Ideals of Communism

Argument: The idea of Doublethink allows totalitarian regimes to keep their iron grip on power without degrading its people and exposing them to thoughts which might cause them to question the regime control. Thus these types of governemnts should keep a "reality control" on its people Claim: Knowledge of Doublethink in such regimes as totalitarian ones, can lead to an instability amongst the citizens and ultimately lead to a failed state. Support: "Doublethink was a form of trained, willful blindness to contradictions in a system of beliefs. In the case of Winston Smith, Orwell's protagonist, it meant being able to work at the Ministry of Truth deleting uncomfortable facts from public records, and then believing in the new history which he himself had written" "Doublethink's self-deception allowed the Party to maintain both huge goals and realistic expectations: 'If one is to rule, and to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality. For the secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one's own infallibility with the power to learn from past mistakes'" "Doublethink has grown to be synonymous with relieving cognitive dissonance by simply ignoring the contradiction between two worldviews"

Argument: The meaning of the word equal within Orwell's two texts allow different readings due to the exploitable ambiguities of its meaning Claim: If "equal" can mean something desirable and good, it can also in a primary sense mean no more than "identical" or "same." Evidence: "The concept of political equality no longer existed, and this secondary meaning had accordingly been purged out of the word equal.(6)" "Whereby "equal" starts to lose its libertarian meaning and comes to mean no more than "identical." The term "equal" may, at the beginning of Animal Farm, hold its revolutionary connotation intact, but by the end of the book it carries a drastically reduced and sinister meaning."

Argument: Although Orwell's dystopian vision has not been born out by Soviet-style communism, the author's fears about the ability of the state to control people is still a danger in modern society Claim: The all-seeing manifestation in 1984 of the Party's power has come to stand as a warning of the insidious nature of government-centralized power, and the way that personal freedoms, once encroached upon, are easily destroyed altogether Evidence: "Winston maintains two avenues of hope for a life outside the confines of the party" "One of these possibilities is conscious, spoken: the proles. One of these possibilities is conscious, spoken: the proles. Just as Marx foresaw, in the nineteenth century, that the Revolution would come from a spontaneous uprising of the proletariat as they shook off the chains of their oppressors, so Winston writes in his diary that if there is hope, it lies in this 85 percent of Oceania's population that exists outside the confines of the Party" "The second possibility remains mostly unspoken and unconscious: desire. It is this possibility, the momentary destruction of the Party through intimate union with another person, which solidifies Winston's relationship with Julia"