05-30-24 Inaugural Book Club - 1984

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Mandy Connell Book Club where we discussGeorge Orwell's nineteen eighty four and you know
that Dave the Intrepid is here aswell. But now we've been joined by
doctor Michael Sheldon. He's a professorof English at Indiana State University, where
he's won a top award for excellencein scholarship. He is that is the
Theodore Dreiser Distinguished Research Creativity Award threetimes. Professor Sheldon earned his PhD in

(00:23):
English from Indiana University. He's theauthor of six biographies, including Orwell,
The Authorized Biography, which was afinalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He's also
written and presented for video lecture seriesfor the Great Courses George Orwell, A
Stage for All Seasons, How WinstonChurchill changed the World, England the nineteen
sixties, and the Triumph of theBeatles, and reconsidering JFK. Doctor Sheldon

(00:48):
welcomes the show. You're very impressive, by the way, very impressive credentials.
Oh, thank you very much.Well, I want to ask you
what is it about George Orwell.We're going to start with this, learn
a little bit about the man.Then we'll jump into the book what was
it about George Orwell that inspired youto write an authorized biography? Very clear,

(01:11):
understandable prose. I love the factthat he writes so clearly. It's
difficult to misinterpret what he's saying unlessyou're wilful in your effort to misinterpret.
And I believe back in the nineteeneighties when I first got interested in him,

(01:32):
that was the beginning of the worstacademic jargon. And we've had now
about forty years of academics writing prettybad prose. And so this was a
kind of lifeline I felt thrown tome in my academic life that I could
cling to, that I could alwaysread orwell and pretty much get a sense

(01:53):
of how to write without the jargongetting in the way of my meaning.
But don't you think that, especiallyin nineteen eighty four, because of the
topics and the news speak and thethought police and all of those sort of
the themes that he brings into nineteeneighty four, in that way, it
would have been so muddled had henot written the way he writes, which

(02:16):
is very clear. I was talkingabout ein Rand earlier, who philosophically I
agree with a lot of what shesays, but my goodness, she's a
terrible writer who needs a judicious editor. And George Orwell is a great writer,
and he tells good stories. AndI think that's what makes him,
what makes these books so powerful,is that he takes whether it's nineteen eighty
four or does Animal Farm, hetells a great story to make a point.

(02:39):
He doesn't bludgeon you over the headwith the point. Yes, he
understood that he's not going to getanywhere if he preaches all the time.
He has to bring you in throughthe power of storytelling, and he does.
That's his other great advantage. Hewas a great storyteller. He had
a terrific imagination. All the thingsthat that man thought of now more than

(03:04):
seventy years ago that now we considerto be almost indispensable in our culture for
discussions of what's going on, andyou name some of them, the thought
police, doublethink, new speak.The very name Orwell has become an adjective
for what we do when we tryto deceive through linguistic means, and what

(03:27):
we do when we try to coerceother people into following our lead without their
permission. Where what was the inspiration? And as a matter of fact,
my friend, Roskominsky, I wantedme to ask you this question. He
wanted to know if the writing ofnineteen eighty four was it all influenced by
the ein rand essay Anthem, becausephilosophically and theme wise they are very similar,

(03:52):
and Anthem came out about ten yearsbefore. Was there any connection there
that you know of? Only amarginal one in the sense that Iran and
also Arthur Kersler were both working insimilar veins. But Orwell had a first
person experience with tyranny that really changedhim. It was in the Spanish Civil

(04:15):
War. Most people in the nineteenthirties who got involved in the Spanish Civil
War, like Hemingway, didn't actuallyfight in that war. Orwell did and
was wounded, shot through the throatand survived. And that experience, as
well as a very terrible moment inBarcelona when the Soviet sponsored malicious there wanted

(04:41):
to take him prisoner, gave hima sense of what it would be like
to live in a tyrannical society,and it was something he had a gut
feeling for because he had that experience, so unlike many of these other writers,
Aldus Huxley I could name as anotherin the twentieth century who tried to
imagine what a world would be likeif freedom was eliminated. Orwell had personal

(05:08):
experience of that and he didn't likewhat he saw. At the time that
he wrote this book. Was washe trying specifically to send a message about
totalitarianism or was it just this isa great story about totalitarianism that resonates even
today. When he was writing thebook in nineteen forty eight, it was

(05:30):
published in nineteen forty nine. Innineteen forty eight, the East and West
were really an eyeball to eyeball,as there would later be famously during the
Human Missile Crisis, but it wasin forty eight. It was over the
question of West Berlin. The Sovietswere threatening to shut it off from the
west in their occupied zones of WestGermany, and it was scary period.

