Post: #51

(05-23-2016 04:10 PM)Germanicus Wrote:      

My that was rough.

G

Post: #52

(05-23-2016 06:05 PM)thoughtgypsy Wrote:  Things are getting a bit heated. Perhaps we should focus the discussion back on the merits of 1984 and it's implications for politics, psychology, and human nature.

What I liked about "1984" was that it at least got people thinking. It's popularity among so many people of widely differing political bents is its saving grace - this indicates to me that while humans may not be able to agree on what an ontologically "right" system of government is, we can at least agree on what the "wrong" one would look like.

Post: #53

(05-22-2016 11:15 PM)Teutatis Wrote:  Either you know perfectly well what the book is about and you're being disingenuous to keep the "ignorant mechanic who has no time nor curiosity for that fancy intellectual non sense" façade (most likely) or you really don't know what's it about and somehow are proud of your ignorance by stating you don't read books (I don't believe it), which one is it?

Show some respect. 7-day suspension.

Post: #54

(05-23-2016 08:01 AM)XPQ22 Wrote:  it basically appears to be an angry socialist's beef with Stalinist Russia

Is that a negative for you? For me, this is a merit.

(05-23-2016 08:01 AM)XPQ22 Wrote:  It's not very good as a science fiction novel either, as Orwell seemed to be obsessed with some kind of "better, nobler" past (that likely never really existed), and has a lot of trouble coming up with any new technologies invented over the following 35 years, other than a two-way videoscreen, to add legitimacy as a story.

This is what I meant by taking it as a prophecy. I couldn't care less what technology he predicted. The human emotions are real to me.

(05-23-2016 08:01 AM)XPQ22 Wrote:  It's not a very good psychological commentary on the nature of authoritarianism because, as I mention above, he had no real world experience with it

We have all had experience with authoritarianism, in one fashion or another. Perhaps not the deadly kind, but truths are truths and one can extrapolate.

(05-23-2016 08:01 AM)XPQ22 Wrote:  His ideas about "Newspeak" as a vehicle to limit the expressiveness of concepts seems foolish

You don't feel this correlates exactly to how universities, diversity committees, and SJWs completely pervert language until words either have no concrete meaning or have taken on the completely opposite meaning to what they originally intended (so that earnest traditional users will always be at odds with modern adapters)?

Also, a lot of newspeak was directly inspired by new Soviet words. So in this you have a solid grounding in reality, which would seem to appease at least some of your grievances.

(05-23-2016 08:01 AM)XPQ22 Wrote:  Orwell seems to feel that if you threw enough state resources at a population, you could essentially turn them into an entire race of mindless androids with no connection to the past 2 million years of human evolution; that humans are essentially clay that can be molded into any shape one wishes given enough effort. I call bullshit on that idea.

I see what you are getting at, but bear with me for a second. Before I can give you the good faith longer rebuttal, one quick thing:
the very presence of Winston and his story itself are evidence that Orwell does not believe this. If Winston has constant nagging doubts then surely there are other (non characters in this story, but implied to exist in this world) people who do as well. So in fact the state is not all-powerful... just very powerful and vigilant.

However, I think what you may be getting at (hopefully this is not presumptuous) is an antipathy to the Rousseauian idea that it is institutions, and not people, that are corrupt.

And to that I agree. If we just change the institution, or the people in power, it does not solve any problems.

But I don't think Orwell was pushing such a fallacy... or if he believed it himself, I don't think it mars the work.

Because honestly, if you were a dissident in a more heavily authoritarian state, and you were subjected to repeated heavy torture like Winston was, you too would crack. As would I. And anyone else, except for maybe the most hardened, trained, anti-torture soldier.

As for everyone else just going along to get along, accepting war, participating in the two minutes' hate, swilling crap drink and mowing crap food and accepting the most prosaic of "holidays" in a fraction of the time they spend grueling at a proscribed job in which they find no meaning except to mindlessly take orders... I mean, this perfectly describes the vast majority of the (comparatively) "free" western world we currently live in.

Post: #55

(05-23-2016 01:49 PM)XPQ22 Wrote:  

(05-23-2016 01:48 PM)IDrinkYourMilkShake Wrote:  OP just critisize it because of a 'lousy' love-story, and by critisizing Orwell as a person. Nothing about the easyness of drawing parallels with the situation today, or let say North Korea.

