Recently, I was reading an article concerning what Orwell’s 1984 is really about as opposed to what people think it means as they decry certain current events as Orwellian. The article lists four terms that are central to 1984 without further explanation: Big Brother, Doublethink, Newspeak, and Thoughtcrime.
The concept Big Brother is well steeped in American society, to the point of us creating a reality TV show based on the concept. Doublethink (holding contradictory thoughts in your mind at the same time) and Newspeak (the control of language to limit the expression of unwanted ideas, at times by turning the meanings of words and phrases upside down) are both familiar.
But something about the last concept caught me. Just the word “Thoughtcrime” teased me like the tone of a bell at the edge of memory. A connection to a quote. A quote from the Bible. A Bible quote brought up in casual conversation, though not directed at me as an admonishment. All that flashed through my mind in an instant.
Suddenly, an association I hadn’t seen before struck me. I knew it would take me a little time to tease it apart. Thus, I decided to dedicate this musing to it. If all of this is familiar ground to you, I apologize. As well as for the light review of concepts as I understand them for those who have not read the book. I have a somewhat diverse readership so I can’t count on that everyone has.
Thoughtcrime in 1984 essentially refers to politically unorthodox thoughts and beliefs that run contrary to the teachings and tenets of the Party in Oceania (the dystopian society the novel is set in). Thoughtcrime is detected by constant and near universal surveillance by Thinkpols (thought police) through two-way screens. Crimestop is a mental indoctrination technique each citizen uses to prevent such errant and illegal thoughts. As implied by the term Thoughtcrime, those thoughts are criminal. They are punishable by death.
So merely thinking the wrong thoughts and having it detected through your body language or other physical cues is a capital crime in that society if you don’t self-censor, all monitored by a constantly watching authority. That sounded more than vaguely familiar. Something in there resonated with my past. Something about sinning in your heart.
It only took me a quick search to find the Bible quote I was thinking of. Matthew 5:27-28. In plain English, it reads (with Jesus speaking at the Sermon on the Mount), “You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery’; but I tell you that everyone who gazes at a woman in lust has committed adultery with her already in his heart.” The next two verses go on to say, “And if your right eye offends you, pluck it out, and cast it from you: for it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be cast into hell. And if your right hand offends you, cut it off, and cast it from you: for it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be cast into hell.”
If you lust against someone in your heart, you have committed adultery. Not by action, by mere unclean thoughts. The punishment, cutting out an eye or cutting off a hand, in the context of the body is death with an allusion to a congregation or body politic. Pretty straightforward and often taken quite literally in the real world as well as a literary one, as it has been in several of the churches I’ve attended and in many of the conversations I’ve had with more fundamental believers.
There are a couple interesting points to unpack here. First is the change of what we commonly define as sin to include a sin that resides in thoughts rather than only through actions. Of course, one needn’t stop with lust. Covetousness could fit. Taking the Lord’s name in vain. Really most of the big ten commandments, never mind the 600-something plus lesser commandments in the first five books of the Bible.
Second is the repetition of the graphic, unforgiving and brutal punishment as reinforcement that this new kind of thought sin is taken just as seriously as the other kind, layered with the ambiguous phraseology in discussing body parts as members, in this case likely of a congregation. So, a dual meaning applying both to the individual and to the society/congregation in which they participate. In modern parlance, those individuals are like an unseen cancer that must be excised to save the greater whole.
That attitude is closely echoed in 1984. Consider the parallel. In both cases, what amounts to an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent authority (all powerful, all seeing and all knowing) monitors and judges each and every one of us each and every day, not just for our actions but for our thoughts. The punishment for such pernicious thoughts/sins is execution in one case, eternal damnation in the other, unless you are rehabilitated/forgiven by the all-powerful authority that stands as judge.
While we naturally assume Orwell was talking about totalitarianism, specifically fascism or Soviet communism, the concept of thoughtcrime goes back millennia before Mussolini or Lenin. Which is perhaps why it resonates so strongly throughout Western society on both sides of the political aisle.
I can hear the immediate objections from people who think I am overanalyzing this. Yes, Orwell was an atheist who considered himself a humanist. He fought against the fascists in Spain but as a Democratic Socialist (a moderate), not a communist. Because he had attended meetings of the Communist Party as research for a book, he was under surveillance in England in a time where fascists and communists vied for control of his country. He witnessed the tactics of British Blackshirts up close.
Consider though, his grandfather was in the clergy. At a young age Orwell was sent to a convent school his sister attended. While he was not a believer himself, he could quote long passages from the Bible from memory. The verses above would have been quite familiar to him. If I remember them enough to find them in a two-minute search, he likely would have known them by heart.
