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Cake day: October 25th, 2022

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  • Those aren’t satanist beliefs, those tenets come from the Satanic temple, which is a parody organization that essentially aim to dispute religious oversteps in the US government and trigger evangelicals by using the name “Satan”. The vast majority of the members are atheists funnily enough.

    If you want real Satanic beliefs the closest you could probably get is the Church of Satan which is a deranged cult that according to their leader is “just Ayn Rand’s philosophy with ceremony and ritual added". That should tell you everything you need to know.



  • Due to capitalist deregulation and corruption, the vast majority of India’s freshwater sources are horrifically polluted and are better classified as festering chemical and bio-hazards then usable water. So despite sitting on one of the best water basins on the planet that is fed by the Himalayan watershed, the water is virtually useless downstream.







  • Would you not say that the State effectively replaced British culture with a perpetual state of emergency and war fervor? With the two minutes of hate, “prisoner of war marches”, war speeches, gamified recruitment and scrap drives, and other emotional outlets, the Airstripe’s culture is essentially an endless Total War, reminiscent of either a late war Germany or Bushido principle. The national identity is war, where nothing matters other than beating the enemy, even if that victory is a purposefully futile task.

    We also do know that the nation has vestiges of a civilian culture since Winston mentions the proles consuming football news, sports magazines, mindless pornographic hedonism, and television programs, it’s just that Winston doesn’t partake since he feels alienated from that hollow culture since rewriting the past is his job.

    Honestly, I understand what you’re getting at, though I don’t think that culture is inherently necessary to fascist states. The modus operandi of most fascists is an aestheticization of politics that permeates every aspect of Oceania.

    Who needs culture when you have porn and your two minutes of hate? That is your culture.


  • Strange, I always considered the absence of human life as a representation of fascism consuming and annihilating every aspect of humanity until all that remains is a stale, dull husk. Plus, if the state is attempting to rewrite history, then destroying culture and tradition seems like a wonderful way to accomplish that goal. Especially if you replace those foundations with those provided by the state, since we hear that the Proles enjoy some forms of ‘entertainment’ and escapism that are entirely meaningless and state controlled.

    Wouldn’t a world like that innately be horrifically alienating, especially since Winston isn’t even a regular citizen, but a party bureaucrat that is alienated from both the State leadership and the general populace? He’s essentially John K in The Trial, Winston’s entire life is illogical and devoid of humanity.

    Nazi Germany had only six years to form their idealized utopian society, which is barely anything when you’re working in a pre-digital world. There was barely any time to do any re-writing or elimination of centuries old traditions, religious beliefs, and community in comparison to the Airstrip which has had nearly thirty years of isolation at minimum. I wonder if Nazi Germany would devolve to a similar level once they were one hundred years into their thousand year Reich. Once the external colonies were all but barren and the state built on worshiping Hitler as a god began to consume itself.


  • I agree with the book feeling clunky, but isn’t the poor worldbuilding and constrained world intentional? The reader only knows as much as Winston does, who himself is only privy to State propaganda. That’s why you have theories that the entire rest of the world is fine, Oceania doesn’t actually exist, and England is a completely isolated fascist state that intermittently bombs itself to maintain the pretense that there’s an ongoing World War.

    I always thought the world was purposefully tiny to demonstrate the alienation and isolation that one endures when under the full weight of a totemic surveillance state.

    The general plot does suck though and I found the book a slog to get through. Though I did find theorizing about the world a little fun.