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Wow... Good things coming from this book.

I don't even know where to start talking about this book... so I won't.  Has anyone read this amazing peice of literature?

If you havent read it, do so. Pretty much the most nightmarish society ever. Imagine the USSR under Stalin, but much worse and completely removed from logical thought.

If you start seeing conspiracies around every corner after reading; i dont blame you.

1984 = Stalin's Wet Dream.

I read it for school just this last summer, and damn was it chilling and awesome. I have a feeling that since Communism is so last century, the US won't become so oppressive. I know all the fatalistic theories and such, but I just don't see all these doomsday evil tyranical untouchable gov'ts ever seizing power, at least not in the US. We'll have corrupt gov't for sure, but who doesn't have corruption and incompetence and greed somewhere in their gov't? If anything, the US will become slaves to the media and businesses and whatnot, and then a resistance group will be formed and there will be protests and riots and it'll be so cool. Yeah.

Aaanyway, 1984 was awesome because of the sex scenes. All of the summer reading books on the list - ALL OF THEM - had sex. Well fine, not ALL, but a good deal.

With the fall of the Iron Curtain we should not be afraid of 1984, but of Idiocracy; which seems ever more likely each time a new soap opera comes out.

Well put. Nobody in any classes watches Gossip Girl (the most guhdamn retarded bullshit show ever) and yet it's still on the air. Fuggin' hate corporate media.

Good point, although you have to give the USSR credit for being the first to pretend to establish a fair and equal society while stabbing the populace in the back. N. Korea is a plagiarist.

Hm, you know, I can see a lot of these concepts actually rising from this gov't.

Thought Crime/ Face Crime -- Hate Crime Legislation

Newspeak -- Political Correctness

Ingsoc -- Socialist Propositions

The Party -- "Our Gov't"

The Proles -- The Uneducated Masses/ Lower Class "I don't give a fuck, unless I get mine" People

There was more, but I forgot a few...

The military-industrial complex seems more relevant to the US, though, which is interesting. Dump into the ocean all the labour and resources that have the capacity to make the masses better fed and more intelligent.

Weren't we all just talking about this in another thread when I was raving about Eurasia and Eastasia? I seem to recall being shouted down for my existential viewpoints. Then again, I may be horribly demented.

Here it is:

http://www.chooseyourstory.com/forums/message.aspx?MessageId=5717

Existentialism isn't so bad.  It's those Theatre of the Absurd people who I don't get.  At least with Existentialism dignity is a factor.

Read it in 10th grade, so it's been a few years now, but I do recall quite enjoying it. I should probably read it again, now that I have a different view of the world than I did then.

Although communism is very much a 20th century concept, I'm not sure that totalitarianism is so far-fetched even now. Yes, I definitely agree that we're more likely to become slaves even further to the media and to consumerism than to a corrupt and powerful government, but the two might just go hand in hand. Like the theory that Bradbury with Fahrenheit 451 and Huxley with Brave New World probably got closer to the truth than Orwell did. Nevertheless, it's a good book and an important warning, even if the concerns it raises are not exactly what they would be if it were written today.

Exactly. And school curricula sometimes... I don't really know what to think. Or where some of the ideas of what should and should not be on them come from.

I know there's a specific fear in/about Russia (here's where my being a Russian area studies student comes in...) that Putin is developing a cult of personality almost at the level that Stalin had--and that's what's really scary from an international viewpoint. So far as I know, he's not really done anything that bad. He's done a lot to help their economy and whatnot, and made some mistakes too. But any time that a populace so firmly believes that one man can end their troubles... Not good.

What makes Russia's press so awesome is that:

1) It's Russian.

2) It's objective, at least the networks I've watched.

3) It's accurate. You know how American News TV will usually get some facts wrong or just won't cover all the details? Or maybe they sound condescending or just stupid like they haven't studied it well enough and don't appreciate the topic? Yeah, Russia doesn't do that. When this one news network was covering the Bringing of the Kursk Icon to Russia, it got its facts about the history and significance right.

The Kursk Icon is more accurately called the "Our Lady of Kursk" icon, and it's a miracle icon of the Mother of God and eleven other figures on it. It was not painted by anyone, and was found underground under some tree roots. When they - I'm supposing some priests - discovered it, it was rent in two pieces. When the pieces were put together, the icon fuzed without glue or anything. Plus, the icon leaks myrrh. So, yeah, it's pretty epic. The icon was found and kept in Kursk, and there was a church built around where the icon was discovered. When the Soviets took power, the priests took the icon and fled to America, where the icon remained in safe keeping. Just a few months ago I believe, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church went on a tour to Russia to return the icon to the church in Kursk. There were millions of Russians out in the street in all of Kursk, and everyone venerated the icon. It was truly awesome - I wish I was there.

Ahem, now that I'm done forcing my religion down your throat, Communism sucks because it oppressed my people. So screw you, Stalin! Thanks for making Russia's male population severely low even to this day! Jerk...