You've selectively ignored enormous amounts of what I've wrote in this thread, so I'm not sure what to tell you. Someone else mentioned that Asimov's critique was invalid due to him being a Jewish socialist, so disassembling things based on personal characteristics seems to be fair game, anyway.

I didn't say that "1984 is a lousy book because Orwell was this and that." I said "Orwell had these experiences, which likely led him to write a lousy book." There is a subtle but distinct difference...I don't believe that Orwell was incapable of the task due to his intrinsic "nature"; he has other works that are better, but for whatever reason it didn't turn out that way.

And as I mention above, North Korea is a joke of a state that only exists due to humanitarian aid and blackmailing its more sensible neighbors, who don't want to deal with the massive humanitarian crisis that would ensue if the state should collapse rapidly. It is in no way self-sufficient (as much as adherents to the Juche ideology might like to pretend otherwise.) It is a Potemkin village of an Orwellian state.

Actually, in the quoted posts belove the only explenation of why its a lousy book is that you consider it to be 'unrealistic fantasy' on the level of Tolkien (lol), that the technology isnt realistic, again about Orwell as a person, and about the power balance betwen state and the people doesnt work like that according to you, but you have been proved wrong by other users on that.
Which brings me to North korea. Yes you have menthioned it, but just as a 'ridiculous' state that would collapse without aid. Well thats true, but the country has been on sanctions and embargos for a lot of time. Its mostly upheld thanks to China, and probably more selfsuficient then what the west wants to admit, they have developed both a nuclear program and managed to train cyber hackers without much internet.
But the very reason why comparing NK with 1984 is that the totalitarian, stalinist society described in the book, is still going on there, with a extreme personal cult around the leader(s) just like Big Brother, a extreme propaganda machinery, harsh punishments for dissidents and so on.

But you dont hav eto only focus on NK. Like other users have posted, the parallels with the political corectness going mad whre you can easy compare it to thought-crime, and the western medias reports about the middle east and Russia is compareable to Oceania vs Euroasia and Eastasia. It doesnt mean that we have gone Full 1984, just how applicable some things are.

(05-22-2016 12:39 PM)XPQ22 Wrote:  Didn't realize there was a specific thread for this sort of thing. I'll cetainly check that out.

It's a fantasy novel. Some of the concepts listed by ThoughtGypsy have a kernel of truth, but at the end of the day Orwell's imaginary world, to my mind, has as much connection to reality as Middle Earth.

The purpose wasn't to demolish Orwell's philosophy, whatever it may be, by way of ad-hominems. He may be right about everything he predicts, who can say. Tolkien never lived in Middle Earth. So why write a series of novels about Elves and wizards? Because Tolkien was a linguist, and Middle Earth was his vehicle for expressing the linguistic concepts he wished to express, and also likely a Christian parable (though not as heavy handed as his contemporary CS Lewis.) Orwell never lived in Eurasia. So what is that novel the vehicle for? What place does it come from? Every work of art comes from somewhere.

My point is that I feel it comes out of a place of basically narcissistic anger, not genuine concern. And that gives me an uncomfortable feeling about the legitimacy of the message - because that's precisely where many of the political philosophies of the extreme left and right come from.

Someone who had actually lived under a police state would never have written a novel like that. Like Clancy's work, it's a good yarn, but on this forum it often seems that on the ground experience is considered more valuable than armchair philosophizing. Not sure why Orwell gets a pass.

I saw some books by Clancy in the supermarket, stocked next to a bunch of cheesy chick lit novels. It's an appropriate place for them, as they're essentially the same genre.

Maybe I'm already a thought criminal by not liking it. Ooh, so meta.

(05-23-2016 12:54 AM)XPQ22 Wrote:  

(05-22-2016 11:15 PM)Teutatis Wrote:  Orwell was a genius and both 1984 and Animal Farm are fantastic and powerful works and should be mandatory reading for everyone. OP is just trying to stir some controversy.

Orwell's nightmare totalitarian state ruled by a shadowy, powerful elite which maintains absolute power in in perpetuity through scrutinizing the tiniest details of every citizen is a fantasy. It's logistically impossible; so is a society where everyone informs on everyone else as you just have a huge mass of conflicting information that's totally useless. In a sense a government that knows everything about its subjects knows nothing - even with computers it's way too much information to ever make any sense out of.

