In 1984, George Orwell presents a system, a world, and a society that does not merely suppress dissent; it re-engineers reality itself. The Party’s power is not rooted in brute force alone, but in the methodical dismantling of the human mind. The slogan - “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength”, is not a paradox to be solved. It is a psychological weapon, targeting the mind’s own mechanisms for survival.
War is Peace
Orwell’s Oceania is in a state of perpetual war. This war is not meant to be won, but to be continuous. It serves a single purpose: to maintain a crisis that justifies the Party’s total control. A population kept in a state of fear does not demand freedom; it craves order. That goes for our inner selves, too.
This is visible in the ritual of the “Two Minutes Hate”. Winston, despite his inner rebellion, finds himself swept up in the collective frenzy. “The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in.” He often quotes. The war provides an external enemy, a target for all fear and frustration, preventing any real introspection. I could easily relate to this, it happens with us all the time. It becomes the background noise of life, a constant, low-grade emergency that makes questioning the system, our choices seem like a dangerous luxury. The mind, afraid of stillness, occupies itself with the manufactured conflict. And starts manufacturing its own scenarios.
Freedom is Slavery
The Party’s second slogan preys on a deep human tendency. True freedom is a burden. It requires responsibility, clarity, and the courage to face consequences. In contrast, the slavery offered by the Party is a kind of relief. It is freedom from thought, from choice, from the lonely weight of individualism.
The concept of thoughtcrime is central here. The greatest crime is not an act of rebellion, but the private thought that precedes it. This makes the mind itself a prison. To be truly free is to be in constant danger. The Party makes people believe that individualism leads to ruin, that safety lies in dissolving into the collective.
This reflects a psychological truth. People often fear the consequences of their own judgment. The surrender of self can be framed as a virtue, a noble sacrifice for the greater good. But it is rooted in a desire to avoid the uncertainty that comes with being a sovereign mind. In this way, slavery begins to feel like peace.
Ignorance is Strength
This is the cornerstone of the Party’s control. Winston’s job at the Ministry of Truth is not just propaganda; it is the systematic destruction of the past. He alters records, deletes “unpersons”, and drops inconvenient facts into the memory hole, where they are incinerated into nothingness. Reality becomes as fluid as the Party’s latest decree.
I find this the most unsettling part of the book. Not the overt surveillance, but this quiet, internal violence. What does it do to a person when their own memory becomes an unreliable narrator?
Winston holds a photograph proving the innocence of three purged Party members: Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford. For a moment, he holds undeniable truth. But this knowledge is useless, even dangerous. He must destroy it. In that act, he is not just destroying a piece of paper; he is participating in the erasure of his own certainty.
The Party’s strength is built on this, willful ignorance. It is not a lack of facts, but a refusal to engage with them. To not know is easier than to know and be forced to resist. This mental numbness, this conditioned ability to accept contradiction without question, is redefined as strength.
The New Reality
Orwell’s conclusion is bleak. Winston’s rebellion is futile (and pointless) because the system anticipates and contains it. O’Brien, his interrogator, explains that the Party does not just kill its enemies; it converts them, into one of them. The goal is not to make people mere obedient but to annihilate them from the inside, their inner self. The final horror is not the torture, but Winston’s transformation. He sits in the Chestnut Tree Cafe, a ghost of a man, tracing “2 + 2 = 5” in the dust. He has won the victory over himself. He loves Big Brother.
The book does not offer a way out. It simply shows the architecture of the cage. It suggests that the most stable prisons are not the ones with visible bars, but the ones we build in our own minds when we allow truth to become negotiable. The final question is not whether the cage can be broken, but whether the person inside even knows they are captive.
Reading this, I couldn’t help but feel that Orwell was describing not just political control,but the illusion of us, our identity (the self) shaped by fear, memory, and social thought. In Advaita Vedant, the real “I” is untouched by these constructs. But in 1984, that “I” is forgotten. It dissolves into what the Party (society) allows it to be.
Bye.
#Unself
Last Updated: 2025-06-17