(05:57):
And at that time the United Statesorganized a huge airlift of supplies to get
into West Berlin so they could keepthe city supplied because the Russians were trying
to shut it off. And Ithink Orwell could see in that world that
existed that the world divided into zonesof influence would become more and more frightening
as these moments eyeball to eyeball,with nuclear weapons increased. And here we

(06:23):
are now seventy years later, andit's still the same situation. We're still
facing off against very formidable adversaries inways that are still very frightening. What
were his politics? What were Orwell'spolitics? How would he position himself politically?

(06:46):
He always said he was a socialist. That made sense to him in
England, where he believed that capitalismdidn't work as well as it would in
a society that was larger like theUnited States. But really, if you
asked me, I would say hewas more of what we would call a
libertarian. He really did like hereally didn't like restrictions on freedom, and

(07:13):
so he was constantly getting into fightswith fellow socialists because of course they wanted
him to tow the party line,and he couldn't belong to any party.
He was a party of one.Well, very quickly, I'm going to
give a brief synopsis, and thisis a brief synopsis of what nineteen eighty
four is about. If you've neverread the book, it's an easy read.
George Orwell is a great storyteller,and that's the thing that I like

(07:35):
about his books because it's a powerfulmessage, but you're not bored by the
process of reading it. And inthis story, Winston Smith is a man
who works at the Ministry of Truth, and his job is to go back
and rewrite the history books because peoplefall in and out of favor with the
totalitarian leadership of Big Brother. That'sthis kind of nameless, faithless organization.

(07:59):
It has a but they control everythingin society. And in this society,
everyone has telescreens in their house wherenot only they can see things constant propaganda
messages that are being fed to them, they can also be spied on by
the military as well, not military, but the government as well. So
there's no wiggle room, there's noway to have any privacy. You are

(08:20):
expected to kneil at the altar ofBig Brother. And Winston Smith finds this
to be very unsettling and he doesn'tlike it. And through the course of
the book, and again this isa very short abbreviation of what happens,
he meets a woman named Julia,and I want to ask you, professor,
why she doesn't have a last name. I found that very interesting.

(08:41):
She was just this nameless, facelessperson. But let me do this,
Hey Rogers, let me know.I have to take a break. When
we get back, I'll finish myvery short synopsis, and I've already got
questions on the text line. Ifyou have questions, you can text them
to five six six nine zero.We're also going to get into how nineteen
eighty four has pulled through our societytoday, so stick around. I linked
to that book on the blog today, as well as an audiobook that he's

(09:03):
done for the master courses, soyou can find out more about doctor Sheldon's
work on the blog today at mandy'sblogdot com. This is an interesting question,
doctor Sheldon. I'm going to getto it right after I finished my
short synopsis of this book. Now, if you've ever read nineteen eighty four
and you don't want they spoiler alerts, I'm going to tell you how it
ends, okay, because I hatethe way it ends. I hate it.
But Winston Smith, our feckless hero. He's working at the Ministry of

(09:26):
Truth, rewriting history because as peoplefall out of favor with the party,
they have to be erased from historyor have their history rewritten so everyone knows
why they are supposed to hate themnow, and that is Winston Smith's job.
He ends up having an affair witha young woman called Julia, who
tells him about this resistance organization thatis fighting Big Brother. He's all in,

(09:48):
even though we still don't know whyJulia found him attractive, because he's
described as not being very attractive,but Julia loves him anyway. They have
an affair and they go to bringin another man they work with. His
name is O'Brien, and they thinkO'Brien is with the resistance. They go
with him to join the resistance,and it turns out that he is actually
with the Thought Police, and thisis, by the way, a very

(10:09):
short encapsulation. He ends up beingsent to the Ministry of Love, where
ironically he is tortured because that's whatthey do at the Ministry of Love,
which is part of the New Speakof nineteen eighty four, and at the
end of the book, if youdon't want to know, turn it off
for ten seconds and then come back. At the end of the book,

