | Hacker News Reader

George Orwell's 1984 and How Power Manufactures Truth

openculture.com

67 pointscolinprince86 comments

I'm reminded of this famous quote from the Nuremberg Diary, and the casualness of how it seems to have been stated:

Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.

Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Diary

I'm not sure if this quote takes into account mob rule. Take ethnic strife in Myanmar or in Africa or rural Mexico, etc. It's not governments doing it --it's mostly grass roots after a grievance is unaddressed and explodes.

Yeah, 1984 and its source material tend to reduce everything to monolithic dystopias, which indeed was relevant and happens when top down power bends truth. But maybe enough pent-up bottom up emotion can also override reason and decay truth the same way. It feels like the latter is also closer to a lot of the world today, we're seeing more chaotic competition for attention than some centrally planned dictation of truth.

That’s your interpretation from high school. The reality is it’s about information control, and an all powerful state was the most understandable model for Orwell.

Today, carefully crafted messages lead people to self-select propaganda. The stereotype of the MAGA uncle is the result of an appeal to fear, resentment and nostalgia.

Everyone must have a MAGA uncle. I myself have two, my kids have one, perhaps two. They are the ones we always had questions about, and would often introduce strange ideas at the table, like a return to the gold standard, or joining Amway, or something. It's scary how easily they bought into it, and how easily manipulated they are. I would imagine they would be easily hypnotized or something. They seem to be the ones that want someone else to tell them what to think, or what to do. My sons call them 'NPCs', and I think perhaps they are somewhat correct. What do we do about the NPCs?

I worry that both sides of the political spectrum are doing the same thing: de-humanizing people with different points of view.

I'm sure everyone knows what Voltaire said about this: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Is there any chance we can return to the idea that people can disagree with us without being dead to us afterward?

But it's easy to see when someone is falling for propaganda, because they believe what they are told, and do not check sources. They do not critically think. So I do not 'other' my uncles, but no presented facts seem to change their minds. It is disturbing to me how they are manipulated by false information that supports their gut instincts. Clearly there is a mind hack at work here. I would love to see them wake up but as long as the propaganda outlets they watch are left unchecked I don't believe it will happen. Our fathers understood the danger of propaganda. They must have understood the mind hack. It used to be that the only TV news that was allowed was at specific times every night, and it was required to always be factually correct. It was carefully controlled by the FCC for a good reason. We've really messed up as a society, and we are going to pay dearly now.

Hah. Probably the best interpretation of Orwell I've read on the web.

Society goes through these 50 year cycles where the collective memory is erased with generational churn.

We've forgotten about the impact of the big life changing technology of 100 years ago -- the radio. Radio demonstrated that mass media with extended reach can only be tamed by the leash of state authority. I'm in my 40s and remember boring radio of the 1980s and earlier. You might ask yourself... why was radio so boring? Why did it turn into a wild west in the 90s, then into weird right wing blah?

The reason is simple -- and it happened before. If you look back to the 1920s and 1930s, you had figures like Huey Long and Father Coughlin developing massive reach and exterting problematic influence. Cults of personality like Ron Paul and ultimately President Trump are really the same model. Getting out of it and saving the naive uncles depends and further media consolidation and regulation.

My guess is that's one of the reasons why the web plutocrats are moving so blatantly to establish dominance -- the free money era will get shut down by the kickback of MAGA's eventual demise.

"You are not immune to propaganda."

Civil war is a whole different animal. The quote above refers to international war.

He said leaders not governments. Like religious leaders, ethnic leaders, etc.

>grievance is unaddressed and explodes

The grievance is also often created by the govt.

Ah yes, the country of Africa.

“in”

So?

Africa is not a single place you can generalize across in regards to sources of ethnic strife or anything else.

I think one can, if one were to look at recent and current conflicts there: https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/online-analysis/2022/11...

... no, you can't.

Ah, the anti generalization warrior. You must have lots of examples where you rile against the stereotyping of Americans all over the Internetworks.

African fears and ethnic strife were invented out of whole cloth by colonial powers to divide and conquer the local populace. Myanmar I am less familiar with, but I believe that region has been under military junta rule for decades, and I believe religious tensions have been stoked by both the military rulers and armed insurgent revolutionary groups to rally support for their side.

African tribes were the same as any other tribe on earth. They fought each other, they had animus against other, etc. even before Europeans explored Africa, even before Arab colonization too.

The scale of the colonial horrors inflicted on various regions of Africa is poorly told, and was the pregame for the horrors of WW2 in many ways. The British and Germans “innovated” with the concentration camp in the early 20th century, for example.