Nearly every real police state vaguely resembling the type Orwell envisioned collapsed, and collapsed rapidly. Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China (North Korea is a poor example, as it would collapse tomorrow if not for the boatloads of humanitarian aid it gets from more sensible nations, including the US.) The leaders forget the true nature of power, which is based on trust - not fear, and finally who they're working for: us. And so they get their throats slit.

Isaac Asimov pretty much said it best: "The true horror of his picture of 1984 is his eloquent description of the low quality of the gin and tobacco."

Another great criticism made by Asimov is that the novel's focus on history re-writing is absurd. In the real world, it's not even necessary because nobody cares. It's like, tell people "Hey, the US and Russia are friends now" and they'll say "Okay." "But don't you realize that we were enemies just a decade ago?" "Sure, that's fine." You don't even have to expunge history, because in general nobody even cares or bothers to look.

(05-23-2016 08:01 AM)XPQ22 Wrote:  

(05-23-2016 02:19 AM)TooFineAPoint Wrote:  I find it strange when people slate 1984 (especially when comparing it to Brave New World), judging by their own standard that it must have been written as some kind of prophecy. And somehow if everything did not come true in the fashion Orwell described, it must not be worth as much.

Of course it's not a prophecy - to me (and I'm in agreement with a few other critics on this) it basically appears to be an angry socialist's beef with Stalinist Russia, which the London of 1984 seems to be a copy of. It's not very good as a science fiction novel either, as Orwell seemed to be obsessed with some kind of "better, nobler" past (that likely never really existed), and has a lot of trouble coming up with any new technologies invented over the following 35 years, other than a two-way videoscreen, to add legitimacy as a story.

It's not a very good psychological commentary on the nature of authoritarianism because, as I mention above, he had no real world experience with it, and so many of the techniques he describes have no bearing to the way that real authoritarian states have historically exercised control.

His ideas about "Newspeak" as a vehicle to limit the expressiveness of concepts seems foolish - the term "bloviation" is often used in reference to political bullshitters because everyone knows that liars almost always use way too many words instead of too few. And even if a population somehow only had 250 words in an "official dictionary" to work with, and would be put to death for ever using one outside of the official corpus, you can guarantee that people would be creating amalgamations out of the words they had available to refer to things and concepts which they had no "official" word for. Because this happens in pretty much all languages...all the time.

Orwell seems to feel that if you threw enough state resources at a population, you could essentially turn them into an entire race of mindless androids with no connection to the past 2 million years of human evolution; that humans are essentially clay that can be molded into any shape one wishes given enough effort. I call bullshit on that idea.

But I can see I'm fighting an uphill battle here.

(05-23-2016 08:34 PM)XPQ22 Wrote:  

(05-23-2016 06:05 PM)thoughtgypsy Wrote:  Things are getting a bit heated. Perhaps we should focus the discussion back on the merits of 1984 and it's implications for politics, psychology, and human nature.

What I liked about "1984" was that it at least got people thinking. It's popularity among so many people of widely differing political bents is its saving grace - this indicates to me that while humans may not be able to agree on what an ontologically "right" system of government is, we can at least agree on what the "wrong" one would look like.

Well thats great that you admit that. And just like I posted earlier, the fact that people from so many political backgrounds likes it, and use it from time to time to their own purpose indicate that its a great book.
I think thats why so many here cant consider it to be lousy wihtout a solid explenation.

Post: #56

I must concur that 1984 is overrated, overquoted, overall ridiculous in its representation of human nature and actual oppression, and that Orwell was a naive Trotskite patsy who imagined socialism as based on loving one's fellow man, instead of a manipulative political strategy based on greed and power.

Post: #57

(05-24-2016 09:51 AM)scrambled Wrote:  I must concur that 1984 is overrated, overquoted, overall ridiculous in its representation of human nature and actual oppression, and that Orwell was a naive Trotskite patsy who imagined socialism as based on loving one's fellow man, instead of a manipulative political strategy based on greed and power.

Could you elaborate on why you think 1984 is overall ridiculous in its representation of human nature and oppression?

Do you think the concepts of:
- Doublethink
- Thought crime
- 20 minutes of hate
- We've always been at war with EastAsia
- The false sense of security from a paternal state "big brother"
- The satirical treatment of the proles

are inaccurate? If so, why?

