Contradiction
Adam Sheriff
‘War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength.’
-The Party. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
Introduction
The art of contradiction, literally from the Latin ‘to speak against’, has been abused for centuries, by those in power, to steer the masses towards supporting their own interests. George Orwell’s post-war dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, provides an emphatic illustration of this. The three slogans quoted above, are examples of directly contradictory statements that were used to justify the actions of the mysterious government depicted by Orwell, ‘The Party’, which ruled the dystopic super-state, Oceania. Whilst this example is evidently fictitious, recent real-world events have shown that contradiction is playing an important role in influencing the public psyche. In this essay, we shall explore the impact of contradiction on real-life society in the context of The Party’s slogans. In Nineteen Eighty-Four , the Ministry of Peace of Oceania ensures that the nation is constantly embroiled in a state of war and spreads fear amongst her citizens in order to gain their support against perpetual enemies. Their contradictory slogan- ‘War Is Peace’ epitomizes their method of brainwashing people into believing that their wars are eventually going to restore peace. Similar justifications, however, can be seen today, a prime example being the claims of NATO countries of entering a purely ‘pre-emptive war’ in order to appease their citizens. The notion of a ‘pre-emptive war’, i.e. starting a war in order to prevent wars, is a contradiction in itself and yet is a concept still widely used by NATO and other organizations. They use this excuse as thinly veiled licences to initiate any conflict on the pretext of bringing peace. The disastrous consequences of NATO ‘interventions’ in Libya, Syria and Iraq against seemingly faceless and ever-shifting foe and the way in which they have spawned, like a Hydra’s head, ever more abundant and dangerous terrorist groups parallel the methods of perpetual war and the constant threat of terror which the Ministry of Peace imposed on its citizens. It seems that the titles given to the Ministry of ‘Peace’ and the modern-day Ministry of ‘Defence’ are equally contradictory. It seems increasingly common in today’s society that in our eagerness to protect perceived freedoms we are actually enslaving ourselves. A recent example is during the aftermath of the tragic ‘Charlie Hebdo’ shootings in Paris. A few days after these events, a number of world leaders announced they will no longer tolerate attacks on our freedom of speech, some whilst simultaneously advocating an amendment to the so-called ‘snooper’s charter’ which will allow governments to escalate their monitoring of mobile telecommunications and the internet. Often, governments are too hasty to enact laws that may protect one aspect of civil liberties but curtail a number of existing ones. It appears that this situation has led to a certain degree of public unease; a 2013 poll by the Washington Post discovered that 70% of respondents were concerned about the US Government’s routine collection of large amounts of private metadata. This atmosphere of fear is mirrored by the long shadow of The Party which gives the impression that its citizens are always being monitored through ‘telescreens’, supressing open opposition. The infamous whistle-blower Edward Snowden has mentioned the danger of worldwide mass surveillance marking the emergence into reality of Orwell’s warning of an ever-watching ‘Big Brother’; he claims that the only difference is that the modern methods employed by governments are more sophisticated and intrusive than Orwellian telescreens . War Is Peace Freedom Is Slavery
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