The most obvious depravity was Leopold’s depredations of the Congo, but many many examples exist. The generational trauma on society is hard to fathom. And of course the arming and covert intervention of Soviet & western proxies during the Cold War fueled unrest and hostility.

Is that not the history of just about every country of consequence? They were conquered and vanquished multiple times with wealth extracted by foreign powers throughout history? Africa, Asia, Europe, Asia Minor, etc? No continent was free from this history. Have you read the history of Asia before the age of exploration or the history of Europe before the age of exploration or the history of the middle east of the Caucasus before the age of exploration? Every one of them experienced things similar to what you mention. Subjugation, atrocities, imposition of culture, etc. and lest you think Europe is free of this behavior I would reference our modern day Balkan region.

If there are guilty parties, we ought to name them, not stay silent out of a misguided sense of justice simply because other guilty parties go unnamed. How is your comment indistinguishable from whataboutism?

I’m saying it’s not a special case. It’s everyone’s history.

I’m not saying your factors aren’t also present either, in addition to the ones I mentioned, but if your factors are present everywhere all the time, what’s the point in bringing them up in this thread?

Upstream someone was saying the problems in Africa are due to conquest, subjugation, colonization, etc. I'm saying just about every country of consequence experienced this over the last half dozen centuries so it's not attributable to that -that is it's too facile a response.

I wasn’t saying that all bad things were attributable to the colonial powers, but those powers orchestrated the spread of propaganda that led to the “mob rule” as a backlash against colonial meddling and empire. I agree it was a sweeping statement, and glosses over a lot of nuance. I don’t mean to minimize man’s inhumanity to man due to local innovations.

That's an argument that's ultimately based on whataboutism.

I'm reasonably acquainted with history in all of those places. What happened in Africa happened. The results are speak for themselves.

In no way did I say that the depredations of past tyrants and conquerers didn't take place or were insignificant. If Ceasar's accounts of Gaul are even partially true, his armies probably butchered a sizable percentage of the human race in that campaign and the years to follow. The Spanish conquest, subjugation and genocide of Latin America utterly obliterated mesoamerican culture and was sweeping in the size and scope of it's brutality.

So why is Africa different? Well, for the most part it took place in the immediate pre-modern and "modern" era. There were coastal outposts previously, but the colonialists really exploded in the latter half of the 19th century. Disease wasn't a factor as it was in the Americas, but technology had a far greater impact -- tribesman vs. machine guns and steam engines ends the way it ends. You also had a different focus, private interests were interested soley in raw material extraction. Cultural imposition wasn't a priority -- it was extract value above all.

I would encourage you to read about the Congo. "The Rest is History" podcast did a series a few months back that is a good introduction. Nasty business.

Japan did some very nasty stuff in the pacific, rivaling leopold in depravity. Do we attribute polpot to the Japanese, or the stuff in Burma to the Japanese? Moreover they really fucked up Manchuria and Korea, yet I don’t see the same legacy of strife due to a foreign powers legacy so reverberating so debilitating…

Sure, but the specific conflicts between Hutus and Tutsis and many others were orchestrated by colonial powers and that is a fact of the matter. I’m not sure what you are referring to, but it doesn’t contradict my statement.

It's like a cold splash of water reading these things. Crisp, clear and refreshing. It's not complicated, dressed up in euphemisms or anything. Just the cold, calculated truth by which those in power view their subjects.

Also maps nicely to the Covid experience.

Your brain on conservative propaganda: "social distancing is nazism".

How so?

It’s absolutely sad and heavily ironic that this book now gets slapped with trigger warnings[1] What in hell has happened to people?

How in hell is any adult supposed to read any book of consequence if routine things trigger them? Moreso for such an iconic book that criticizes crass authoritarianism.

[1]https://uk.news.yahoo.com/putting-trigger-warnings-george-or...

People are always welcome to ignore the warnings if they want, as I think every one does.

> George Orwell’s estate has been accused of attempting to censor 1984 by adding a “trigger warning” preface to a US edition of the dystopian novel.

> The new introductory essay describes the novel’s protagonist Winston Smith as “problematic” and warns modern readers may find his views on women “despicable”.

How is this different to something like the PEGI or ESRB labels? Because to the extent that I can tell, nohow, apart from being more verbose, although I wasn't able to find the actual text.

And how is an additive change censorship? Like that's a new one, even for me.

Readers of this book are not first graders or elementary school kids. Why does this need a trigger warning?