Bringing up Orwell's activities outside of his writings doesn't necessarily discount the validity of his work. People like Newton, Tesla, and Einstein were pretty eccentric characters that often subscribed to strange ideas. It doesn't discredit the models they've created which have stood the test of time. But if you insist it does, your case would be much better served by pointing out where and how.

Post: #58

(05-24-2016 10:21 AM)thoughtgypsy Wrote:  Could you elaborate on why you think 1984 is overall ridiculous in its representation of human nature and oppression?

I admit I couldn't finish the book, and read it a long time ago, but one example of the not-true-to-life writing: in the early parts I read mentioned something like some young women voluntarily being chaste (looked it up, "Junior Anti-Sex League") and wearing some kind of sticker to indicate they were chaste, and that the narrator hated them in particular, and that the sentence for rape was only 10 years, and that it was almost worth the risk.

Now this is horrifying to men, which is why Orwell included it, but it is also stupid and more-or-less impossible. Knowing history, and knowing human nature, even the most totalitarian regimes wouldn't or couldn't do such a thing; it would not be in the state's interest in having fewer future soldiers and children to propagandize. On the contrary, fertility is encouraged: as just one real life example, communist Romania in fact outlawed abortion in order to increase the population, going further than that in fact:

Quote:The communist dictator's prohibition of abortion and contraception, in a misguided effort to increase the birth rate, made secret or self-induced abortions the primary means of birth control

Quote:For more than two decades, contraception and abortions were strictly forbidden by Mr. Ceausescu in an attempt to build his country into a colossus through population growth. His government was overthrown in 1989, and one of its legacies was orphanages filled with unwanted and neglected children.

What government is interested in having women chaste, or any such thing as portrayed in the book? Not even the "religious right", as they are a modern movement, never a government unto themselves, and their pro-abstinence message is not really anti-sex, but pro marriage and children. It makes no sense; if you think Romania was an exception, consider another example, the Soviet Union itself, the dictatorship that Orwell despised as treason to socialism, was not even close to chaste, but rather too much of a hook-up culture:

Quote:In the 1920s, the Soviet authorities released the reins on sexual mores. Sexual freedom and emancipation of women were seen as part of the struggle against religion, grammar schools, the teaching of Greek and Latin, work uniforms, and the czarist-era Table of Ranks.

It was at this time that homosexuality was also de-criminalized. Divorces could be obtained without any problem: It was possible to get a divorce without even informing your spouse.

And later . . .

Communist doctrine actually encourages more children since Marxist doctrine holds that people are blank slates, so a child can be made fully communistic, but a bourgeois adult is forever suspect.

It rather strikes me as Orwell projecting some kind of male nightmare, which cannot be excused as dramatic license because it is not believable in context of an oppressive society. Actual oppression is more random and chaotic, and day-to-day life, even under a Stalin, was more or less the same to the vast majority of the population. Orwell's vision violates a rule of the Universe:

Quote:4. Continuous pain does not last long in the body; on the contrary, pain, if extreme, is present a short time,

Which applies to groups as well as an individual's body; the more oppressive a society is, the shorter it lasts, as it becomes unbearable and collapses like a Neutron star.

And also,

Quote:In every government, though terrors reign,
Though tyrant kings, or tyrant laws restrain,
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Still to ourselves in every place consign’d,
Our own felicity we make or find:

The chastity thing is a cheap shot; and combined with the other parts, no society could exist like the 1984 one, and so it dies on the page, and is as likely to oppress you one day as Freddie Krueger is to physically kill you in your sleep tonight.

Post: #59

(05-23-2016 10:19 PM)Tuthmosis Wrote:  

Nice gif for the occasion

Post: #60

(05-24-2016 12:08 PM)scrambled Wrote:  Orwell's vision violates a rule of the Universe:

Orwell's vision violates Occam's Razor. There is no reason that power structures, which at least to me are based upon trust and reputation at all the lower levels, should somehow radically change into a preoccupation with "total information awareness", mind control, and manipulation at the highest levels.

Such an explanation is simply not necessary to explain the facts of the world we see around us.

Post: #61

(05-24-2016 12:08 PM)scrambled Wrote:  Now this is horrifying to men, which is why Orwell included it, but it is also stupid and more-or-less impossible. Knowing history, and knowing human nature, even the most totalitarian regimes wouldn't or couldn't do such a thing; it would not be in the state's interest in having fewer future soldiers and children to propagandize. On the contrary, fertility is encouraged... [examples]

Nah, I suspect you've missed the greater complexities of work. I read it when I was young, the again in high school, so, admittedly, my memory is fuzzy.

