Innocence

‘Of course I’m guilty!’ cried Parsons with a servile glance at the telescreen. ‘You don’t think the Party would arrest an innocent man, do you?’

I found what Parsons said while in the cell with Winston very interesting. What is innocence in the eyes of the Party?

Throughout the book, we get to know a lot about how the Party functions, and from what I can tell I'm questioning whether anyone is ever perceived innocent. In thoughtcrime, I believe that no one would ever be proven innocent of thoughtcrime. The Party is afraid of any threats, so the ability to be innocent of thoughtcrime implies that those who commit thoughtcrime could be innocent. The ability to be innocent makes it so that people may not consider the dire consequences of committing thoughtcrime. The ability to get off easily for thoughtcrime or perceived thoughtcrime gets rid of the horror of being taken away by the thought police at any time with no notice.

In crimes other than thoughtcrime it still seems likely that the Party would make sure individuals that committed any crime wasn't mixing with their general population. In order for their society to be perfect, they need crime out of it so perceived criminals could be moved away from the people they knew to keep up the idea that crime is always punished.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know. You will kill me if you do that again. Four, five, six—in all honesty I don’t know.’

What saves Winston is his ignorance. Winston is only saved from pain when O'Brien makes him believe and accept his own ignorance, even though he just held the knowledge. By forcing party members into ignorance through doublethink, and comdeming thoughtcrime through the refusal to accept doublethink, in 1984 ignorance is protection.

Knowledge makes the Party weak

"Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for ‘Science’. The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty."

I found this particular quote to be totally sad. The idea that science no longer exists and no exploration occurs in Oceania is very depressing. Curiosity and knowledge are essentially weapons of mass destruction in Oceania, and could harm the rhetoric of the Party. So to minimize the issues of keeping those curious and knowledgeable from impacting and informing those who were less so, the Party promotes the idea as ignorance as strength.

Achievements and furthering of the mind in any sense would go against the public view that people were not individual, that everyone was a cog in a perfect machine. In a way, any sort of innovation promoted that there is something to be fixed. People who are 'scientist' in that sense that we think are probably cycled through often. Though they may want them for the idea of how to further diminish liberty and technological advances that may possibly assist in that, the Party likely gets quickly scared of people able to have ideas beyond what they have provided and get concerned with how that could be used against them.

This quote also makes me wonder just what technological advances have been made. When the Party began how much access had they had to people? I wonder how recent a development telescreens were and how long hey had actually worked. It seems possible that originally most telescreens didn't have access to video and sound, but the rhetoric was spread that they did, so people became afraid. It wouldn't be unlike fake security cameras, as just the act of feeling watched can cause people to alter behaviors.

Here's some less than enlightened writing about chapters 3-6

"He tried to make her understand. ‘This was an exceptional case. It wasn’t just a question of somebody being killed. Do you realize that the past, starting from yesterday, has been actually abolished? If it survives anywhere, it’s in a few solid objects with no words attached to them, like that lump of glass there. Already we know almost literally nothing about the Revolution and the years before the Revolution. Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right." (128).

I feel that Winston is in somewhat of a unique position. These past few chapters have been good in displaying while how Winston cares for the future and the past of the Party for all, Julia only cares about those factors of the party which come in direct contact with her life. While Julia seems to grasp and contemplates some major hoaxes she believes the Party to be involved in i.e. the war, she is bored of the other lies the Party tells, accepting that things are just like that. I wonder how much of it is a generational difference. Julia doesn't remember a time before the Party at all while Winston does, Winston can vaguely remember that things might have been better before, but Julia holds no such memory.

Winston's overall understanding that to the Party only the present exists is quite interesting. The past is simply rewritten and falsified and there is no truth to any of it. The public has a complete lack of knowledge beyond the Party. They are being kept in the dark about everything slowly as time goes on the Party can claim to be responsible for more and more history. Winston notes that during his time in school the Party claimed to have invented helicopters, while in Julia's time they claimed to have also invented airplanes. The Party's ultimate goal it seems to be erasing more and more of the past until nothing remains but the Party. There will be no mention or fleeting memory of the time before the Party, only 'knowledge' that it was a horribly awful time and things are getting better. Old artifacts and trinkets will slowly disappear even in the proles housing, and the notice of anything but the present will be useless. No knowledge of history will be needed because it changes, no explanations of the changes will need to be made because not only will no one notice, but no one will care about the differences because the present is the only thing that carries weight.

The idea of 'history repeating itself' or 'learning from history' will be completely irrelevant as time marches forward because the history everyone learns will be the present. The only mistakes that will be learned from are the 'capitalist in top hats' and even then history is dictated by what the government wants you to see. History as always will be dictated by the winners and the Party is always right, so the Party will always win. With the severe restriction on history, the restraint of public knowledge, and the shunning of individualism, it doesn't seem like Winston's time is far off from what the Party truly wants: a nation of 'good' people afraid stir the pot or ask any questions about the way things are.