Chapters 2-6 Post (Chapter 5): On Intelligence Through Perception and the Danger of Being Perceptive

On Intelligence Through Perception and the Danger of Being Perceptive

"In an intellectual way, Syme was venomously orthodox. He would talk with a disagreeable gloating satisfaction of helicopter raids on enemy villages, and trials and confessions of thought-criminals, the executions in the cellars of the Ministry of Love." (63)

 "'You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We’re destroying words—scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won’t contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050.’" (65)

"'Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.'" (67)

"One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly. The Party does not like such people. One day he will disappear. It is written in his face." (68)

What I Have to Say

Please excuse the multitude of quotes; for my response, I will be considering them as one big passage simply because I don't think any of them individually really capture my thoughts on the idea of dangerous people in the 1984 society.

Syme, on the surface, is basically the same as every other faithful citizen of Oceania; as Winston comments, he holds the values of the Party as truth and is happy to support them. He does his job within the Research Department with an ardent flair and does not in any clear way speak against Big Brother. Despite this, Winston is sure that he will be vaporized someday; he says that, "The Party does not like such people." Why? Syme understands the Party's motives.

He does not follow blindly as the rest of the population does. For instance, Winston himself dutifully works in the Records Department, but he just sees his work as tasks. He understands that he is rewriting history, but he doesn't seem to truly understand the implications. Syme, on the other hand, blatantly states why Newspeak is being created; it is devolving the the English language so that thoughts can never be explained, let alone expressed. If no one can understand the injustice of the state of Oceania, they will not have an uprising or begin asking questions and exposing everything the government does that is questionable. He is able to distinguish that while creating words for his job, it is to inevitably destroy the current English language. This also shows that he can see past the "good" mentality that the Party puts out. They have their "victory" cigarettes and "victory" mansions, adjectives based purely on the concept of good ("good","ungood","doublegood"), and lies about production to make it seem as though they are always doing better. Others focus on the apparent good, but Syme can see the alternative.

Syme is able to connect all of the dots and understand the intent of the Party, and even though that does not make him rebel, he still holds that information. He can even tell that Winston prefers Oldspeak, which implies he has a better understanding just like Syme, and may also see through the front of the Party. Having that perception and understanding the Party is too dangerous for the Party to let continue; I assume that this is because information and ideas can travel, and thought often produces more analysis.

His fault in his perception, however, seems to be that even though he can see what the Party is truly doing he doesn't make the connections that this is wrong. When speaking about how thought will basically became erased, he sees it as a positive because thoughtcrime will no longer be possible. Regardless, there is danger in his knowledge because him explaining this to someone could result in a reaction of anger or rebellion.

I am pretty surprised that the Party even trusts citizens with jobs like that of Syme and Winston. It's most likely because 1) they assume that the citizens are already propagandized and conditioned to trust in the Party and simply do as they are told, and 2) rather than being super shady and trying to hide all of these practices, it's more simple to keep it all in plain sight and normalize it. Even then, it seems like a terrible decision to give citizens so much information because some people are bound to make connections.

What do you think?

"The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people." - Tom Clancy