From what I remember:

Three Social Classes:

Inner Party (who hold the power)
Outer Party (who are the Tools of Bureaucracy that keep the Inner Party in the position they're in)
The Proletariat (the vast majority of the population who are easily-distracted by bread and circuses)

The Inner Party's function is simply Power for Power's sake. My reading of the book was that the full force of the Inner Party's oppression was applied to keeping the Outer Party under strict control, whereas the 'Proles' were largely-ignored, since they were considered politically-unawakened and, therefore no real threat to maintaining the Status Quo.

As such, I always imagined the Sex and Breeding restrictions we see being pushed forward in the book were only applied to the Outer Party. The Inner Party wanted there to be no bond of familial loyalty within that Class. Husbands, wives and children must all be ready to betray each other out for the love of Big Brother, thereby removing a serious threat to power.

If you doubt this, ask why the Inner Party uses the Versificator - a machine - to write emotional songs of treacly sentimentality aimed at the Proles, thereby pushing the messages of love, affection and bonding that are Forbidden in the Inner Party. Winston overhears a prole woman singing one of these songs and is drawn to the emotional fantasy being sung, but himself notes that Inner Party Members 'never sing' for pleasure.

If you think restricting the breeding and pair bonding nature of a social class best positioned to keep Progressive Politics in power is a ridiculous idea, I'd suggest you do a search for on of my posts from a couple of years back that describes why I think Social Justice functions as a Boyfriend Substitute for Millennial Girls.

As for breeding for soldiers:

My personal interpretation of the book was even darker than the depiction of the world as described in the book. Winston's assumptions of the structure of the word comes from the information Big Brother has given him, and Winston is charged with manipulating and erasing that information to keep up their ever changing narrative.

If you're paying attention, you'll still see this process happening all the time. Didn't EPSN just remove 18 minutes of footage out of documentary to erase a recent Sports Thought Criminal who spoke out against Transsexuals in bathrooms? Didn't a BBC reporter say yesterday that the Rotherdam Scandal 'never happened' and shut down a caller who mentioned it? Didn't Hillary Clinton say there is no connection between Islam and Terrorism? Reality under Socialist Control is constantly in flux. I found an old letter from 2012 yesterday to a friend yesterday where we were laughing about how 'quaint' and 'dated' 70's gender-bending seems now, yet four years later it is apparently the greatest social issue of our time and any time.

Returning to the book, knowing this about Socialist Reality, my reading of the book is that Big Brother controls what is left the world after a war, however much that entails, and that neither Eurasia or Eastasia exist - note how the enemy changes midway through the book. Both are simply Propaganda Creations of the Inner Party to focus the populaces Effort and Anger, much in the same way as Goldstein is a creation designed to weed out subversives from the Outer Party. The populace existing in a state of war is simply used as an excuse to justify the harsh living conditions that eventuate from socialist rule, or the fact that the world could be a rapidly-dying nuclear wasteland.

Personally, I think it's a brilliant book, filled with one insightful observation about Socialism after another. The failings of the book to me would be related to Orwell's self-professed 'Lower-Upper-Middle-Class Upbringing':

1. Proles are romanticised and patronised in the standard rich leftist 'earthy' and 'real' fashion, and it's believed they could save the world, if only they became politically-aware.

2. Orwell arrogantly-assumes the middle-classes are already politically-awakened, and aren't capable of eagerly-succumbing to their own Bread and Circuses, that keep them both happy and powerless.

Post: #62

Super controversial opinion OP.

Here's a post for you to read on my take of 1984.

/thread-56157.html

Post: #63

Gotta admit OP knew how to get a discussion going.

Post: #64

(06-01-2016 10:39 AM)debeguiled Wrote:  Gotta admit OP knew how to get a discussion going.

Indeed - I admire OPs craft. Shitting all over something is often the best way to get people's blood boiling and start a good debate. Great work OP!

Post: #65

I've heard tons of people criticize 1984 for being unrealistic, overly anti-communist, boring, whatever... yet real, living people who lived under communist systems roundly praise Orwell for describing and summing up the inner workings of their system to a T.

Post: #66

On the point that OP made earlier that there are not Stalinists or Maoists. Yes there are plenty in academia. More than I would like to know or associate with, but there are plenty there.

