Gillian’s Reviews > 1984 > Status Update

“When war becomes literally continuous, it also ceases to be dangerous. When war is continuous there is no such thing as military necessity. Technical progress can cease and the most palpable facts can be denied or disregarded.”
SCREAMS AND THROWS COMPUTER OUT THE WINDOW

“If it once became general, wealth would confer no distinction…for if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and learn to think for themselves…in the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.”
HmmMmmmM

I read this for the first time when I was just coming into political consciousness.

“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words…in the end, the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words—in reality, one word. Don’t you see the beauty of that?…The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it”