Ok, that word association game is not what I was primarily thinking about when I decided to write this essay. It was fascinating to me that it flashed through my subconscious in an instant and I was able to piece it together. But that alone is not particularly meaningful or necessarily insightful to anyone but me. My mind extended the parallel into much more controversial territory.
You see, I was reading this article in the wake of the January 6th insurrection at the US Capitol (hopefully by the time I post this, I won’t have to reference which insurrection I am talking about like a Soviet revolution, Feb, Oct, 1917, 1905). At the time, several key figures who participated, incited or supported the insurrection were claiming the consequences of their actions (cancelled book deals, social media bans, job terminations, etc.) were Orwellian violations of their Constitutional rights. It’s pretty much a black letter reading that they are wrong in terms of them being a violation but they are also wrong in them being Orwellian, too. The article makes that case much better than I ever could (you can find it referenced in the Notes and Asides in the comments).
Regardless, I was more thinking about why particularly fundamentalist evangelicals in this country continue to support the President who helped incite this insurrection, despite his actions, attitudes and lifestyle seeming to be completely antithetical to stated Christian theological and American political doctrine.
Many 1984 literary scholars agree that the Trump Administration has been Orwellian. They have strongly leaned toward authoritarian while at times courting American neo-fascists. During the insurrection at the Capitol, that flirting passed into an outright relationship. Its supporters have been steadfast and staunch in their denials of it being either an insurrection or in any way antithetical to American democracy to the point of deep-seated cognitive biases. Some of the most fervent support has been from charismatic, fundamentalist evangelicals, both leaders and lay congregations. That had me wondering why, or more precisely how, they continued to be convinced their support of this man was not only right but necessary.
Of the four concepts mentioned, I’ve touched on the parallel to Thoughtcrime in Christian theology. Orwell’s other three terms have resonance points as well.
Big Brother, well, what could be more like Big Brother than an all-seeing, all-knowing, ever-present god who is deeply judgmental and at times outright vengeful. The choices you make in this life are for eternity, no ifs, no ands, no buts. No mulligans. Not exactly the dictates of an all-loving god. Would you brutally punish your children’s sometimes even minor wrongdoing forever without appeal? If so, Social Services might want a word with you.
Doublethink becomes even more intriguing from a socio-psychological point of view. Many of the people who supported this insurrection (and by extension the President who incited it) have had to hold at times two contradictory thoughts in their head at the same time: their dedication to a literalist interpretation of the Bible and their dedication to the Constitution. As anyone who has ever been told that the freedom of religion clause in the First Amendment only applies to Christian sects because we are a fundamentally Christian nation, fully understands. Or anyone who has been told that gay marriage or abortion or even at times even racial equality violates God’s Law and are therefore Unconstitutional. Many of the people who directly participated in the insurrection are self-professed Christians but also former military or other public servants who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, including some current elected officials.
But this juxtaposition isn’t alien to fundamentalist Christianity. Imagine, if you will a god that so loved its creation that it sent to earth its only begotten avatar to be sacrificed to save its people set against the same god that wiped out nearly all its creation in a cataclysmic flood. Or a god who gets into a wager with a fallen angle who then capriciously antagonizes a believer’s life to win a bet (Job). Or a host of other inconsistencies. These are not easy concepts to reconcile. But Christian doctrine requires it.
So, is it a difficult step from those three to Newspeak, where up can be down and black can mean white, either of which can reverse at any moment based only on what your leaders tell you? That might seem to be a bridge too far given most fundamentalist’s literalist reading of the Bible and all its tenets (even the seemingly contradictory ones). Given that a literalist reading of any text is its own kind of Newspeak, a constraining and pruning of language, I think not. Literalist fundamentalism attempts to pare words down to a single desired interpretation while ignoring context, history, translation, nuance, ambiguity, parable, and allusion, all of which are what make the Christian Bible at times a rich, diverse text. If you are looking for precise details on how, which I don’t have time to delve into here, I recommend Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism by Bishop Shelby Spong.
And yet, the New Testament cites that the devil can quote scripture for its own purposes (which some will accuse me of doing above). Especially fundamentalist Christians are taught to ignore any quoted scripture if they think it is being used to trap or trick them into evil purposes. It’s a fallback position I’ve seen used again and again in debate. It’s an escape hatch that terminates discussion.
In reality, I recognize that fundamentalist evangelical support of the now former President and his movement stems from Machiavellian realpolitik, that these outwardly Christian individuals are willing to compromise and sacrifice their beliefs to achieve the goals they desire. The ends justify the means. They often embrace greedy, self-righteous reasons for their support, however cynical that may sound. And no small part of that is rooted in the same racial identity politics that played into American society around the American Civil War, whether consciously or unconsciously.
