Alrighty

Friend'd you.

I shall drop by whenever I crave intellectual stimulation.

Well I hate that **** too, but what I mean is that you could easily interpret the world of the book to those different meanings, even if the author intended them or not.

Ah. They do that all the time. I guess ultimately, what the book "means" is a personalized matter that depends on what you get out of the experience. I hate to sound like those artists that say their paintings can mean whatever you want them to mean, but I guess that's the case.

He changed his mind on what he meant. He wrote it to say it was about censorship, but recently he changed his mind, deciding it was about how TV makes you stupid. Or is it the other way around, that Ray Bradbury originally intended it to say that TV makes you stupid and later decided it could be about censorship too? Either way, it can mean both, and more.

Funny you should say that! What you say is true, but I recently found out that Ray Bradbury himself said Farenheit 451 is not about censorship at all, though that is the universally drawn conclusion.

When he wrote the book, it was intended as a criticism of modernized American culture. Quote from Wikipedia:
Bradbury has stated that the novel is not about censorship; he states that Fahrenheit 451 is a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature, which leads to a perception of knowledge as being composed of "factoids", partial information devoid of context, e.g. Napoleon's birth date alone, without an indication of who he was.

History is written by the victors anyway, they say. Nazis would argue that since they lost the war, they were made to look evil by the winners, and the same goes for communists or any defeated enemy.

Orwell's Party was basically a mix between Nazism and Socialism, and he was simultaneously speaking out against both of this, and saying that there wasn't really a big difference between Nazism and Communism in the end anyway. And many, many other things besides - don't just blindly follow the government, the government in general is bad, any message could be argued using 1984 I should think.

Yeah, like how Fahrenheit 451 had "Hell" censored in the original copies, when it was iself a book purely about censorship.

One of the interesting ideas of 1984 is the ease with which the government can manipulate the people into thinking what they want them to think. They tell you 2+2=5 and even if you don't agree with it, you mindlessly regurgitate it until you DO believe it because over time the idea is ingrained in your mind. It's just so amazing that if they want to, they can literally sit there and rewrite history as if it were a storybook, and because of the way the system works its so perceivable that they could get away with it, for even if the people notice it, what can they do? One of 1984's most prominent themes is the blatant abuse of propaganda, and its really amusing the obvious contradictions the government makes that nobody questions.

Dystopian fiction could be compared to propaganda. To me it often seems that these writers sit back and decide to verbally assault other faulty forms of government when the governments of their own countries are flawed as well. It could be an arrogant way of criticizing everyone but yourself, but it could also be that dystopian writers aren't calling themselves perfect so much as acknowledging that there are some downright crappy governments out there.

To be honest, I was never able to articulate the point of 1984. What is Orwell saying? That Oceania's is a crap government, obviously, but is he saying Russia's communist totalitarian government can lead to this? Is he saying Russia's government IS like this, metaphorically? Heck, I don't even know if its Russia he's criticizing.

Funny tidbit: the book was banned in the Soviet Union 'till 88, which is so funny because in attempting censorship, they fulfilled precisely what George Orwell is accusing them of.

That is also what happened with Adolf Hitler, but obviously mention of Hitler brings in Godwin's Law

Ah well, you don't really need a conspiracy for the War on Terror to be seen as the start of a perpetual war - the simple fact that the War on Terror is a war against a concept, like the war against the Brotherhood - anyone who was a rebel was said to be in league with the Brotherhood, anyone the US government disagrees with is said to be a terrorist. The Brotherhood is bad, terrorists are bad, and there's barely ever any question otherwise.

Obviously in the real world "War is Peace" isn't yet going to go down quite as perfectly, because we do't have forced obedience yet - the government simply uses certain agendas to screw over those they disagree with (if they should so wish), like when McCarthy painted anyone who hated him as having communist connections.

That's one thing I noticed and read before - dystopian fiction could easily be a form of propaganda which helps keep ****ty governments in power, because people read this fiction, and think "no matter how bad our government is now, at least it's not as bad as this". It's like in 1984 where the Party make out as if today's situation is better than yesterday's (the ration went down in value, but they made it look like it went up) using propaganda, to make people think that things were actually getting better. You could also say that they attempt to convince us that we've never had it as good as we do today, and I can't really validly dispute that, but it's a point for thought.

Ah, yes, Oliver Cromwell. I was discussing this with my global teacher--I was kissing ass 'cos hes young, gay, and hawtt, and i quite possibly think he eyegasmed when i brought up 1984. I think it happened in China at some point, too. See, the thing is during time of war, (even if that war is over people's rights) there comes a point where people just want to stop the economic and social turmoil and settle down, and at this point, a figure promises hope and enforcement of people's rights, so they just go with it. War is the perfect time for new leaders to gain power.

My 8th grade English teacher once said the same thing, that in theory, a war against terror can never really end. But how would Oceania's perpetual war apply to the War on Terror, unless there was a conspiracy in which it turns out the gvt wants to keep us there? Not to mention that the massive waste of money has definitely no been bringing us peace.

See, that's another thing the people in 1984 don't realize. Yeah, in one way war is peace, but in many ways it's also destruction, that's why Winston's city is full of rubble and ruins and looks like ****, yet nobody seems to questions their living conditions and its almost as if none of them remember there having been any better.