(10:30):
he is tortured into being a loverof Big Brother, and he essentially gives
up his soul, his resistance,and he becomes another cog in the machine
doctor Sheldon, Why can't he bethe man who brings down Big Brother?
That would have been much more satisfying. I think Orwell was very intent on

(10:52):
showing people at the time that theultimate threatch facing them is that they would
end up so answering themselves. Thereason the thought police, of which O'Brien
is a member, as you said, the reason they're so insidious is their
job is to make you so selfconscious about any descent that you stop yourself

(11:16):
from descent before anybody else does so. Ultimately, you don't even need the
thought police if they can intimidate peopleto the point where they're like robots almost
because they've censored themselves. And Ithink it's not a stretch to see this
happening in the world today, wheremany people will not say something, not

(11:41):
because they don't feel it or thinkit, but because they know the immediate
reaction will be to make them feelbad about saying what it is they really
think or what they really believe.So people now routinely we all see this
hole back on their opinions because they'reafraid of what happens when you express your

(12:03):
opinion. Yep, nobody wants toput their head up and have it lopped
off. And we've essentially renamed thethought police the internet, right, I
mean, Twitter is the thought policeand anytime someone is count into silence.
And when I look at some ofthe issues in the United States right now,
and I'm gonna just say this,this is my example, and I'm
not expecting anyone to agree or disagreewith my example, but this is what

(12:26):
we're seeing right now with the transissues in this country, that you have
now been told that men can havebabies, and if you stand up and
say a man cannot have a baby, you are a hated You're a hateful
bigot. And so people are juststanding around going, yeah, men can
have babies because they don't want tosay what they know to be the biological
truth. And that's my example,and I think it's a sound one.

(12:48):
I think there's a lot of exampleslike that where people may think something is
utterly absurd, but they're not goingto be the one to put themselves out.
No matter what your point of view, what it is you think,
your right to say what you thinkshould be absolute, because the answer to
free speech is more free speech.And people who don't like free speech really

(13:13):
don't like hearing things they don't wantto be told. So, for example,
Orwell once said what I consider tobe his most important quotation, and
in fact it's so important it's carvedinto the wall as you enter the BBC
today where he once worked. Sothey carved what I'm going to tell you

(13:35):
into the wall next to a statueof Orwell. And here's what it says.
It says, if liberty means anythingat all, it means the right
to tell people what they do notwant to hear. Oh, that's fantastic.
Now the BBC can't Yeah, theBBC can't do that. They're afraid,
but they put that on their wall. I suppose to remind them.

(13:58):
But no media out that can reallydo that. In fact, most human
beings can't do that. Try thatwith your boss, Try that with your
spouse, Try try that with justabout anybody. To actually tell them what
you what you think, and knowthat they don't want to hear it.
That's a tough thing to do.That's a very revolutionary statement. Well,

(14:18):
speaking of that, someone on ourtext line and you can text us questions
at five six six nine. Oh, they said to tell the truth during
a time of tyranny is wait aminute, to tell the truth during a
time of tyranny and lies is arevolutionary act. And was that George Orwell?
Or was that Eric from or doyou not know because I don't know.

(14:39):
Sounds yeah, it sounds very muchlike Orwell. I'd have to look
it up to be sure. Butthat's that's his belief. It's his idea
that if you if you cannot speakyour mind, you're not free. It's
as simple as that. If you'renot free to speak your mind, you're
not free. And that's why hebelieves that choice is so important. The

(15:01):
whole idea behind Newspeak is to carvethe English language down to about a thousand
words, so that people are forcedto use just a few basic items of
vocabulary, rather than the one hundredthousand words plus that most people have access
to in the English language. Sowhen you start to tell people they can't

(15:24):
say certain words, what I thinkGeneral Lee is not understood is that you're
taking choices away from people. Isthough you had eliminated the right to buy
this kind of car or to flythis kind of airline, you are telling
people they cannot make a choice becauseyou've eliminated that choice. Well, you've

(15:46):
made the choice for example, likethe use of pronouns. Yeah, oh
yes, we're super late. Solet me take a quick break. When
we get back. Dave has someexcellent examples of how we're living through nineteen
eighty four right now. We'll dothat right now after this Dave the intrepid
producer and doctor Michael Sheldon from IndianaState, where he is a professor of
English and has written an authorized biographyof George Orwell and very very interesting stuff.

