1984, by George Orwell

The novel of 1984, along with that of Rebelion on the farmare the most famous works of the writer George Orwell. This writer presents us with political literature with psychological nuances of great interest. Orwell is famous for having an ideology based on Democratic Socialism (not to be confused with social democracy) and Anti-totalitarianism. For this reason, Orwell traveled to Spain to fight fascism in the POUM militia during the civil war; story that he tells in his book h homage to Catalonia.

1984 is a dystopian novel based on a system of government called Socing (English Socialism).. This government has created a society based on information control, where the key premise is: “Whoever controls the present, controls the past and whoever controls the past, will control the future.” Today it is considered a great work to reflect on our current society, asking ourselves to what extent we have become an Orwellian society.

During the novel, Orwell presents us with a series of very attractive concepts or ideas from the point of view of psychology.. For this reason, in this article we are going to analyze some of them in depth. Specifically we will talk about: (a) doublethink, (b) newlanguage and (c) the society based on the control of information.

The doublethink of 1984

One of the central aspects that revolves around population control in Socing is doublethink. Doublethink means the power or faculty of holding two contradictory opinions simultaneously. two contrary beliefs held at the same time in the same person.

The population is educated in doublethink so that they know how to accept contradictions and understand their practical existence. In the control society of 1984, the artifices of the totalitarian state are not hidden; the population is taught to accept and deny them at the same time.. This is reflected in the three mottos proposed by Socing:

The ultimate objective of doublethink is for individuals to do it automatically.. Being able to hold two contradictions in your head and not even realize that they are both contradictory. Now, does this happen in real life? Is there any syllogism between doublethink and our way of thinking? And this is where the psychological interest of doublethink comes in.

Many studies have shown us that our brain holds contradictory ideas.. This revolves around Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance; which speaks of the fact that on many occasions we have dissonant ideas, but there are mechanisms to ignore or resolve that dissonance. Doublethink would be a way to rationalize dissonances and be able to live with them.

Today we use doublethink more than we can imagine and governments take advantage of it to a certain extent.. A clear example is the existing animosity towards terrorist attacks, while at the same time many of our states (protected by the governments we vote for) also carry out acts of the same nature and even sell weapons to these terrorist groups. Extreme care must be taken, since the rationalization of contradictions is an automatic process and we can do it easily and without realizing it.

The new language of Socing

Another key aspect of control 1984 It is the control of thought. To achieve this Socing seeks to alter language so that thought becomes something practical and not useful for reasoning.. Since if people reason excessively, it would break doublethink, and this would lead to the destruction of the order of the state. In this way, following the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, Orwell suggests that by changing language we will change the human mind.

To achieve this, what Socing does is reduce the language to its greatest simplicity, turning it only into a totally pragmatic communication language.. In this way, synonyms and antonyms lose their meaning; It is no longer interesting to communicate the nuances of words that lead to value judgments and interpretations. And antonyms generate conflict, and from conflict is born reasoning; An example of this could be removing the word “war” from the dictionary, and speaking only in terms of more peace or less peace.

The lesson that we can extrapolate from Newspeak for our lives is the dangers of language. Language is capable of altering our perception and our thinking. Thus, a political speech can seem very different to us depending on the words that develop it; When a politician tries to use words like “democracy”, “constitutional”, “peace” and place himself on the other side of words like “attack” or “war”, regardless of his program, he is seeking the sympathy of the citizen. . For this reason it is important to explore the reasoning and not fall into the superficial, but powerful, inspiration of language.

The society based on information control

In 1984, The “Big Brother” is the one who is always watching and controls everything. Citizens are monitored everywhere, including in their own homes. Even within families, children are educated to watch their parents and report them if they commit a crime. A key aspect of control is the manipulation of information.

For Socing, the past can be rewritten to control the stability of the government. In the novel there is the Ministry of Truth that is dedicated to changing all writings, newspapers or books, in order to favor the “Big Brother”; If “Big Brother” said that chocolate rations were going to increase, and now there are fewer than before, the data from the past is changed so that it seems that they have really increased.

Nowadays we are not immune to the manipulation and control of information. Mass media such as television, radio or newspapers usually have parties and governments behind them that alter information to influence people’s opinions. Yes, in ours. Therefore, all information or reading requires a minimum of caution and a lot of reflection.

Orwell in 1984 It presents us with a very interesting dystopian society with great parallels with our current society. It is important to reflect on them, and see the perversion of our society. If we want to avoid evolving towards an Orwellian world, it is important to maintain a critical view of the mechanisms of influence and persuasion.. So that they can act, but we are not victims of them.

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