1984 - The First Step into BioShock: The Novel

"WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH." -- Page 3

These three blatant paradoxes mentioned within the first few minutes of reading have come to define the world that Winston Smith lives in.  They are perfect examples that demonstrate the Newspeak word doublethink, which George Orwell defines on page 31 as "to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them," (i.e. the opposite of cognitive dissonance).  Although Winston probably knows that these three slogans of the party don't make sense, he has no way of reasoning in their favor and no proof that the inverses are true.  To our Western-tuned, democratic, clearly-superior minds, it may seem strange or even absurd for these axioms to contain any value or truthiness; however, this is precisely why they are paradoxes.  In the Ingsoc-oriented Oceania, members of the Party have accepted these principles as fact; it is through constant, perpetual war with either Eurasia or Eastasia that Oceania is able to ration supplies given to citizens and keep hate focused on one common Enemy of the State, thus maintaining the peace; it is through unlimited excess and the inability to restrict freedoms that we become slaves to our own desires, and the Party remedies this by suppressing civil liberties and eliminating personal wants; it is through intelligence that heretics are able to challenge the social postulates established by the Ministry of Truth, but by staying ignorant of the truth, the individual builds the strength of the whole of society.  As is so often the case with socialism, the theories work well on paper but not in action.  It is clear that 1984 does not present a utopia, but rather the appearance of one, a dystopia.