Freedom, Love, and Ordinariness – How 1984 Deconstructs and Combats Tyranny and Oppression

I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:1-2

Now crime’s in syndication on TV – Rush

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. – The Usual Suspects

I recently re-read 1984, the classic novel by George Orwell. Unfortunately for me and for all of us, his fiction is far too close to our current reality today than I feel comfortable admitting. Our phones are the telescreens in each apartment and throughout London. We are always being watched and listened over. Big Brother is not only a colloquial phrase today but an outright fact of modern technological life. The television and news are our 3 minute hate or the 24 hour round-the-clock hate as the case may be. The media, Hollywood, and even our once prestigious universities are gradually and steadily becoming massive memory hole factories. Institutions and groups are fighting to alter our language and pronouns in eerily similar fashion to Newspeak. Big Tech, the media, and too many major corporations all participate in a vicious “cancel culture” almost exactly like that of the Thought Police. War has become a sort of dull constant, a white noise in the background of all our lives. Not only this but it seems the useless wars are the ones our institutions cry for and demand the most while the actual wars that must be fought against our real enemies are silenced, forgotten, and ignored. More recently the powers that wish to be are getting so bold as to proclaim that our genuine enemies are in fact our allies. When the people themselves are so mind controlled that they demand more than the institutions themselves for their own oppression, then the work is effectively complete. And when it becomes valuable to obtain more power, there will be a movement to stir the spirit of the masses again, even if that message is the opposite of what is currently being touted. And yes it will be broadcast far and wide, and many will probably completely believe it and not really question it. Precious little reaches the mainstream public without the unexpressed though obvious purpose of furthering power and control.

For better or worse we are Winston and Julia, the two main characters in the novel. Both of them are struck by a glimmer of inspiration and find themselves desperate to explore further, but unable to find any avenue or outlet to fully understand the human ideas and urges they are only beginning to experience. In a world of oppression, persecution, or “cancel culture” as the evil saying goes today, there eventually is nowhere to go. In the final analysis there becomes no way out. A confrontation however violent or whimpering it may be becomes inevitable. Only through freedom can we avoid such catastrophe. Only through tolerance can we obtain any peace.

If you haven’t already read 1984 then I highly encourage you to do it. It is truly well written, extremely well thought out, and incredibly prescient. Orwell understands power both as a macro force in society and culture but also as a novelist he understands the personal dynamics and power struggles deep within the human mind, psyche, and individual being. 1984 essentially charts the course of one man’s journey into mind control, social control, and the ultimate breaking of his human spirit. The novel opens by showcasing the world and culture Winston lives in and reveals that Winston himself has a secret – he is thinking different thoughts and entertaining ideas which are not allowed in his society and go against the norms of his culture. If the telescreen could see what he wrote in his hidden journal it could get him punished, imprisoned, or tortured. As the novel develops Winston meets Julia, and it turns out Julia is also entertaining radical and dangerous thoughts too. Before too long they begin a romantic engagement which is also a private exploration for the both of them into how they can express or experiment with those revolutionary thoughts and ideas together.

When I first read 1984 I was in high school, and for years, decades even, I was always confused, surprised, and disappointed that George Orwell put a love affair in the middle of 1984 – a novel which is about how society and culture can decay and oppress its people. Why did he pit a private romantic relationship directly against oppression and tyranny? As a young man I thought that decision was anti-climactic and boring, and as I grew older (perhaps wiser???) I kept thinking about the significance of that decision. I mean why not have a Luke Skywalker type of character who battles the evil oppressors and saves the people and wins the day again? It is admittedly amusing for me to consider my younger thoughts and opinions about this text in this way, because now I see clearly and precisely why Orwell didn’t follow my adolescent urges and instead wrote 1984 as he did – thank goodness he did!

Freedom lives in the heart of all romantic love. Romantic love is a liberating experience, and not only this but it is a private endeavor, which therefore immediately and completely challenges all forms of oppression, control, socialism, fascism, and communism. Romantic love demands and even creates private property. It is the pursuit of happiness as our great and sacred Declaration of Independence so elevates. Two lovers want nothing more than to be together, to build a home together, to grow a family together, to live and love and explore together on their own. This is a primal, fundamental aspect to the very purpose and continuation of human life. Communism, socialism, fascism, oppression, and tyranny all seek to alter, distort, and destroy our natural romantic desires, for when we are stripped of our private love we are now available and vulnerable to be controlled and tyrannized. We can now be more completely wed to the state, to a ruler, to some power other than our hearts and the joy, clarity, and wealth that all blossom from love. The state then creates a human commodity that is now dependent and can be controlled through our misplaced, contorted, isolated heart. It uses the very essence of our being, our love, against us for its own continuance and self-preservation regardless the human cost.