(16:11):
Now, the reason we're talking aboutnineteen eighty four is because it came
up organically on a show one daywhere I was sort of poking at things
that were honestly felt straight out ofnineteen eighty four, and we dipped our
toe into a little bit of thatin the last segment. But I want
to play a sound bite. Thisis Neil Cavudo of Fox News talking to

(16:33):
Joe Biden economic advisor Jared Bernstein,and the clip is self explanatory. I'm
just going to play a part ofit to get a feel for it.
But if you've ever wondered what newSpeak sounds like, or what the ministry
of truth would be like, thisis a great example. I do want
to get behind why the President keepsclaiming this, this is what're talking about

(16:56):
inflation. Take a look. Wehave dramatically reduced inflation from nine percent down
so close to three percent. We'rein a situation where we're a better situated
than we were when we took office. It was nine percent when I came
to office, nine percent, butit didn't look. People have a right
to be concerned. I think inflationhas gone slightly up. This wasn't nine

(17:18):
percent when I came in, andit's now down abound three percent. Jared,
why does he keep saying that you'rehis top economic you're the head of
the Council of Economic Advisors. Doyou ever whispering as your mister president,
Just to be technical about it,it wasn't nine percent when you assumed office.
It was one point four percent.It got his high as nine percent
in twenty twenty two. You broughtit down from that, but it was

(17:41):
never, ever, ever, ninepercent when you came into office. So
why does he keep saying Well,first of all, let me point out
that in that very quote you played, the President talked about how concerned he
was for households struggling with prices thathe consistently not what I asked It's not
what I asked you. Why hemisrepresenting this. He's making the point that

(18:02):
the factors that caused inflation to climbto nine percent were in place when he
took off, and not what hesaid. He said it was at nine
percent, it would eventually get tonine percent a little over a year after
that, But the fact of thematter is it wasn't nine percent. So
if I can't trust him quoting datain real time, why should I believe
what he's talking about now? Sothe annual growth in core inflation in the

(18:27):
second quarter of twenty one was infact about nine percent, and his points
about inflation down sixty percent off itspeak is very much the case. So
it was and it was dead.It was not at that. So you're
you're almost as bad as he is. Why can't you just say it was
high, god as high as ninepercent, you'd be accurate in saying that,

(18:48):
And we have now brought it downand we're struggling in around the three
percent area, but it's better thanit was. But instead to hang it
on his credit, to hang iton his predecessor, that you inherited something
that was through the roof when wewere in the middle of COVID. It
just seems to the America people they'rea Democrat. Hold the lying, you're
just lying. Well, hold on, I hear you, I hear you.
The President was making the point thatI think is unequivocally true. The

(19:12):
factors that took inflation to nine percentwere in place when he took that.
He is not Jared And you're verysorry. I'm going to stop it here
because it goes on for another twominutes of Neil Kavu. The guy cannot
answer a question without bringing with alie. It's amazing, and so it

(19:32):
goes on. Here is the ministryof truth today, action absolutely in action.
So that is a great example.Now, Professor Sheldon, when you
hear stuff like this, do youimmediately think of nineteen eighty four? I
mean, how often do you inyour mind reference Because I do it all
the time. I've done it allthe time. I'm constantly thinking, well,
that's that's straight out in nineteen eightyfour. It is Orwellian. I

(19:55):
mean, that's why it's become anadjective. You know, when I published
my biography in nineteen ninety one.That was thirty something years ago, and
I've since done many other things onOrwell. But people were telling me at
the time in the early nineties,they said, well, that's probably the
end of Orwell. Nineteen eighty fourhas come and gone, so he'll probably

(20:18):
fade into obscurity. In fact,in these thirty years since then, he's
probably tripled or quadrupled in his influence. You can't go a day without seeing
something that reminds you of the worldthat he imagined seventy years ago. Nineteen
eighty four is a year didn't meananything really, It meant for him the
future, and we're living in itnow. We're long past the real year,

