This is the official discussion thread for this month's book. Feel free to chime in as you read or wait 'til you finish. Book club threads have no expiration date. For information on the book club, check the book club link in the Scrapbook.
First off, I absolutely love this book. It has been one of many books I have read on my post Mormon journey. Orwell was a prophet in his own right, but also a master observer of human behavior and the ability of man to be able to change, twist and contort reality into something unrecognizable to the intended original.
I believe that every exmo should read this book as it give insights into the human condition under authroitarian systems, especially the dreaded INGSOC which bears close resembelence to Mormonsim.
The following are my insights from the book which I posted a few months ago here on PM:
My Post Mormon Orwellian Epiphany. Or How I learned to Escape Doublethink and Live.During my years of high school at Viewmont High in Utah, we had an opportunity to read the book ‘1984’ by George Orwell. I did not take the opportunity to read it, as I did not think I would enjoy such a book.
During my mission to Germany, a companion of mine read Orwell’s book but he never discussed it with me. It was forbidden literature, so we kept the subject as a don’t ask don’t tell policy. Finally, in an attempt to begin reading as much classical literature as I can, I recently picked up Orwell’s book, and have begun to read.As I have mentioned before, this book parallels my Mormon experience in so many ways. But the part which has had such a strong resonance with me is the concept of “Doublethink” or the ability to see something which is undeniably true, and then be able to see it almost instantly in the opposite context making it conform to your present world view.
As a Mormon I was constantly finding myself in the world of “Doublethink,” and ultimately it was to my detriment. This constant internal intellectual battle was taking it’s toll on my psyche and mental well being through depression and the feeling of near insanity as I struggled to match reality against my Mormon world view. In short, I was an internal mental mess.
The main character of Orwell’s book is Winston. Winston finds himself in a nightmarish world where everything is controlled by “the Party” under the direction and control of “Big Brother.” Truth is subjective and changed to meet the will and whim of Big Brother, an ethereal representation of the Party in physical form. The concept of he who controls the past, controls the present is a very real existence for Winton and his completely controlled existence.
The past is constantly changing, and Winston finds himself as a part of this vast machine in charge of changing truth, by changing the past. Winston struggles to make “Doublethink” a reality, but in the end he fails. The following is quoted from ‘1984’: “Anything could be true. The so-called laws of Nature were nonsense. The law of gravity was nonsense. ‘If I wished,’ O’Brien had said, ‘I could float off this floor like a soap bubble.’ Wisnton worked it out. ‘If he thinks he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously think I see him do it, then the thing happens.’ Suddenly, like a lump of submerged wreckage breaking the surface of water, the thought burst into his mind: ‘It doesn’t really happen. We imagine it. It is hallucination.’ He pushed the thought under instantly.
The fallacy was obvious. It pre-supposed that somewhere or other, outside of oneself, there was a ‘real’ world where ‘real’ things happened. But how could there be such a world? What knowledge have we of anything, save through our own minds? All happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens. He had no difficulty in disposing of the fallacy, and he was in no danger of succumbing to it. He realized, nevertheless, that it ought never to have occurred to him. The mind should develop a blind spot whenever dangerous thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, instinctive. Crimestop, they called it Newspeak. He set to work to exercise himself in crimestop.
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. Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain.”
As Winston continues to struggle to make ‘two and two into five’ I see my former self. My anger seethes as I consider all the pain I endured to maintain my mind in a state of denial. But in the end, I can not express with enough emotion and thought how utterly thankful I am to have allowed myself the freedom of mind and life I deserve. No prison could ever be as cruel and dark as the place from where I have come. I am free, and no one will ever take this away from me again.
Of all the parallels, I think doublespeak is one of the strongest. (Thoughtcrime is another, but that's probably a separate post...) Here's how Orwell describes it:
To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed.
Jeff recently spotted a perfect example from our friend Stillmo:
I just thought there might be people here who understood a free thinker who was not TBM but still convinced, and always will be.
1. I am a freethinker.
2. I will always be convinced of the truth of mormonism.
I have been being lazy with my participation in book club-- and this site in general lately-- but reading all your posts on this book-- I have got to read it! I will return and report. I am clicking on Amazon.com next and buying it NOW!
I read 1984 for the first time when I was in high school, and have read it several times since then. I loved that book -- great choice!
One
of the things that really resonated with me was what Julia said to Winston
Smith when they started spending time together. She seemed to be such a good citizen, and she was a sash-wearing member of the anti-sex
league.
