"The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. ... Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak. ... He presented himself with propositions - 'the Party says the earth is flat', 'the Party says that ice is heavier than water'- and trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the arguments that contradicted them. It was not easy. It needed great powers of reasoning and improvisation. The arithmetical problems raised, for instance, by such a statement as 'two and two make five' were beyond his intellectual grasp. It needed also a sort of athleticism of mind, an ability at one moment to make the most delicate use of logic and at the next to be unconscious of the crudest logical errors." (292-3)
This is a long quote but I felt that it was necessary. This might lead into a bit of TOK, but I would argue that it has a great relation to the novel.
From the quote, we are able to recognize that there is an inability to go against what the Party has already declared. This is the same with modern day society, we have an inability to go against the information that we see in the most powerful of sources, google, textbooks, encyclopedias etc. How do we know that what we have learnt and absorbed into our minds is the truth? How does Winston know that the Earth is flat? Just because the Party said so, despite their immense amount of power and control, doesn't necessarily classify it as fact.
This is where I propose the question, how important is Winston's ability to think against the Party and how does he use that to his advantage or disadvantage? With the finger test that O'Brien interrogated him with, he argued continuously, making the statement that two and two make four, not five, as to what O'Brien insisted.
This is a long quote but I felt that it was necessary. This might lead into a bit of TOK, but I would argue that it has a great relation to the novel.
From the quote, we are able to recognize that there is an inability to go against what the Party has already declared. This is the same with modern day society, we have an inability to go against the information that we see in the most powerful of sources, google, textbooks, encyclopedias etc. How do we know that what we have learnt and absorbed into our minds is the truth? How does Winston know that the Earth is flat? Just because the Party said so, despite their immense amount of power and control, doesn't necessarily classify it as fact.
This is where I propose the question, how important is Winston's ability to think against the Party and how does he use that to his advantage or disadvantage? With the finger test that O'Brien interrogated him with, he argued continuously, making the statement that two and two make four, not five, as to what O'Brien insisted.
This quote that picked to me underlines the absurdity of this novel; the world of 1984. Well truth is of course very relative, too relative for it to be one one absolute one. But to me it is another aspect that the party uses to enhance their power, the only truth that exists is there s and only there's !
ReplyDeleteConcerning Winston's ability to think for himself it has obviously disappeared as we see the huge power of physical and mental torture. The amount of fingers was a good example while Winston claimed that is 4 even under suffering, he ended up listening to O'Brian and saying it was 5. Although it use to be a characteristic of his intelligence and humanity and uniqueness, once can argue that it was actually a disadvantage since it let him to torture then becoming the empty shell he has become at the end of the book.