• Draconic NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 days ago

    You don’t need to read 1984 to understand the basic meaning people get out of it. The significant aspects can be summed up as a few bullet points or a few short paragraphs.

    Unfortunately because its message is so broad, it is often used in support of all sorts of opposing arguments, small and large, Jacob Geller discussed this topic in detail.

    • Riverside@reddthat.com
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      17 hours ago

      The basic meaning is idealist, though, as in non-materialist. 1986 outlines an “authoritarian” society that has essentially no material reason to be authoritarian. The book explains in painstaking detail how the citizens have fake coffee substitutes with no flavor, but doesn’t explain at any given time why this happens. It reduces this idea of “authoritarianism” simply to “state bad”, without any further political analysis. It’s lazy and sloppy.

      • Matty Roses@lemmy.today
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        15 hours ago

        It does explain that, in Goldstein’s book. Without destruction of production and privation, you cannot maintain a hierarchical society is the argument it plainly makes.