It is more than interesting – indeed it is disturbing to the utmost – to consider that so many groups and “movements” today, as we speak, are proclaiming and admitting publicly that it is their intention, desire, and purpose to destroy the nuclear family as we know it. They wish to redefine what it means to be a family, what it means to be a baby, what it means to be alive, a father, a mother, even a man or a woman. And yet regardless of what these groups try to claim, the irreducible fact remains that the nuclear family is one of the cornerstones to life and to freedom. It is through romance that marriage is formed and it is through marriage that families flourish, and throughout all of these stages revolve the values of life, liberty, ownership, personal interest, caring, and purpose. In this way 1984 highlights the revolutionary act of love. In the face of true tyranny, the most radical act an individual or group can do is in fact to simply be normal. Be human. To live a normal, ordinary, “vanilla” life. This is precisely what Winston and Julia desperately sought for together, and the diabolic dystopia they lived under knew and anticipated they would yearn for this, so it capitalized on this chief human aim, and used it against them in order to ultimately control and destroy not just their love together, but even their ability to love at all. Tyranny is control, and control in the final analysis is hatred. In a world of tyranny and control, love and freedom become the most revolutionary acts one can exercise. To be radical then is to actually be traditional, typical, natural. Living a normal, ordinary life is in fact the most devastating blow to oppression, despotism, and authoritarianism, and so it comes as no surprise that all regimes both in 1984, throughout human history, and even today right before our very eyes seek nothing less than the disruption and destruction to the formation and flourishing of the normal human family. Love truly sets us free as long as we live out its ordinary and natural being freely and fully without corrupting it.

Another fascinating aspect to 1984 is the way in which Orwell depicts O’Brien, the evil mastermind and antagonist who ultimately brainwashes and retards Winston. O’Brien himself is quite brilliant. He knows all the ideas and concepts of freedom and completely understands all the arguments against his own oppressive and tyrannical regime. But yet he still furthers the oppression, the torture, and the madness. Why? How? What type of a person could knowingly practice such witchcraft? What type of a society could create such a man? The answer is more simple than we often expect – no one considers themselves to be the bad guy. As we read 1984, we can – or at least I hope we still can – see that O’Brien is the antagonist and the evil one in the story. But brilliantly, Orwell is able to empathize even with O’Brien that the novel is able to illustrate the way O’Brien views himself and the evil work he does. As a master mind-control specialist and torturer in the Ministry of Love, O’Brien understands human psychology. He knows the science of breaking the human spirit. He has broken down all subjects he works on, and therefore from his perspective O’Brien has, in a twisted way, discovered something true, something repeatable, something without exception. He has mastered the code to unlock the human psyche. The verifiable proof of his methods, in O’Brien’s mind, testifies to the righteousness of his ways. He is not doing evil to Winston and Julia – oh no! – he is loving them. He is doing good to them. He is making them into better versions of themselves and because of this fact he is also helping to build an even greater society. His work is therefore brilliant, good, and a contribution to mankind.

