"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." (81)
Orwell wrote that all else follows. That indeed, truisms are true, stones are hard and water is wet; that there is such a thing as gravity. But freedom is slavery, because the Party controls all that is real, all that is ordinary and accepted. If a person says they are levitating, who is to say they aren't if they convince someone else that they are? Who is to say that anything is physically impossible if the Party says otherwise? If four is divisible by two, than anything is possible. But without, this is only a foreshadowing of the punishment later on in the book.
present tense: Orwell writes; they is pural, a person is singular -- how can you make that agree? then vs. than; I'm not sure I'm following the last line here -- how else can you say the same thing?
ReplyDelete"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." (81)
ReplyDeleteOrwell writes that all else follows. That indeed, truisms are true, stones are hard and water is wet; that there is such a thing as gravity. But freedom is slavery, because the Party controls all that is real, all that is ordinary and accepted. If people say they are levitating, who is to say they aren't if they convince someone else that they are? Who is to say that anything is physically impossible if the Party says otherwise? If four is divisible by two, then anything is possible.