In political terms, Newspeak is how propaganda works. Even seemingly inconsequential changes in political language over time have been called out again and again. The Department of War becomes the Department of Defense. People killed in bombing raids become Collateral Damage. Demanding respect and social justice become Political Correctness. Consequence for actions become Cancel Culture. Lies or misinformation become Alternative Facts. Etc., etc. These language changes are powerful tools in shaping thoughts. Orwell understood that, as he discussed in “Politics and the English Language”.
Big Brother is the constant monitoring of the masses (especially by government officials) in an authoritarian regime to ensure they are faithful and toe the party line. In the aftermath of 9/11, we have all seen such monitoring increase in the name of security. In the wake of the insurrection at the Capitol, we will again. As we did after Pearl Harbor when we gathered citizens in Internment Camps so we could keep an eye on them. Orwell understood that monitoring from the twelve years he was under government surveillance for research he conducted to write The Road to Wigan Pier.
Doublethink is a kind of mental purity/loyalty test that in practice reinforces the political gaslighting that starts with Newspeak. And yet it works precisely because we all hold seemingly contradictory thoughts and opinions in our head all the time. It’s just to us that they follow some internal logic and consistency. Most of us are good at compartmentalizing, which anyone who has ever held a security clearance can tell you. In that, Orwell understood the fundamentals of human nature and the nature of power, as revealed by Animal Farm.
And Thoughtcrime is a form of self-censorship that instills fear and doubt by reinforcing that the monitoring is inescapable. That constant second-guessing and looking over your shoulder is what allows that gaslighting to work.
Combined, all four psychologically subvert any individual’s will, as well as their grip on objective reality and reason. Control thoughts and you control actions. Resistance is futile. And even if it isn’t, the amount of energy you need to expend to overcome that psychological overpressure is immense.
And yet, you cannot lead people where they don’t want to go. In order to walk them over an authoritarian cliff, you have to give them milestones along the way, ones they are so familiar with that they resonate subconsciously. Religious touchstones are some of the most powerful because they are so ubiquitous, if sometimes invisibly woven into contemporary culture. Even atheists use phrases from the Bible without realizing it. It is the most referenced book in English idiom followed closely by Shakespeare. I could cite Daoist doctrine to Americans until I run short of oxygen. If they don’t recognize something familiar in what I say, they will not follow me, no matter how much intellectual sense my words might make or how much benefit the individuals I am speaking to might derive from them. If I want to lead them, I would have better luck with allusions to Jesus or even the Bard than to Lao-tzu.
To be clear, my point is not that Christians are Orwellian patriarchal authoritarians. I do not believe they are, not all or even the overwhelming majority. Nor do I believe that any religion, not limited to Christianity, is always or even predominately good or evil. As well as providing comfort for events and circumstances beyond our control, religion serves a Darwinian social function, just as many cognitive biases do, one that would have rooted itself out long ago were it not in some way beneficial to the species. In this case it provides value through social cohesion. We are not herd animals as much as we are animals that derive overwhelming environmental advantage from operating in cooperative groups. Those groups, whether tribal or national, require social cohesion to maintain.
I have read that religion is regarded as one of the three legs of the sociological stool that defines a culture (the other two are language and land). A culture is merely a large-scale cooperative group. So politically harnessing that cognitive bias not only makes sense, it’s likely inevitable. The problem for a democracy comes when someone is able to yoke that religious workhorse to an authoritarian wagon. As Mussolini did so elegantly but brutally in Italy when fascism was born. Who Franco then modeled with his Nationalists and received aid from during the Spanish Civil War. Where Orwell almost died from fighting against them with the Republicans.
As I said, he knew a thing or two about authoritarian governments, having witnessed several being created, sometime from whole cloth. Even the United Kingdom during the Depression was pretty much touch and go with the British Union of Fascists under Oswald Mosley. And the Papacy eventually came to regret its alliance with Mussolini.
To paraphrase a popular expression, history doesn’t repeat but it often echoes. Which brings me back to where I started.
I admit, this might not be a compelling argument, more just a curious one based on the parallels. I recognize these structures might prove be thin and need reinforcement if placed under academic scrutiny. I’ve just outlined the contours of an idea that struck me. The touchstones and resonance points, while they do not make any outcome inevitable, perhaps make the one we’ve seen slightly more understandable. They create an intriguing association to me as a writer who constantly examines people’s motivations. One that I believe deserves further thought and consideration.
This, like all the other musings I plan to write this year, is meant as a starting point not a final destination. A journey and an exploration which we ultimately each must undertake alone as we try to make sense of our increasingly complex world. But sometimes it’s just pleasant to have a little company as we share a path along the way.
© 2021 Edward P. Morgan III