Aristotle has said that virtue is a habit. In other words we must work at being good and doing right. It is a trait and characteristic we build up over time and through various scenarios and circumstances so that when challenges and adversities arise, and they will definitely arise, we have laid the foundation to be able to be virtuous, to know what is good and to uphold that goodness. But just as virtue is built that way so too is vice. Evil creeps into our minds over time just as God does, and George Orwell depicts this process of gradual decay and control in our main character Winston throughout the novel. Time is crucial. Patience is a virtue even when brainwashing someone. Once a few basic ideas infiltrate Wilson’s mind, it only takes time and repetition for them to gradually grow deeper roots and expand across his mind into all modes of his thinking and perceiving. Soon there is no real world perceived – only the world the Party wants him to see. As O’Brien explains to Winston while torturing him “Whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party.” Soon Winston no longer recognizes or notices that he once thought any differently. Like gears spinning in a motor, his mind eventually chews its way through the new, conforming thought forms which the Party dictates to him. Or perhaps like a dye injected into the body, it is only a matter of time before the entire bloodstream becomes phosphorescent and blue. The Party uses the natural dynamics of our humanity and how our brain functions to brainwash us to think, feel, perceive, and respond in whatever way they would prefer. It does not matter if today they say “X” and then tomorrow they say “Y.” It only matters that we listen and follow suit. It is a war to be sure, but it is a silent war held on the immaterial battlefields in our own mind. And often the war is waged by assassins. You may not even know your enemy lurks and creeps by your bedside or is even looking through your very eyes, altering the way in which you perceive. To even be aware of such stealth infiltration one must be aware of that which he is aware of, if not even more. Certainly many would never even notice and likely most can not overcome such a force. For O’Brien no one has been able to surpass his techniques, and because of that no one has ever proved O’Brien wrong. No one has debunked his methods. And for better or worse perhaps no one ever will for Jesus already has. When the minds of the people are silently controlled, what risk is there in a free and fair election? Where is the will of the people if it doesn’t even exist anymore? Voting then becomes an opportunity to further mind-control by letting the people feel they are making a choice when in fact the decisions were already made for them without anyone even knowing it. The greatest trick of mind control is that you do not realize it is working on you. To control the mind is certainly to control the world. 

All humans are human, and therefore share distinctly human characteristics which simply cannot be changed or altered without also making us no longer human. One such human construction is that our internal moral universe is always seeking to be cohesive, sound, and upright. But what we often fail to realize let alone appreciate is that our neighbor, our adversary, even our arch nemesis, also internally organizes their moral universe the same way we do – namely that they are right and are justified and have their reasons for doing what they do. We may hold the polar opposite of ideas or beliefs, but we are actually operating in the exact same human manner. The programming may be different, but the hardware itself is the same – it is forever human. To put it another way, we may be watching different television channels, but the TV’s themselves are all wired and work the exact same way. This is precisely how and why O’Brien can exist and perform the heinous acts he does. This is how the dystopia of 1984, which is presented with such articulation and nuance, can and does come into reality in the real world. Humanity is encoded to be broken, to be sinful, to be imperfect. We are all flawed to the core. 1984 reveals how deception, control, violence, and oppression can sweep over any person or nation and empower people to do atrocious acts both on individual as well as massive scales while simultaneously believing they are doing good. And more than the acts themselves, the perception that they are good is, to me, the most horrifying and chilling of all for it means that there is no end to the evil humans can enact. We are the last backstop to evil. We are the ones to hold the line.

1984 was written as a critique of Soviet Russia, communism, fascism, and the larger psychological, political, and cultural movements that developed into horrifically deadly regimes throughout the 20th century. One of the main forces which these regimes opposed across the board was religion. And interestingly religion and even just the concept of God is almost completely absent from the entire novel. Nowhere in the 1984 universe does God have a place. God as a concept never crosses Winston’s or Julia’s mind, even though both of them suffer in ways quite reminiscent of Jesus Christ or Socrates or any of the martyrs through time. Why? Why is it that tyranny has no place for God, Jesus, or formal religion? Even today as recently as the covid pandemic we have seen a significant increase in religious restriction, vandalism, and persecution. What does Christianity do or represent which causes so many oppressive forces to despise it so much? I think the key factor is the existence of an exterior, immaterial being which cannot be manipulated, controlled, or even fully known or understood. Such a being deeply frustrates any oppressive regime because it exists beyond their reach, power, and control. For example what would O’Brien do if Jesus Christ were his test subject? He would finally meet the one human free of sin, void of corruption, and therefore impossible to control and destroy as he does all other men. He would be proven wrong and therefore must alter his worldview accordingly. He would have to repent and change his ways or, more likely he would simply kill him (again) and disregard his beingness in order to maintain the order and cohesion of his entire moral universe and justify the evil he perpetuates. This is precisely why religion at large but particularly Judeo-Christianity is anathema to all oppressive regimes. An All-Powerful God that is impervious to corruption and is indwelling within the mind and heart of each man, woman, and child and can and does direct them independently of the state or some external power broker with motivations and intentions that lie beyond material possessions and desires quickly and understandably becomes a grave threat to what these communist, socialist, and fascist dictators all seek – power and control. And therefore Jesus must be removed and eradicated from society. The existence of God, just like romantic love, poses a very real and difficult obstacle that must be destroyed in order achieve domination over a person or society.