Are they going to place trigger warnings on erotic novels for adults too, now?

Why not? I expect they're already categorised to some extent - after all, how many straight men would want to read the ones where gay men are fucking each other and sucking each other's cocks and whatnot? - and this would just be an extended version of that.

(EDIT: after stepping away from the keyboard, I was struck by the question of how many men of any orientation would want to read erotic novels anyway! - when they could just load up private browsing mode and watch more videos of people doing their favourite nasty shit than they'd ever be able to muster the urge to view to completion. But my view is that the question was dumb enough as posed already without needing to think about it any more. But maybe there's more to unpack here, if anybody is so inclined, which I'm not - though I'll admit that I've instinctively taken a male perspective here, even though that was never specified. Apologies.)

If the erotic novel you were reading suddenly included a whole bunch of the wrong type of erotica for your sexual preferences, you might be somewhat upset that you weren't warned in advance (which should be obvious: story tags have been a thing since Usenet).

Well if you don't like it you can just... Stop reading?

Sounds like a great experience.

I dunno man, I think if I went through a bout of suicidal thoughts for a few years, even attempted a few times, I might want to skip on media that features suicide for example. And the only way to do that is if you're given a heads up about it ahead of time.

This trigger warning stuff in my view is literally just content labels with some political coating on top. Reminds me to folks rediscovering vending machines in the form of overly complicated and brittle AI robotized fast food restaurants.

You'd think you'd speak for people, too. But you'd be wrong on that point, as well.

Am I speaking for people when I want to filter the content that reaches me? How does that work?

It's pretty pathetic to include a scolding essay at the beginning of the book. Their sanctimonious drivel stands in total contrast to the work of a brilliant author that they feel the need to mar with the inclusion of their commentary. Nobody would ever read it if they didn't include it in a book that people actually care about.

Orwell was not a good writer. 1984 in particular is a slog. His work was mostly popular because it conformed to anti soviet narratives, so schools naturally added them to the curriculum to stamp out any communist sympathies. Now that the soviets are no longer a threat, it's not surprising that his work has gradually fallen out of fashion. Yet every pseudo rebellious edgelord thinks the ideological order of 1984 is being enacted because of progressive college kids and trigger warnings.

"Nineteen eighty-four" is probably his most famous book, but many would say that "Animal farm" is a better book and that Orwell was best at writing essays, so make sure you've read a collection of his essays before you decide whether he was a good writer!

You're not wrong about Orwell being posthumously enlisted as an anti-Soviet propagandist, but "Animal farm" is beautifully written and makes perfect sense to a reader who knows nothing about (and has no interest in) the early history of the Soviet Union.

'Unalive'

Dear quantum field I've awoken into a nightmare!

To the point with some soft conclusions - https://aeon.co/ideas/trigger-warnings-dont-help-people-cope...

Now that’s some intellectually dishonest sophistry.

The study on coping approaches shows how avoidance leads to maladaptive outcomes, but it also says that exposure in itself isn’t helpful either.

What is helpful is learning how to process and express your emotions, but the study does not address whether english class is the place to be taught good coping strategies (because it’s not, obviously.)

I can only find references to this in very conservative medias, used to lying and creating narratives out of thin air all the time. So don't get on your high horses. Those same "journals" are perfectly fine with Trump's unprecedented wave of censorship and state violence.

You should probably read 1984 again, Orwell wasn't concerned by "trigger warnings". He was afraid of an authoritarian force creating and maintaining an alternate reality they can change on a whim, to manufacture consent for whatever they want to do. Like how Trump said he would be "the most peaceful president ever" but now screams about how Tehran should be evacuated, to presumably level it to the ground. Or how he said he would take care of the economy, utterly destroyed it and now claims it's doing better than ever.

I feel like there are different kinds of "truth": some of them easier than others to be manufactured, e.g. easier to manufacture hatred and war than peace (unless the country is already deep in it and not winning)?

Either is just as easy. There's just more to be gained manufacturing hatred and war than peace.

This comes in many forms. Political fundraising, pretense for holding onto/expanding power, greasing the cogs of the prison or military industrial complex, etc.

Peace benefits ordinary citizens, but that's not the concern of the white house right now...

Ah that's a good point.

Megadeth covered this in practically one stanza: “peace sells, but who’s buying?”

We keep doing somersaults over dead writers lengthy works when it’s the simple shit in front of our eyes. Including the festering pile of shit HN has become because of dang’s bullshit.