(20:41):
but it seems as though the thingsthat he saw in the future are
in place, and they're very difficultnow because it's dangerous to tell the truths.
It is dangerous to tell the truths, and that shouldn't be the case,
but it is. And that meansthat people who want to speak the
truth have to be very brave actuallyto do it. So you know what

(21:03):
I find, Why was it callednineteen eighty four? Why is the year
important for this book? One theorythat I think is true. I like
it is that when he was writingin nineteen forty eight, he was sick,
he was dying. He died twoyears later, and he called it
originally the Last Man in Europe,and the publisher didn't like that, so

(21:26):
they said, how about a year, And he said, well, I'll
reverse the digits. Instead of nineteenforty eight, I'll say nineteen eighty four.
And that's the story. I likethe best of the explanation. There
are other explanations, but that's theway he thought. And I think it's
a clever idea about a story thatinvolves what we would call today digital manipulation,

(21:51):
in other words, taking information thatwe now call digital and altering it
to suit purposes. So I lovethe fact that the year itself have been
a little digital alteration. One ofthe things that we talk about a lot
on this show is artificial intelligence andyou know, deep fakes and you know,
changing that stuff. It never occurredto me until right now that we

(22:14):
could feasibly go back and change whatwe see in our historical films. Right
you could have a new version ofHitler where he talks about puppies and kittens
and doing only good things. Ifyou wanted to rehab his image. The
technology that we have now actually makesthe possibility of the totalitarianism in nineteen eighty

(22:36):
four much more easily available. Hitlergave his mistress Ava Brown an early color
film camera, and she took afilm of him dancing on the terrace of
their summer home. You could probablyput together a video on which Hitler looked

(22:57):
like a very friendly uncle just dancingfor joy on a patios somewhere. I
mean, yes, you can.You could alter history so that the good
guys look bad and the bad guyslook good. Oh, that's in you
know we used to have. Oh, Dave, hold that thought for just
one second. I have some breakingnews. We're gonna real quick breaking news.

(23:17):
And I'm not even kidding. That'sactual breaking news. Kathy. Give
me our newsroom right now. What'sthe breaking news, Kathy. Yes,
we've learning from several news outlets nowthat a verdict has been reached in former
President Trump's criminal trial in New York. This is the hush money case.
We believe that the verdict will beread in court in about thirty minutes of

(23:37):
standby though for more information regarding averdict being reached in New York and we
will air it here on Kowa.I'm assuming we are not clear about what
sort of audio we will get fromthe corp, but obviously we will have
the verdict in its entirety once itis read in court New York. Thank
you, Kathy. I could makea nineteen eighty four comment here, but
we'll just move on right that.Right now, the question from a listener,

(24:00):
and I think this is a goodone. Let me see here,
let me find it. Can youask doctor Sheldon about Animal Farm? It
was written during World War two andnineteen eighty four was written after the war
and Soviet occupation started. Did thoseevents shape or well to write each book
at the time the way he did, I e. Farm Battle before they
came to power in nineteen eighty four, after the war was over and those

(24:22):
installed in power were abusing their power. So the question is how much did
his life events, you know,craft what he was writing at the time.
Very much. The most dangerous bookhe ever wrote was Animal Farm,
and it was dangerous because when hewrote it in nineteen forty four, the
Soviet Union was carrying water for allof the other forces against Germany. They

(24:45):
were dying in the thousands on theEastern Front, and it wasn't approved among
Allied leaders at that time to criticizeStalin because he was fighting, apparently for
us. And so when you madefun of Stalin as or Well did in
Animal Farm, people didn't want thatbook published. They said, you can't

(25:07):
do this. You can't make funof Stalin as a pig, a failed
revolutionary, because we need him.He's helping to defeat Hitler. So you
know, there's this idea that youcan't criticize, whether it's Biden or Trump
or anyone else, because this isour guy. We can't say one negative
word about him. So when youplayed the clip about someone refusing to admit

(25:30):
that Biden was exaggerating, you've gotthe template there for what happens when you
censor yourself. You cannot afford tocriticize the person whose lot you've tied yourself
to. You have to pretend,in the case of Stalin, that he
was just a friendly guy who happenedto shoot a lot of people at star

(25:53):
of a lot of people. Itwas an accident, it was an oversight.
I'm sure it was fine. Ido want to ask this question,
though, and that is it justwent out of my head, Dave,
what point did you want to makeearlier? Yeah, a couple of points.
One is the tape we heard earlierof Jared Bernstein. That's like Joseph

