Switching Sides!!!

[seattlegrace90]

Towards the end of Part 2 in the novel Oceania changes its target. Now it's fighting against Eastasia not Eurasia anymore. What I don't understand is how the people of Oceania can just stand there and say "Oh yeah I guess we have been fighting them all along." What if George Bush were to come on the TV tonight and say we have been fighting......China all this time not Iraq; could the American people stand there and say yes we have been fighting China not Iraq. Well what I want to know is how can the people think this. (I think I might know but I would like some insight)(Perhaps because there is no written record):brickwall

[AimusSage]

Double think, It's the contrast between what one believes to be true, and what one knows to be true. The bigger the contrast, the more one is convinced of a truth that is, in reality, a lie.

[vorticies]

Well dessenters are vaporized, so everyone just goes along. Plus if you can be convinced 2+2=5, you can be convinced of anything. It's all a matter of messing w/ your own mind, where knowledge otherwise is suppressed using doublethink. If you go over Goldstein's book again, it explains it there.

[Mystic]

Well, you certainly don't think the governement in Oceania is like ours, do you?

Anyway, one of the reasons that they are so acceptant, in my opinion anyway, is that there isn't anything to accept. You are so focused on those we are fighting, Iraq, in this instance. If it changed, it wouldn't make sense. The proles and such, however, are focused on the action itself, the fighting. When the enemy changes, the fighting does not, and know one notices or thinks anything of it. Don't forget that if they DID notice, there'd be no records and would not be regarded as important, after all, it seems as though no one else made the same mistake, and checking old records shows the 'truth' anyway.

For example, consider this: What if I told you that we've actually been fighting Iran this whole time. You'd not believe me because you 'know' that we've been fighting Iraq, but if everyone else thought it was Iran and all the records stated the same... what would you think then?

"If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?"

and

"He who controls the past controls the future, and he who controls the present controls the past"

Hope this helps.

[Whifflingpin]

Well, you certainly don't think the governement in Oceania is like ours, do you?

How can you believe otherwise? Or did I miss the smiley?

[Mystic]

He compared how the proles reacted to how he would react, but it's not a fair comparison because the types of worlds being comapred are just not the same.