However, she did what she
wanted whenever she thought she could get away with it. As she put it,
if you obey all of the little rules, you can break the big ones!
That's what I did, too: I went to church, took the
sacrament, and said the prayers, but kept my private beliefs to myself, especially the ones that conflicted with the church teachings.
I read 1984 for the first time when I was in high school, and have read it several times since then. I loved that book -- great choice!
Me too!
The first time I read it, some of it seemed unbelievable to me. For example, the constant changing of who is the enemy in the war.
"We're at war with Eastasia, we've always been at war with Eastasia."
I thought "but surely people would remember just yesterday when they were at war with Eurasia. How could they get people to ignore reality and just blindly go along?"
That was in my pre-mormon days, and later when I reread the book, I finally understood. And in fact it was only more recently that I understood just how much mormon history has gone into "memory holes."
And speaking of memory holes, whoever came up with the idea that the prophet sometimes speaks "as a man" created the most clever doctrinal memory hole I can imagine.
In another thread ("the Brethren could still save the day"), God Hates Liars speculates that maybe only a revolution will bring about change in the mormon church.
That set off more 1984 memories for me.
If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in the proles.
But as one summary I read puts it... He knows that if once the “proles” rose up in rebellion, the Party could not survive. But the “proles” seemed incapable of organizing themselves into any concrete entity. All their immense energy was dissipated in trivial grievances; they had no concern to expend on larger issues.
Fulfill your callings, do your home teaching, read your scriptures, fellowship your neighbors, attend your meetings... keep so busy that you don't have time to think about anything deeper than who you can call on to give the opening prayer.
In Winston's words...
Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.
The first time I read it, some of it seemed unbelievable to me. For example, the constant changing of who is the enemy in the war.
"We're at war with Eastasia, we've always been at war with Eastasia."
I thought "but surely people would remember just yesterday when they were at war with Eurasia. How could they get people to ignore reality and just blindly go along?"
That was in my pre-mormon days, and later when I reread the book, I finally understood.
We are at war with Saddam. We have always been at war with Saddam.
We are at war with Al Qaeda. We have always been at war with Al Qaeda.
We are in a war on Terror. We have always been in a war on Terror.
We are in a war on Drugs. We have always been in a war on Drugs.
War is Peace
Ignorance is Strength
Freedom is Slavery
It applies to more than just Mormonism, I'm afraid....
Alright, it's the last day, but I finally finished it. (No home teaching jokes, please....which reminds me, my dad missed 3/4ths of our time at his house tonight because of home teaching.)
First, my thoughts. And as usual, I'm wordy. Then I plan on replying to other issues that have been raised and working with text blocks which have been kicking my butt lately. (I like code, okay?) So if I scream and never return, you'll know it's because I lost another long post due to text block.
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
I think all three applicable in some ways to Mormonism. Without the conflict and persecution, I don't think the church would be here today. Slavery is for sure in the legalism and rules a mormon must follow in order to be "free" (which is also commonly taught in Christian churches, although the slavery part is supposed to be voluntary rather then required like the mormon church), and ignorance is definetly a strength to TBMs.
A favorite quote:
Shutting the mind off to accept what he's told gives the mind a sort of stupor.
In my Toxic Faith book, it's talked about this a lot. The more a person is brainwashed, the more they shut their mind down. Obviously 1984 is an extreme brainwashing, but it's meant to be fiction. Mormonism brainwashes in reality and in the same way, members tend to put their mind in a stupor. The further in a person is, the less their mind questions. Orthodoxy becomes unconsciousness. "It was not the man's brain speaking; it was his larynx." And for mormonism, I would argue it is the emotion.
One very telling scene of the stupor was near the beginning when Winston was recounting a very gory scene from a movie in his diary. A child is blown up and his arm flies through the air and the crowd cheers. They've been totally desensitized to it. Mormonism is set up to desensitize it's followers to weirdness. For example, the Newsweek article on Romney that asks him questions about baptizm for the dead. All part and parcle of the mormon package.
Proles are to me, the non-believers. They're looked upon as stupid, trivial, without the whole truth, all bunched together into one group. Apostates are those who have become vaporized. I think it's interesting in the Court Ministry of Love that they are attempting to bring them back into the party by various testimonies of the party and proofs that the party is right, both of which defy logic.