Ironically and tragically many people today consider religion itself to be an oppressive force of its own – “the opium of the people” as Karl Marx infamously said – and our media, culture, movies, and universities all foster, support, and further such notions at a rapid and alarming rate. But is it true? Is it a fair depiction of Judeo-Christian religion? If we look at the actual teachings of Jesus Christ himself do we see a man oppressing others and controlling their minds and behaviors? In truth we do not. In fact we see quite the opposite. Christ emanated a perfect love and a pure freedom for himself and for all he came into contact with. Not only this but it was his adversaries, and many were the authorities no less, who sought to continually trap, confuse, control, oppress, and ultimately kill him. The most powerful force against control and oppression is and forever will be God for God is Freedom, Love, and Ordinariness. 

Interestingly the United States of America is founded upon this Divine Freedom. It is our original settlers who sacrificed everything they had and knew for the very simple yet precious freedom to love and worship God as they see fit. God founded America as we know it, and at least so far God has ushered America to where she stands today amongst all the people of the world. Similar to the Old Testament accounts of the people of Israel, America seems to be tested, judged, and loved in some type of equal proportion to the holy devotion of the people themselves. It is certainly no coincidence that the turmoil we see today throughout the world and particularly across America coincides with a low point in the religious practices of Americans. We have in too many respects become a wayward people. And even so we also cannot force others back onto a more holy path, for divine communion is not gained by such methods of control and oppression. But we can persuade, encourage, and plea for a more devout America, a more Christian America, a more penitent America. But no one can make God appear to another for God alone convicts each man to Him. Likewise no one can really give Freedom to another for Freedom is not possessed to begin with. Instead both Freedom and God are always available to all who avail themselves of their presence and absolute reality. I can petition, persuade, and encourage my fellow Americans into God’s freedom and love but only each one of us can partake. Communion is ultimately a personal and private decision, and God as well as Freedom and Love meet each one of us at the event horizon of our own private willingness to participate. The truth is without God we cannot have freedom amongst a people. And without freedom we will be oppressed. And oppression destroys many rights and beauties naturally bestowed upon us by God. Our inalienable rights may still exist, but we will be forced to pay a higher price for them. This is the message of Jesus and the discipleship throughout Christian history. We do not need to seek out oppression to justify our God, Jesus himself certainly didn’t while in the Garden of Gethsemane for example, but even still oppression may come to us anyway. We must seek His Grace, the Kingdom within and beyond, and we must extend that Kingdom, that Grace, unto our neighbors and our neighborhoods. Christianity then becomes the ultimate grassroots effort, and Jesus the most powerful and effective campaigner. As we live in His Name so too do we live out the meaning and purpose of the United States of America. It is a natural by-product of the one to the other. From God Freedom naturally springs forth. And from Freedom love, and from love comes abundance, innovation, and intelligence. This is America, except today we are living the American creed backwards. We are seeking first our college educations so as to obtain that great job which then provides us the freedom to live a life of joy which connects us to God, and fulfills our life. This is the American project in reverse. We must first seek God and our fulfillment there with Him as he lives inside of us and beside us in our neighbors. Capitalism alone without the compass of Judeo-Christian morality falls short of the American Dream; no matter how successful, wealthy, and abundant we may be as a society we will starve in the end without God. We must be industrious as well as devout. Such is the way of the American pilgrim, the menonite, the God fearing man.

Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33).

This is one of the most profound and true utterances made by Jesus Christ, and it is also the distillation of the true American Dream, project, and purpose. This is who we are as Americans; it is what we stand for and believe deep in our hearts not just as true but actually obtainable. All of this – America and Christianity – must be completely exterminated for the “advancement” of communism, socialism, fascism, totalitarianism, and the dystopia of 1984. These opposing forces simply cannot coexist – America cannot worship two gods let alone a false god. Christ has given us all a clear choice – it is now and forever our time to decide. Let us pray we wake up, change our ways, and all choose once again the great American creed and the sacred Christian values for the gates of hell let alone any given man or state cannot withstand the Freedom of Christ’s Ordinary Love.