Don’t need Trump or Putin or Mao or Bibi or any other high powered asshole. The ones we have here are more than enough, and they’re no different than these high and mighty pricks.

Peace and cooperation is manufactured all the time: US-Western Europe (regular diplomacy with allies), US-Israel (why care so much in particular about Israel), (Trump's attempts) US-Russia, etc.

A disclaimer: this "political" nature of everything is deeply baked into Western culture, going all the way back to pre-Xtian 'Western' (~ non-Indian) religion.

Things are a lot more subtlety in broadly "Indosphere" (or atleast its old version before all the rampage of Islam and Western colonization).

The history of "Indosphere" is all but struggle between castes since its origin, so much for the subtlety.

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emancipation is no destruction, the history is well inscribed on pillars.

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Truth is a function of Trust. The more you trust the source the greater the risk of being manipulated; especially under the influence of confirmation bias; of course there’s also repetition.

interesting way to put it. How do you define "fact" in light of this definition?

The gist of my theory (?) is, it’s not about power but trust. For example, Power often lacks transparency and completeness. We see it happen often enough, and yet many ppl still - for reasons I can’t explain - continue to trust the Power. If a mate did the same, you’d leave them, no questions asked.

You can't. This is the very reason the scientific method exists.

The idea that "power manufactures truth" sounds profound but it's ultimately a truism, and a somewhat unhelpful one due to the imprecise language of power and truth. Anyone who's worked at a small business with an authoritarian owner can attest to the distortion effect of authority. People trip over themselves to ensure such a personality remains placated. But truth, in any meaningful sense of the word, is something beyond the grasp of any single authority. Powerful elites may have sway over the narrative, but eventually the truth catches up with them, and that's when history starts moving again. The 2008 recession is a great example. Most financial authorities maintained that real estate was solid. Orwell's vision vastly oversells the true power of authoritarian states. At the end of the day, if you cannot keep a baseline number of the population satisfied, they will rebel in ways that will eventually undermine the status quo. It may not take the form of a full blown civil war, but people have a way of expressing their interests. For example, the birth rate is dropping in many countries. Increasingly, people do not see having children as viable. And for good reason. That undermines the present society. The upper classes need a working class to maintain their position.

I find it a little disappointing that they are reducing it to Trump. The left has its own version of “Newspeak” thanks to political correctness and DEI efforts. I guess in the end people in power or who want to get in power will promote vocabularies that support their cause and discourage use of words that don’t support them.

I feel more and more we are slowly moving into a future between 1984 and Brave New World.

If you really believe the two are comparable, you've been successfully brainwashed by conservative media. No one ever got deported for acting "politically incorrect".

No need. It's enough to simply lose your job.

I mean, yeah, if you're being a dick to your coworkers for too long, losing your job is eventually justified. Someone losing their job for being merely "politically incorrect" is unheard of.

So was deporting imigrants...

People have been arrested for telling the truth. Theres absolutely comparison to be made on both sides.

I think it’s largely liberals who tone police the dirtbag left, like when they were calling Bernie Sanders sexist for something that I never heard articulated well, but was when he was running in the primary against Hilary Clinton. I’m convinced that the whole identity politics wave is controlled opposition from establishment powers in both the liberal and conservative wings of the two-team uniparty system.

Insane how many people, even in this thread, are seeing the president sending the fucking army against US citizens and going "no bro, 1984 is when woke and DEI". America is done, and it's well deserved.

Power manufactures 'truth' [memes] because the source of power is everybody's collective actions, and that has to be farmed in various ways through a consent manufacturing process. Change what people believe and you change their actions. Change their actions and you change the nature of the beast-machine they form, upon which oligarchy attempts to ride. Magick goes much deeper than parlor tricks of optics, or spooky hocuspocus spiritual bullshit. It is in use everyday by various institutions, and most who use magick don't even realize it.

Examples:

-The beliefs you hold about the world and others, much which was shaped by childhood media;

-When Bush tells you Iraq has WMDs;

-When the car commercial comes on, showing you a scenic vista and for a moment you forget yourself;

-When you believe X, but the commenters in article comment sections sway the opposite (bots);

to name a small handful. Sounds too far fetched?

Here is the machine magicians program for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo_e0EvEZn8

Do you see the zone in this machine, where magick can exist? It's the zone where you experience #FF00FF as magenta (if you're not colorblind). People really see what they expect to see, not what is there in front of them unless they really spend some effort!

What do they want to see? They want to see what you set them up to want to see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykzkvK1XaTE

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