1984 - and 2024

“The quality of mercy is not strained” and “droppeth like the gentle dew from Heaven” not only in Venice, but also in Constantinople, Istanbul, New Delhi and New York! 

And not in Scotland and Dunsinane only have the wicked cursed their fate and wished their own demise and declared life “but a dream” and a “walking shadow; full of sound and fury, signifying - nothing.”

The prophetic voice of the bard’s rival and contemporary Ben Jonson, needs hardly have said that Shakespeare was “not of an age but for all time,” for the succeeding centuries would have made it abundantly clear in every act of mercy and in the dark soul of every murderer. 

George Orwell (1903-1950) did not draw from as deep a well as the Bard from Avon, nor did he write of “love’s light wings” that flew over the walls of Juliet’s home; or of music being the “food of love;” or indeed of adversity’s sweet uses and of “books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

Instead, Orwell wrote with urgent speed and necessary haste about the great perils and evils of his time, believing no doubt that his warnings would be so severe, so stark, so dire and so pressing - that they could not but be heeded and acted upon. 

But he too, like his more illustrious countryman, could not have known in his own time, that he was writing of the universal heart of man - and in “1984,” of the universal urge in every soul to crush and exploit every other soul, but for the Grace of God.

The protagonist of “1984” is Winston Smith and the totalitarian “Oceania” he lives in does indeed speak of the limitless ocean and the limitless possibility of evil that may engulf every shore. 

Smith belongs to the “outer party” - which is our bureaucracy, which serves the “inner party” or the elite of Oceania (or Canadiana, Americana etc). And the “proles” are the ordinary public, those conditioned to the foul air of tyranny they breathe.

When Smith misplaces something in the “Ministry of Truth” that he works in, “Big Brother” (the ruler of Oceania) has been watching (he watches everything). “This irregularity has been noted” says Big Brother’s familiar, chilling voice. And Winston’s social credit score has immediately gone down a rung!

Big Brother and the “inner party” have replaced the existing language with “Newspeak” - and the “old speak” is severely and universally banned in Oceania. When Mr. Syme of the Newspeak team visits with Winston, he tells him of the importance of what they are doing - “we are not only inventing words. We are destroying them.  Good and bad will be replaced by just ‘good.’  Excellent and splendid will disappear - and in their place will be ‘plus good’ and ‘double plus good.” Undoubtedly, Newspeak would have included the disappearance of gender - and its replacement by a spectrum of possibilities!

Syme goes on, excitedly, “by the year 2050 the whole literature of the past will be gone - Byron, Milton, Chaucer will exist only in newspeak form.” In Western Europe and North America, Newspeak’s agenda would have been to ban “white man’s literature” and “colonial literature” and replace it with several shades of “victims literature.”

Big Brother is always announcing things - like the announcement from the “Ministry of Plenty” of a “20% rise in living standards and a raise in the chocolate rations to 20 grams/week.” Quantitative easing had just made Oceania’s residents believe that they were better off! Later, a “Mr. Parsons” smugly celebrates the chocolate allowance increasing to 20 grams/week, “isn’t that wonderful. All my kids will be pleased.”

Parson’s young children are reading in their Oceania textbook that, “London was not the glorious city you see today. It was a dark, miserable place.” The children would also have been reading and singing the praises of Trudeau’s glorious Toronto or Vancouver with its (intentionally) unaffordable housing, its worker bee condos, its homelessness, its transgender schools and its legal hard drugs and overdose deaths!

Every day, Oceania’s residents must standby for “the two minutes of hate” where they rage and shout against the “enemy” (the louder they shout and the more bizarre their facial distortions, the better). They are merely participating in a routine, neither good nor bad (newspeak has eliminated the word, “bad”). If a virus had arrived in Oceania and masks and vaccines had been mandated, the many minutes of hate would have been directed against the unvaccinated, the unmasked, the “enemy.” Did a virus arrive?

In Oceania, the “Ministry of Peace” makes war, since “war is peace” in Oceania! There is also the constant reminder through slogans and billboards in Oceania that “ignorance is strength” and “freedom is slavery.” And of course, the vaccine was “safe and effective!”

One of the inner party elites, the very intelligent Mr. O’Brien, explains to Winston that in fact the role of the “Ministry of Peace” is to keep the three areas of the world always at war with each other, since as he explains, “war has changed its meaning. It exists only to preserve tyranny. Its purpose is to keep the masses from becoming too comfortable - in the long run, too intelligent.” Which is why the neo-cons of Republican and Democratic administrations have been waging war in every continent for the last 25 years!

A factual report of the setbacks, misery and terrors of the war come in by wire to the “Ministry of Truth” where Winston works. But his superiors remind Winston that “such a careless report must not exist.” The report is changed to the very opposite of what was actually happening on the frontlines of the war. The “trusted news initiative” of the BBC, CBC, ABC etc always had the final say!

St. Clement’s Church in Oceania’s London has become the “Ministry of Justice” and where St. Martin’s  Church once stood, was now “Victory Square.” St. Martin’s had become, “a museum used for propaganda displays of various kinds - scale models of rocket bombs and floating fortresses, wax-work tableaux illustrating enemy atrocities, and the like.” The buildings of the once United Church (now the United Club) of Canada and the Anglican Church (now the Anglican Club), no longer ministering to the eternal quest for God, had become museums of minority rights and outrage at the undefined “past.” Sometimes, the “inner party” of Canada would allow classical music concerts in these Churches (clubs), but always under the banner of the pride flag!

Oceania’s proles are fed an endless stream of erotic novels by the “Pornorite MK 6” machine, which can produce 24 erotic novels/day. The machine is maintained by the “outer party” (bureaucrats) for the “inner party” (elites) and as one of the inner party members gleefully explains, “the proles imagine they are getting something illegal. The operator is adjusting the situation kaleidoscope which varies the basic plot.” In most of our world today, the public also imagine they are accessing something “illegal” through VPNs (virtual private networks)! The word “love” had been edited out of Newspeak and the word “love” has long lost most of its meaning in the public and private discourse of Western nations.

Orwell realized perhaps better than most of us do, that the problem lies not in the “system” but in the nature of man, for as the prophet Jeremiah exclaimed in exasperation to his erring nation more than 2000 years ago, “the heart is desperately wicked above all things - who can know it?”

Another of ancient Israel’s prophets had already foretold Orwell’s 1984 (and 2024): “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil;

that put darkness for light, and light for darkness;

that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” - Isaiah 5:20

The new beginning that defeats tyranny must therefore start within - and in the soul of every man and woman. “Except a man be born again,” as Jesus said, “he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

Consistently and with unerring predictability, the Kingdom of God has defeated, laid waste and laid low every totalitarian kingdom of tyranny.