Sublime

The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it

Orthodoxy means not thinking—not

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking

All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain.

FAMOUS AUTHOR whose birth name was Eric Arthur Blair, but is known best by his pen name, George Orwell, wrote: “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe

The lives he invented are miseries studded with epiphanies. Orwell did not believe in permanent happiness or the politics that tried to realize it, but he did believe devoutly in moments of delight, even rapture,