Book summary: George Orwell’s 1984

George Orwell

Key take aways

  • To control a population first control the language and supported concepts. This helps frame and thus restrict the thoughts of its users.
  • The further up the hierarchy the increase the need to process contradictory ideas
  • In a totalitarian state, even harboring a thought with no corresponding action is considered a crime
  • The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function, F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Control over the past allows control of the future. Control of the present allows control of the past
  • Tiers of control and effects
    • Control body without the control mind will lead to martyr – Romans and the Christians
    • Control of body and superficial control of the mind leads to a brittle regime – Soviet Union
    • Control of body and absolute control of mind through history leads a long lasting regime – Missionaries and the catholic church.

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