Though the more common Lenin cult of personality is the dominant strain these days when it comes to ardent commies.

Not to mention these guys are fairly open about these opinions.

Post: #67

The book is bleak. Yet that is part of what gives it such gravitas.
It's stark & serious story & plot.

Did anyone catch how Osama Bin Laden was our own modern day version of Emmanuelle Goldstein?

Quite surprised in the end that they killed off that character...

Post: #68

(05-22-2016 10:49 AM)XPQ22 Wrote:  1984 is frankly, not a very good book. Every work of art comes form somewhere. So "1984" had to come from somewhere. And so, where did "1984" come from?

Many "SJWs" really like this book.

Not an argument.

Guilt by association - or rather wrong by association - is a fallacy and one we should avoid.

Regardless of who Orwell was and believed, he's been unfortunately accurate in the kind of dystopian predictions he envisioned in "1984". The police state he envisioned is coming about as is the first cultural foundations for the elimination/simplification of language and wrongthink - as demonstrated by SJW dogma.

He also predicted how people would realize the true nature of the system and end up accepting it as inevitable and how resistance would be futile. Note the deliberate apathy and ignorance by people today. They are more aware of the vicious nature of reality, but it is too painful for them to care about anymore.

If you combine 1984 with Brave New World, it becomes even more prophetic. Read Neil Postman's "Amusing ourselves to death", and you see how technology and smartphones have been used to cull the masses into a state of senile apathy similar to the masses in Rome being appeased by bread.

Post: #69

Orwell was one of those who was a socialist with intellect and a sense of human decency. This also made his views incompatible with the reality that socialism is not a movement that upholds human decency. Orwell understood this insofar as it pertains to communist movements, and also understood that authoritarianism (including communism) grow out of socialism. Unfortunately, he also kept believing in a sort of humanistic socialism—the sort that became popular in the west after WW2—thinking it to be a good alternative to the Soviet way.

And of course, as we are seeing today, he was wrong. That being said, although "1984" does contain an excellent description about how socialism inevitably goes off the rails, it is still primarily a description of a Soviet-style totalitarian state, of which only North Korea is still a pure example. A book like "Brave New World" is probably more directly relevant as a depiction of the socialist/cultural Marxist degeneracy plaguing the West.

Post: #70

Important book but not really exciting. I see parallels between Big Brother and God. What is more totalitarian than religion? Does Winston die in the end?

Post: #71

I find Animal Farm to be more representative of how the world really works.

The oppressed become the oppressors.



Most revolutionaries who wave the flag for righteousness are really only interested in their own selfish empowerment in the end rather than a truly more just and equitable society.

Post: #72

(05-23-2016 02:22 PM)robreke Wrote:  

(05-23-2016 08:43 AM)thoughtgypsy Wrote:  [quote='Walker' pid='1307572' dateline='1463950810']
Animal farm is terrible because of the part where a bunch of animals fess up to crimes they didn't commit, and face execution, because of Napoleon egging them on. No one acts anything like that in real life.

^ "Dad will you take me fishing this weekend?"

"No, son, but I will take you to be bound and have collars strapped to your neck so you get a taste of how bad white people have been to oppressed races in the past at the monthly white-guilt meet up group."

I feel sorry for that kid. With a POS dad like that, he never had a chance.

Looks like he made the kid go barefoot too...but not himself. What a hypocrite. Someone should call Child Protective Services.

Post: #73

Animal Farm is by far the better Orwell book. 1984 feels painfully long (though it's only 336 pages) and quite poorly paced.

Post: #74

^I concur. Now I want to tackle Brave New World if I can find it at the library. I have the Great Gatsby, is it worth a read?

Post: #75

(05-29-2017 08:38 AM)Chris Brown Wrote:  Important book but not really exciting. I see parallels between Big Brother and God. What is more totalitarian than religion? Does Winston die in the end?

Totalitarian implies use of state power to dominate every aspect of life within the state. You can bend the definition a bit, but it's hard to make parallels to religion.

The difference between Big Brother and God? For the Christian God, anyway, the difference is huge. God is Big Brother in the sense that your conscience is Big Brother. Christianity is focused on the individual. Your relationship with God is personal and enforced primarily by your own faith. Within a given church you may face threats of social ostracism and excommunication, but that is much different from society-wide totalitarian power. A particular church might be totalitarian, though we typically use the term "cult" to describe such churches.