(26:17):
Gerbel's big Lie philosophy. If it'sbig enough and you tell it often enough,
people are going to believe it.And orwell just took and ran with
that, and Jared Bernstein ran withit. Another point, the COVID nineteen
experience we had. You know,you say, well, we have the

(26:37):
technology. We only had telescreens innineteen forty eight. We really didn't have
technology. Then now we have camerason every corner in the United States.
And you say, well, yeah, but the government isn't using it the
way they did in nineteen eighty four. Well, look at COVID nineteen.
In the name of public health andsafetykids were not permitted to go to school,

(27:02):
lost a year of their education bygovernment decree. So nineteen eighty four
is here. And are you surprised, doctor Sheldon that nineteen eighty four is
here. But it's not the governmentthat is spying on us all the time.
It's tech companies. And we've willinglyturned over our privacy to have an

(27:23):
app that may do something convenient forus. So we're constantly being monitored.
All of our web traffic is beingmonitors ever, you know, for marketing
purposes. But is that kind ofa surprise that it would be technology and
we've basically volunteered all of this ortaken this upon ourselves voluntarily. No.

(27:45):
When Orwa was working at the BBC, he was a broadcaster and it was
wartime, so there was a killswitch manned by somebody from the BBC who
could actually stop his microphone if he'ssaid anything that violated wartime censorship. So
he understood that technology was in placeeven in those days to immediately stop people

(28:08):
when they said something they weren't supposedto say. Today, you can your
YouTube site can be demonetized in allother kinds of ways. It was interesting
though, when Musk Elon Musk tookover Twitter, that he found out that
the tech companies were working hand inglove with the government, that they often
helped each other back and forth tocensor thought that they considered inappropriate. When

(28:33):
you think about if the telescreen isa one way zoom call, that's it.
Yes, let me ask you you'reright, one more question before we
run out of time and have toplay of the day. This is a
good question how much influence did NewYork Times reporter mister Jones's discovery and reporting
of Stalin's holomotor starvation of Ukrainians influenceor Weell's writing he knew that those were

(29:02):
lies coming out of the Soviet Union, that they had not been involved in
the starvation of millions in the Ukraine. And also the show trials that took
place, the purge trials to getrid of people who were opposed to Stalin
in the thirties were such obviously showtrials that he could see through that that

(29:23):
Stalin was trying to persuade the Westto believe that he was doing all this
in the name of the revolution,but in fact it was just to consolidate
power. The Stalin starvation in thenineteen thirties, that was Walter Duranty of
the New York Times, who wonthe Pulitzer Prize, lied constantly was a

(29:45):
Soviet tool. So way back inthe nineteen thirties we have this kind of
disinformation. It's interesting that now Garranty, by the way, said they weren't
dying from starvation, they were dyingfrom malnutrition of course. Yeah, totally
different, doctor Michael Sheldon. Ireally appreciate your time. I am going
to get your book because I wantto know more about George orwealthe man,

(30:07):
and I've linked to that book onthe blog today, so if people want
to buy that book and find outmore. This has been very informative,
and I would urge all of myreaders to get a copy of nineteen eighty
four. It's not a heavy read. It's a great story. That's the
part that makes it so good isthat it's not dogma, it's not beating
you over the head with a message. It's just a really good story with

(30:30):
a really disappointing ending. From myperspective, I always want the revolutionaries to
win. By the way, Ialso watch the film nineteen eighty four with
a John Hurt and Richard Burton.Yeah. Excellent. Yeah, there you
go. By the way, somebodyjust pointed out in the upcoming presidential debates
to your point, doctor Sheldon,the Biden administration wants to be able to

(30:51):
cut the MIC's off. So kindof an interesting parallel that you just brought
up for the debate's great point forthe text or now, doctor Sheldon,
Are you in or out for ofthe day? Have you made a choice?
I think I better go out becauseI've got another appointment shortly after the
top of the hour, so Ithink I'm gonna have to leave. But
thank you very much for the invitation. It was a pleasure having you,

(31:15):
and I can't wait to read yourscholarship on George Orwell. Thank you so
much, doctor Sheldon for being withus.