There's a reverence given to "inner party" members, much like the GAs and Quoram. Hinckley and Joseph Smith are embodied in Big Brother. Who is Godstein in mormonism, I wonder? Steve Benson? Apostates in general? LDS members are taught to hate us exmormons. Obviously, "comrades" is brother/sister.
The party uses excellent peer pressure techniques to feed off of each other's emotions, and emotions control and feed, to some extent, the brainwashing. Same with testimony meeting. They also fill peoples lives with activity, to further indoctrinate, to keep them from thinking for themselves, and to steal the children away from the family (if the family isn't lining up right with the teachings).
The sacrifice of Winstons mother and sister reminded me of how I sacrificed a close relationship with my family in order to follow my own truth. I lost my family to the Mormons the same way Winston lost his family to the party.
The way Winston and others KNEW the history was altered and yet chose to go along with it and adjust their thinking, well, that is OBVIOUSLY mormon. Doublethink is all over in mormonism. And, like in the party, all that existed and was spoken of is current doctrine. Because the church controls the past (as the members view it). Take the JofD, for example. Recalled. A sin for church members to possess. Therefore, the only things the members see from the books are what's printed in Sunday School manuals and the like. It's a ridding of evidence to "not prove the lies." Thankfully, the church isn't as good at it as the party is. And thanks god for the internet.
Oh, and facecrime? Wow. Very subtle in mormonism. It's actions. You're righteous if you're blessed financially and you're happy. If you break face, then you're looked at with horror, you're not the spiritual giant everyone thinks you are. And crimestop. Every good mormon comes with crimestop. They will only think so far before they bare their testimony. It's why reasoning with a mormon doesn't work. They stop themselves from thinking at a certain point.
Okay, I'm saving before I start messing with quote blocks.
[EDITED TO ADD] Alright, I was going to go into the questions ZZ asked in more depth and add replies to a few of the other posts, but I'm loosing cognitive ability by the second and it's sad. Seriously, who ever thought I wouldn't be able to think at 11:00 at night? I must be getting old.....
LOL. I finished last night, too. The one thing I had forgotten about the book was the concept of crimestop-- the ability to simply stop thinking when a dangerous thought presents itself. That does seem to me to be like something that occurs in mormonism. There are areas or subject or thoughts considered dangerous, and some seem to develop an ability simply to not think about them.
LOL. I finished last night, too. The one thing I had forgotten about the book was the concept of crimestop-- the ability to simply stop thinking when a dangerous thought presents itself. That does seem to me to be like something that occurs in mormonism. There are areas or subject or thoughts considered dangerous, and some seem to develop an ability simply to not think about them.
Mormon crimestop: anybody ever been told to chase away "impure thoughts" by singing a hymn?
LOL. I finished last night, too. The one thing I had forgotten about the book was the concept of crimestop-- the ability to simply stop thinking when a dangerous thought presents itself. That does seem to me to be like something that occurs in mormonism. There are areas or subject or thoughts considered dangerous, and some seem to develop an ability simply to not think about them.
Mormon crimestop: anybody ever been told to chase away "impure thoughts" by singing a hymn?
1.If on occasion you have found
Your language is in question,
Or ugly thoughts come to your mind,
Then here’s a good suggestion.
Just hum your favorite hymn,
Sing out with vigor and vim,
And you will find it clears your mind.
Hum your favorite hymn.
2. Before you say an angry word,
Remember you’ll regret it,
For once it’s said the harm is done,
And some folks won’t forget it.
"Hum Your Favorite Hymn". Yep, it's taught elder nomo.
ZZ, I read this book while a Mormon and just didn't want to connect the dots. I thought the different "ministries" were an interesting touch, esp. since the names were opposite of the intended function.
If ya'll don't mind if I slightly hijack this thread, I was wondering if any of you have read "Brave New World" and have any thoughts in relation to this month's book. I always thought it was a good suppliment to 1984, as one dealt with mass-control by repression of truth and the other dealt with mass-control by trivial distractions, both which I believe the church employs fully.
Yeah, I have an agenda as it is one of my favorite books (took my alias from it) and since we are on the topic of dystopias I would enjoy hearing what ya'll think of it.
Oh yes, I've read "Brave New World." It's also a marvelous book and I think that if you read "1984" you should also read "Brave New World."
I read both books for the first time when I was still a Mormon. I don't want to give too much of it away, but there are some aspects of the society in "Brave New World" that really reminded me of the Mormon world view. The society looks so pleasant on the surface, and everyone is well-provided for. The society in "Brave New World" is much more fun than the one in "1984", but the individuals pay a high price!
