Thought Police

    In 1984 a weird aspect if it is that Winston isn't allowed to keep a diary and their isn't many books in Oceania. Your not allowed to have your own thoughts or opinions that go against big brother which is why diaries and books aren't accepted. As you know they have the "thought police" that will come after you. However, Winston keeps a diary anyways because he feels as though if you don't write down your thoughts and ideas they will die. Personally, i agree with Winston because if you don't have the words to write down your thoughts they will soon become unexplainable to others and even yourself. Especially, in a place where you have so much trying to push you into believing and thinking a certain way its pivotal that you have some sort of outlet to express your feelings, and that's what the diary was for Winston. I believe even today when we have more freedom that that's still the reason why some people keep diaries.
     The thought police hunt down people that do this because they are afraid of someone finding out that everything big brother does isn't good. The thought police watch your every move from television screens that they have in their houses. If you get caught doing a thoughtcrime you are punished and tortured. An example of a thoughtcrime is Winston's relationship with Julia. They don't allow romance, sexual desire, or love. In 1984 Winston says "The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, instinctive. Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak.", meaning that the people of Oceania are trained to stop thoughtcrime before it even occurs.
   In many ways I feel like even today people are thought not to think or feel certain ways. Obviously we don't have "thoughtpolice " however, we do have people that tell us what we should think all the time. We have parents, presidents, teachers, employers, even friends that want you to think exactly like them all the time. Which is why we take outlets like social media, diaries, or even activities to try and find somewhere where we have a voice and can speak out on how we really feel.

The irony of the four ministries in 1984

     In 1984 their are four ministries: The ministry of love, The ministry of truth, The ministry of plenty, and The ministry of peace. However, each of these ministries names are very ironic to what actually lies beneath each of these ministries.
     The first ministry is the ministry of love, they are responsible for all the government aspects of Oceania such as police, security, and emergencies. The function of this ministry is to instill love for Big Brother through fear. The ministry has no windows, is surrounded by barbed wire, steel doors, guards, and have hidden machine gun nests. Not very homey, right? Another thing that lies in the ministry of love is room 101, a torture chamber.                                                                                                   In chapter V O'brien

Room 101

tells Winston "You asked me once, what was in room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in room 101 is the worse thing in the world". The party has complete access to every ones worse nightmare, in room 101 is where your nightmare becomes brought to life. The party put Winston in room 101 not to make him terrified but so he would betray Julia by saying he would rather have her tortured, resulting back to the fear aspect of this ministry.
     The second ministry is the ministry of truth, the propaganda ministry. Their job is to rewrite the historical events, ironically they do this by lying. They rewrite these historical events for propaganda purposes, and to make Big Brother always seem correct so people will value him more. Without this ministry the party would not seem absolute and the people would not think highly of them. In my opinion this probably the most important ministry to the story line.

Ministry of Truth

      The third ministry is the ministry of plenty, they take care of Oceania's economy. The function of this ministry is to keep everyone in poverty because poor people are easier to rule than wealthy, established people. Big Brother does this by convincing the people that production has gone up when in reality it has gone down, of course this is with the help of the ministry of truth. Winston says "statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version" meaning that the statistics that are "true" and the statistics that are told to the people are both nonsense.
       The last ministry is the ministry of peace, which is ironically responsible for war. They take charge of Oceania's military defense. This relates back to the common theory of Big Brother and one of the party's slogans "War is Peace". The idea of this ministry is to keep Oceania in a perpetual state of war to keep the people busy and at work so they don't learn the truth about their society. Of course it is broad casted that Oceania always wins all the wars, but once again that has no credibility.
      As you can see the names of these ministries are very contradictory to their actual functions. Once again bringing in the theme of "double speak" that is prominent in this book. What ministry do you believe to most vital for the plot line? Why?

What do the partys three slogans mean in 1984 and how do they relate to today?

   In 1984 the party has three slogans: "War is peace", "Freedom is Slavery", and "Ignorance is strength". Each of these hold their own meaning and bring an important aspect to the story. As you can see these three slogans tend to contradict each other which brings in the term "double thinking" that we learned about in class, a term that describes the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts. Today these slogans still can apply to our own country.

   In 1984 the slogan War is Peace is referring to how Oceania is always in a state of war however, they can feel peace at the same time depending on what the party is telling them to feel. Today we still use the phrase war is peace when engaging in "preemptive" wars which are basically wars when we have evidence that the enemy is going to attempt to attack us. Do you believe that peace is war in a case where were going preemptive war?

  The next slogan is Freedom is Slavery which is a great example of double thinking because it contradicts the previous slogan.  Freedom of slavery is Big Brothers way of saying that if your completely free you'll have many responsiblities, making you into a slave. He believes and leads everyone else to believe that the best option is to follow him and you wont have to be a slave and stuck with so many responsibilities.In return this leads everyone away from freedom just like he wants. Today that slogan still applies just on a smaller scale, in order to receive full freedom here we have to work to be able to gain the things that give us access to freedom such as education, a car, and most importantly money. Although this isn't scene as "slavery per say, it does follow the same concept.

  The last slogan is Ignorance is Strength refers to keeping everyone dumb and blind to whats going on so the party has all the power and insight. In the partys eyes its basically a way of be-littling them and just another way to have that sense of control over them. Its similar to the relationship of a baby and parent, when a child is so young they have a very low understanding of what goes on their for the parents have most control over their child at a young age. We still have this same exact problem today, we aren't supposed to question authority, laws, or education. We also don't get told everything that's going on in the world for the "greater good" and to save us from worrying all the time but is that the real reason we don't get told everything or is it so the government holds more power over us?

  In 1984 Orwell did a great job at picking out slogans that are relivant to not only the book but to thew wrold still today. He also did a great job at inncorportating the "double thinking" concept in all three of these slogans. Do you find these slogans to still be reliavant today?