Well, it's certainly not perfect, but it has come a hell of a long way from any of its earlier incarnations. There's always the issue with the journalists getting killed now and then, but that seems like it's usually more ultra-nationalists and the like than anything else.

In the end, as much as American media likes to say bad things about it (and, as you guys mentioned, it's not exactly known for its accuracy...) , Russia has come far. It's had such a history of stints of relative freedom and then dreadfully oppressive censorship that the simple fact that there is a press in Russia outside of the official political statements means something. It's stil got it's problems to deal with, but I think people tend to worry too much about it reverting to communism. Whoever said that American-style capitalism was perfect, either? Well, plenty of people, but they need to take a look at what actually goes on...

From what I can tell and the Russians I've talked to, they're far more aware of their history and culture than almost any American I know. So the story of the Kursk icon doesn't really surprise me much. Alexander Nevsky got voted the most influential Russian in history last year, if I remember correctly. The man died in 1263. It seems like most people who don't have a specific interest in Russian history and aren't Russian don't even know who he was. And don't get me started on how ignorant of history--whether international, national, or state--most Americans are.

Wow... a 1984 thread just turned into a discussion of the Russian press. That's... kind of awesome, in an odd way. I like you guys already =D

You have no idea how incredibly far we can digress, my young padawon.

Speaking of Alexander Nevsky, there's actually a Russian-made anime movie called "First Squad". It's written by Russians and spoken in Russian with English subtitles and animated by a Japanese studio. It's the true story about a bunch of teens who have supernatural powers and essentially they prevent a bunch of Teutonic soldiers who were killed by Alexander Nevsky in 1242 and raised from the dead by the Nazis in 1942 (yeah, get it? 1242, 1942? Russia used this same joke in some of their propaganda, which is just awesome lol) from invading Russia. It's pretty cool and well done, so check it out if you can. And YES IT'S TRUE. lol Well seriously, they interview Russian veterans of WWII to show the REAL side of the war, and yeah it's gruesome without the arcane evil. Thing is, the story is based on rumors, myths, and actual plans by both the Soviet Russians and Nazi Germans to use mythical or generally wacky methods to defeat each other during WWII. It's a great movie, even if you aren't much of an anime fan.

See, now we're talking about Alexander Nevsky.

I believe it! And maybe that's a good thing... I hate forums that scold you for getting slightly off-topic...

Hmm--I'll have to try to find it. Sounds interesting! And both sides definitely had their more harebrained schemes during the war... Though some of them were pretty damned entertaining, really. I've honestly never watched much anime, so I don't really know what my opinions on it are. As long as it's not "12 year old girl from Vermont who thinks she's Japanese" style anime, it's probably fine with me.

Have you ever seen Eisenstein's film Alexander Nevsky? Not a bad movie. Definitely plays on the parallel between Nevsky vs. the Teutons and WWII. Can get strange sometimes, but that's Russian film for you. And I like Prokofiev's music. And also includes the immortal line, "Join my horde." Courtesy the Khan of the Golden Horde, to Nevsky. Right at the beginning. Priceless.

First Squad is not like Lucky Star. Ahahahaha, no way. First Squad is serious, realistically drawn, not over-the-top in terms of anime mannerisms or whathaveyou, and it's a Russian production so it has the subtle Russian taste.

And to further digress onto the topic of Russian films, have you ever seen Nightwatch and Daywatch? They are awesome Russian action films about a guy, vampires, and cool stuff. It's not like Twilight and it's not like Dracula, and I don't think they're called "vampires" per se, but it's a really cool bilogy. The plot is really imaginative and well-executed, the acting is fantastic, and the fight scenes go from cool to epic. Check it out! I got mine Blockbuster online, so it's not like it's too rare.

I have not! I keep wanting to read the books, but the first one is perpetually checked out of the library and the sequels never are. I have one friend who read it and didn't much like it, but she said she figured I would--that her problem with it was that she didn't understand the Russian cultural stuff. I should really read the books and watch the movies, I suppose. Sounds pretty interesting--and I have no problem with vampires as long as they're not Twilight (the number of Twilight fans in college sickens me). Besides, vampires were a Slavic legend. Russian views of them should be a bit different from Western views of them!

One thing to remember when watching: Gesser is a sex machine. lol He's just so sexy and awesome.

So I tried to watch Nightwatch the other day, but we got kicked off the tv in the language lab and couldn't get the volume to work on the computers, and nobody had thought to bring a laptop. So I haven't actually seen it. But the like five minutes of it I saw looked pretty awesome.

How are the languages divided up, though? It seemed like no matter what we did, the intro was in English with a Russian accent. Is it supposed to be, or were we just being idiots and not figuring it out?

The beginning is supposed to be in English...I guess. The rest of the movie is all Russian.

All right, then we weren't failing so badly at working the thing as we thought we were. Have to try to see it again sometime when the decent TV in there doesn't  get requisitioned. Or just bring a laptop.