Call me edgy, but I have some legitimate questions about this

>>8715738
Is this book any good?

>>8715764
Yeah it is legitimately very good

I would argue that 1984 is orwells belief in inevitable class structure taken to logical extreme. He has a long part in the middle about the low the medium and the high and the roles they take being cyclical. My contention being that who the elite are are inconsequential as there will always be an elite. Hence the boot forever stamping.

>>8715738
The biggest horror of the state in the novel is exactly that it is a self perpetuating system.
While some are far better off than others in the hierarchy no one is benefitting over time, infact its the opposite its a self degredating system, economicallly, culturally and even linguistically. One which has a superhuman self sustaining logic to it.

There is no ruling class per se, everyone is suppressing and suppressed simultaniously, just as Winston himself worked in the propaganda minitry

They're not suffering dumbass, they're having the time of their lives.

>>8715772
So there's more in common between this and The FountainHead's Ellsworth Toohey than I originally thought:

"Now if you were a little more intelligent, you’d ask: What of us, the rulers ? What of me, Ellsworth Monkton Toohey ? And I’d say, Yes, you’re right. I’ll achieve no more than you will. I’ll have no purpose save to keep you contended. To lie, to flatter you, to praise you, to inflate your vanity. To make speeches about the people and the common good. Peter, my poor old friend, I’m the most selfless man you’ve ever known. I have less independence than you, whom I just forced to sell your soul. You’ve used people at least for the sake of what you could get from them for yourself. I want nothing for myself. I use people for the sake of what I can do to them. It’s my only function and satisfaction. I have no private purpose. I want power. I want my world of the future. Let all live for all. Let all sacrifice and none profit. Let all suffer and none enjoy. Let progress stop. Let all stagnate. There’s equality in stagnation. All subjugated to the will of all. Universal slavery – without even the dignity of a master. Slavery to slavery. A great circle – and a total equality. The world of the future."

>>8715776
Nice. This answers it OP

>>8715781
So it's not a group that rules everything, but the cycle of stomping on others. The foundation of society itself is the enemy.

>>8715792
From a perspective yes. Its another important aspect of the novel that not much can be said with certainty about the society

>>8715738
been a while since I've read it, but my understanding was that the only goal of the party was to perpetuate itself.

there is no end goal aside from existing, because having a goal means that there is a possibility of failure, and worse, more goals to be created once, inevitably, the first goals are either not met, or achieved.

this is the point of Goldstein's book: to illustrate that there is no purpose behind Oceania's conflict with the other two super-states, aside from perpetuating the conflict itself. not only is victory not feasible, it isn't even desirable, for any of the super-states.

and for the same reason, there is no ruling class. at least not in the sense we would understand. having people at the top introduces a point of failure. and the party's express goal is only self preservation, so, it would behoove them to remove as many points of failure as possible. hence: big brother. he not only works as an effective propaganda piece for the plebs, but he also works nicely as a cap on the power of the party. you wouldn't want to have an actual person on the top, because an actual person might have goals of their own aside from just perpetuating the party. so, you create a fictional character to 'lead' the party. everything comes down from him, and his only orders are to perpetuate the party. everything the party does is to this end.

the same sort of structure can be seen in the Brotherhood. Goldstein is a likely fictional character that runs an organization whose only immediate goals are self-perpetuation.

now, you also have to realize that the novel is from the perspective of a pleb. Winston has no idea what the fuck is going on, and Goldstein is, in all likelihood, either a party fabrication, or a party plant. as I believe it was explained in the novel, the Brotherhood exists only to weed out those few who resisted party brainwashing to begin with.

what that really means is that we aren't getting a complete picture. we're getting an idea of what Oceania looks like from the mind of an Everyman reading a book designed to convince people that there is no hope in a fight against the party, and listening to a man trying to convince him that there is no hope in a fight against the party.

it's entirely possible that the image of the party's structure is simply a fabrication by the party itself to act as another layer obfuscation between the plebs and those in control. the less anyone knows about what you're actually doing, the harder and harder it becomes to prevent it. Fuck, maybe 'Oceania' doesn't even exist and Airstrip 1 is just the evolution of a British government gone too far. Or perhaps all of the world's states are run by the same party, and the conflict between them is simply a way to easily maintain control until doing so is no longer necessary.

there is no way of knowing what the truth is from the information we have, because the information we have has been designed to hide the truth.

>>8715776
how great is it that a guiding ideology of where we're at now is based off of this woman's writing

File: harold-bloom1.jpg (240KB, 1014x986px) Image search: [Google]

240KB, 1014x986px

>>8715833

>>8715738
I've always gotten a kafkaesque vibe from it, the machinachions of the top level of government (as well as other levels) are arbitrary and unknowable, they're illustrated in such a fashion as it accentuates the feeling of oppression. Its part of the atmosphere of the story. I feel like 1984 really does borrow a few elements from The Trial.

>>8715805
Very brilliant. Orwell makes the truth impossible to know, like the party. I want more.............

>>8715776
>manipulate the world to maintain your privileged position
>god it's such a burden
lol