In 1984, George Orwell writes about the effect of Ingsoc (English Socialism) on Oceania. Orwell himself favored socialism, but the kind of which he writes is totalitarian, not “democratic” in nature. If the Party were honest, it would be Ingcom, communism, instead.
Life in Oceania is very different from the way life was before. This is no more clear than when one thinks about sex, marriage and kids.
When we first see Julia, she is wearing an Anti-Sex League sash around her waist, drawing the ire of Winston. He wanted her, but this indicated he never could. He fantasized of assaulting her. He was a miserable, angry man needing to drive it deeper and deeper lest the Party know. Imagine his surprise when she slips him a note with three words: I love you.
In Oceania, sex has been denigrated and made dirty. Her sash says it all. The proletariat, uneducated and dirty, are amused and distracted by sex. For a time Julia worked producing cheap pornography built on six basic plots. These books were sold to the proletariat. We aren’t told this but the implication is that they are encouraged to breed like rats to produce soldiers for the military which is always at war.
But for the Party, sex is discouraged. One’s energy is reserved for the Party. It is also about controlling the loyalty of Party members. “It’s real, undeclared purpose was to remove all pleasure from the sexual act. … Sexual intercourse was to be looked on as a slightly disgusting minor operation, like having an enema.”
Here we learn that Winston was married, still, though he had not seen his wife in years. Marriage between Party members had to be approved. If you seemed to like each other, it was not. Children, to be produced for the benefit of the Party (future administrators for the apparatus) were conceived artificially. They were brought up by the institutions, with minds shaped for Party loyalty. They were turned into spies, agents of the State to identify those guilty of Thought Crime or Face Crime. Yes, the wrong facial expression was considered a crime.
“The children, on the other hand, were systematically turned against their parents and taught to spy on them and report their deviations.”
Katherine, Winston’s wife, recoiled at sex. She didn’t resist but she would wince and stiffen. No romance. No enjoyment or delight. She was a good Party member.
Julia appeared to be the good Party member. She played the game. But when it came to sex, she was a rebel below the waist. Much to Winston’s delight. It as indeed her rebellion. That’s she’d been with numerous partners delighted Winston. From their first “date” in the countryside to the meetings in the upstairs flat in the slums, their relationship was built primarily about rebellion of a sexual kind.
The relationship changes Winston for the better. He realizes that he’s not crazy for having these ideas about the government. Someone shares them, and he begins to care for her. He drinks less gin, and his health improves. What the Party feared has happened.
“He wondered, as he had many times wondered before, whether he himself was a lunatic. … The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.”
With another to speak to, to rebel with, Winston began to maintain a cover like Julia. He re-engaged in the after hours Party activities since he no longer needed to hide his rage.
We get a glimpse, however, into the power of gas lighting. The State lied. Changed news stories. Changed history. You could never trust your memory, what you knew to be true because next week it wouldn’t be. At some point you stop questioning them and begin to question yourself.
The lies were also about capitalism, the exploitation of the people. One lie was about jus prima noctis. You might remember that from Braveheart, as the English claimed the law of the first night to produce English children among the Scottish. Here it was the capitalists, so they said, that could force themselves upon the female employees at any time.
In the quest for control, they sought to undermine the institution that provides for a stable community: family. Wanting total allegiance to the State, they must destroy the family. Similar to Rollerball, they must show the futility of individual action by forcing people to be individuals. With no family, or no warmth within the few permitted families, the individual must depend upon the State.
This is not just some dystopian novel, but Orwell speaks of the ways of the totalitarian governments of his day. It speaks to government’s insatiable desire to control. Scripture often speaks of governments as beasts which seek to control worship and commerce. They control worship by being worshiped. They have to be seen as the granter of all good things. Orwell focuses on the material and psychological dimensions of this process. Christianity brings in the spiritual aspect of this. In a world without God we worship government. Government often wants to be worshiped.
We see a similar undermining of the family today. In our welfare policy we have incentivized single parent homes among the poor. With no-fault divorce we’ve produced broken homes as “better for the children” even though those homes are more likely to be below the poverty line (and dependent on the government). Instead of sexual repression like Oceania, it is sexual expression without the bonds of marriage. Marriage gets in the way of “sexual fulfillment”. The nuclear family is now viewed as a Western construct and inherently oppressive as the result of “white supremacy”. Those who oppose the new sexual expression (which is just the old pre-Christian sexual oppression of the Philistines, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans)are labeled as bigots and oppressors. Sex has been disconnected from marriage and procreation so it exists solely for pleasure. “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.” “If you haven’t tried it, how do you know you don’t like it?” The mantras go on and on, assailing truth and tradition.
The goal is still control. Destroy the family and people are dependent on the State. Destroy the church (which opposes the new sexual expression as one of the foundational institutions of a stable society) and people worship the State as the giver of all good things and protector of the people from the oppression of other institutions. Government is a jealous god.
We see our own version of Newspeak and the breakdown of common sense. “Abortion is healthcare.” “Marriage is slavery.” “If it’s love it can’t be wrong.”
Question these lies and you are an oppressor or colonized by the white supremacist system supported by the family and church. Government, which supposedly created the system, is replaced with the new government which creates a new cycle of oppression in the name of “freedom.”
1984 isn’t here, but some are trying to make it a reality. They are taking away the freedom of speech which undermines the freedom of thought. If we can’t freely speak our disagreements, speak the old truths which provided flourishing in the face of the new/old lies that enslave people, freedom will be lost. Not simply political freedom, but also spiritual freedom. The mob that wants to gain control must never grant freedom of thought and speech. Big Brother watches through social media and technology. The corporations determine who gets to speak and what they are able to say through “fact checkers” weighted to their values.
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
Winston is right, our hope is in the people no one cares about because the danger is from those grasping after power.
“The world is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time; so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and save the World from suicide.” T.S. Eliot
Cavman Considers 
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