From Thoughtcrime to Goodthinking

From Thoughtcrime to Goodthinking

Simulating Socrates: An exercise in rigorous logic

Abstract:

This project attempts to simulate a hypothetical dialogue in the manner of the Socratic dialogues. The subject matter of the dialogue is George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty Four, and the State of Oceania being secure against subversion by the Brotherhood, since no subversion can exist within a State controlled by the Principles of Ingsoc.

Socrates has been assumed to have a pre-conceived agenda in the Republic. He uses the device of elenchus in order to systematically negate every point his interlocutors may advance. In an elenchus, which is the Socratic method of (cross-) questioning, he would attempt to show that their beliefs are contradictory, and to thus prove that they do not have knowledge of something they thought they had knowledge of.

Considering O’Brien as the equivalent of Socrates, and Winston Smith, the protagonist, as the interlocutor, Orwell’s standpoint becomes Plato’s, i.e. that of a scribe recording the dialogue, flavoured with his own personal leanings.

In following the dialogic form and then explaining, in the second part, to Winston himself how he has been re-indoctrinated into goodthink, this is also an exercise in mise en abyme, a self-referential framework (a dialogue within a dialogue, to put it loosely).

The Scene:

The scene is O’Brien’s study. Winston Smith has just come to his house in order to bring up the subject of the brotherhood.

The speakers from here on are referred to as WS and OB for convenience. Julia has been discounted, since she has only a secondary role to play in this particular scene of the novel.

The portions in double quotes are verbatim quotes from the Republic (1955) as translated by Desmond Lee, and from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four (1949); in order to preserve authenticity of form.

Part I

WS: Look, O’Brien, now that we have come this far you might as well tell me what this Brotherhood is all about. Julia and I believe there is some kind of secret organisation working against the Party. We want to join it and work for it.

OB: What do you think it is? For you would not have brought this up unless you had some idea of the Brotherhood and wished to confirm whether or not it was accurate.

WS: You are right, the picture we have in our minds (or at least I in mine) is of meeting in “the place where there is no darkness”.

OB: My dear Winston, if there were to be a conspiracy against Oceania, it could not be in such a place at least, for man will surely be blinded there.

WS: Now don’t joke, tell me, what is this place of no darkness? Do not try to evade the question.

OB: For this you must know what the place of darkness is.

“Imagine an underground chamber like a cave, with a long entrance open to the daylight and as wide as the cave”. In it are men, prisoners from birth or at least childhood, bound and unable to turn their heads to look anywhere except straight ahead. Higher up and behind is a fire. Above the prisoners, between them and the fire runs a road with a curtain wall before it. Would they not “regard nothing else as true but the shadows” of passers-by on this road?

WS: Yes, inevitably.

OB: Now if a prisoner were loosed and forced to look at the fire, he would be dazzled and would “retreat to the things which he could see properly, which he would think really clearer than the things been shown to him”.

WS: Yes.

OB: If he were forcibly dragged up the rugged ascent into the sunlight, he would not “be able to see a single one of the things he was now told were real”.

WS: “Certainly not at first”.

OB: He would come gradually to the conclusion that the sun is “responsible for everything that he and his fellow prisoners used to see”.

WS: “That is the conclusion which he would obviously reach”.

OB: “Then what do you think would happen if he went back to sit in his old seat in the cave? Wouldn’t his eyes be blinded?”

WS: “Certainly”.

OB: And the other prisoners “would say that his visit to the upper world had ruined his sight”, and would kill him if he “tried to release them and lead them up”.

WS: “They certainly would”.

OB: Now “this simile must be connected throughout with what preceded it”. The cave corresponds to Oceania, the prisoners represent the citizens of Oceania, kept in check by the Thought Police.

WS: Granted.

OB: The Thought Police is governed by the Principles of Ingsoc, one of the cornerstones of which is doublethink.

WS: Of course.

OB: They will not allow the existence of “the place where there is no darkness”. Through the process of doublethink, the prisoners can be told anything of the world of no darkness only to react thus.

WS: You put it reasonably.

OB: Now the Brotherhood by definition is a body which shall release the prisoners of Oceania from the cave of darkness. “You have imagined, probably, a huge underworld of conspirators meeting secretly in cellars, recognizing each other by code words…nothing of this kind exists”, because the Thought Police is efficiency personified.

WS: I see.

OB: “You understand that you will always be in the dark”. Under such circumstances, this ‘Brotherhood’ you speak of can only be held together by an idea.

WS: Yes.

OB: So the Brotherhood is not an organisation, and has no achievable agenda.

WS: Agreed, it follows.

OB: In that case, the definition itself is inconsistent. How can it exist if this is so? Is it unreasonable to state therefore, that the Brotherhood does not exist?

WS: No, I cannot see any objection to this.

Part II

OB: Now you see, Winston, that you have been brought to the conclusion that you have no appropriate definition for the topic under consideration. You are in a state of helplessness, aporia, which now cripples any arguments you might have had. In fact, doublethink is similar to this, in that it also stems from contradictions in definition or evidence.

WS: Speaking of evidence, what of the photograph of Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford?

OB: You do know they are unpersons?

WS: Yes.

OB: And yet you continue to ask this.

WS: This is because I held the piece of evidence in my hand.

OB: My dear Winston, if no such persons exist, it is a matter of simple reason that a photograph of them does not exist. Can you see now how this elenchus can prove that your ‘knowledge’ is not knowledge at all, but mere doxa, opinion.

WS: Yes, You are right, all you say is logical. It must be true.

Conclusion:

This dialogue has been an illustration of how by means of skilful conversation one can absolutely negate the motivations to revolt against perceived injustices. In the absence of a support structure (since the Brotherhood has been unpersons-ed by this dialogue and Winston has been convinced it does not and can not exist) for Winston to now indulge in sedition will involve too great a leap of doublethink for him. Thus a potential threat to the State has been so nipped in the bud.

There is now no need for as crude and obvious a device as Room 101, since the objective has been achieved by other, more subtle means. No refutation can present itself, since even the very machinery of conversion back to goodthink has been laid bare.

Bibliography:

1. Plato; The Republic translated by Desmond Lee, Penguin Classics 2003 edition.

2. Orwell, George; Nineteen Eighty Four, Penguin Modern Classics 1974 edition.

3. Irwin, Terence; Plato’s Ethics, Oxford University Press 1995.

4. Roberts, Gwyneth; Introduction in Nineteen Eighty Four, Longman Group 1983 edition.

5. Scholer, J. Lawrence; “Four Millenia of Literary Utopia: From Plato to Orwell” in Dartmouth Literary Review, November 12, 2001.

6. Crystal, David; “Playing With Linguistic Problems: From Orwell to Plato and Back Again” in Linuistics, Language Acquisition, and Language by James E. Alatis.

7. Deatherage, Scott; “From Plato to Orwell: Utopian Rhetoric in a Dystopian World” presented at the Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication Association, November 5-8, 1987.

8. Kreis, Steven; www.historyguide.org 2001.