1984 Part 2, chapter 9 contains excerpts from Goldstein’s famed book.
The main ideas of Goldstein’s book are:
- War is important for consuming the products of human labor; if this work were used to increase the standard of living, the control of the party over the people would decrease. War is the economic basis of a hierarchical society.
- There is an emotional need to believe in the ultimate victory of Big Brother.
- In becoming continuous, war has ceased to exist. The continuity of the war guarantees the permanence of the current order. In other words, “War is Peace”
- There have always been three main strata of society; the Upper, the Middle and the Lower, and no change has brought human equality one inch nearer.
- Collectivism does not lead to socialism. In the event, the wealth now belongs to the new “upper-class”, the bureaucrats and administrators. Collectivism has ensured the permanence of economic inequality.
- Wealth is not inherited from person to person, but it is kept within the ruling group.
- The masses (proles) are given freedom of thought, because they don’t think! A Party member is not allowed the slightest deviation of thought, and there is an elaborate mental training to ensure this, a training that can be summarized in the concept of doublethink.
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