THOU ART
By now you may be wondering why this blog is called Thou Art. It is not a big deal to do with propaganda, but I found it a very significant yet subtle part of the book. After Winston has been captured and confessed to thoughtcrime, he is changed. O'Brien, who he trusted before, controls him through pain and torture, and bores into him the deeper principles of the Party. As he related to him what the Party was and how it functioned, he says something important about the infallibility of the party.
"O'Brien smiled slightly. 'You are a flaw in the pattern, Winston. You are a stain that must be wiped out. Did I not tell you just now that we are different from the persecutors of the past? We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us: so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be. Even in the instant of death we cannot permit any deviation. In the old days the heretic walked to the stake still a heretic, proclaiming his heresy, exulting in it. Even the victim of the Russian purges could carry rebellion locked up in his skull as he walked down the passage waiting for the bullet. But we make the brain perfect before we blow it out. The command of the old despotisms was "Thou shalt not". The command of the totalitarians was "Thou shalt". Our command is "Thou art". No one whom we bring to this place ever stands out against us. Everyone is washed clean."
As you can see, the point of the Party is complete, perfect, equality, where you are not a person, but you are the party. Thou art the party. By succumbing to the propaganda and using doublethink, like it tells you to do, you become orthodox, unconscious, thoughtless. This is what the Party wants. The Party cannot and will not change if their are no individuals in the Party. The Party will last as long as it is the only thing on earth.
By now you may be wondering why this blog is called Thou Art. It is not a big deal to do with propaganda, but I found it a very significant yet subtle part of the book. After Winston has been captured and confessed to thoughtcrime, he is changed. O'Brien, who he trusted before, controls him through pain and torture, and bores into him the deeper principles of the Party. As he related to him what the Party was and how it functioned, he says something important about the infallibility of the party.
"O'Brien smiled slightly. 'You are a flaw in the pattern, Winston. You are a stain that must be wiped out. Did I not tell you just now that we are different from the persecutors of the past? We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us: so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be. Even in the instant of death we cannot permit any deviation. In the old days the heretic walked to the stake still a heretic, proclaiming his heresy, exulting in it. Even the victim of the Russian purges could carry rebellion locked up in his skull as he walked down the passage waiting for the bullet. But we make the brain perfect before we blow it out. The command of the old despotisms was "Thou shalt not". The command of the totalitarians was "Thou shalt". Our command is "Thou art". No one whom we bring to this place ever stands out against us. Everyone is washed clean."
As you can see, the point of the Party is complete, perfect, equality, where you are not a person, but you are the party. Thou art the party. By succumbing to the propaganda and using doublethink, like it tells you to do, you become orthodox, unconscious, thoughtless. This is what the Party wants. The Party cannot and will not change if their are no individuals in the Party. The Party will last as long as it is the only thing on earth.
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