Iron man is…
“We are not soldiers”
**
why do i still have to go to school i thought slavery was abolished in 1865
that’s an interesting fact, where’d you learn that?
One of them should be soy sauce.
I don’t think people give Flash enough credit.
I will never be sad again
LIKE, GOD WHAT AN IDIOT. HAS (S)HE EVER READ NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR? HAS (S)HE? Because if not?
This is the last line. The last line is “He loved Big Brother.” That’s the end! The end of The Last Man In Europe. LOVE. Love twisted by fear.
And you know what, it wasn’t even love that ruined him. Not in that way. Because you know what he tells O’Brien?
“‘It is impossible to found a civilization on fear and hatred and cruelty. It would never endure.’
‘Why not?’
‘It would have no vitality. It would disintegrate. It would commit suicide.’”
And you think ‘oh but he was wrong in the end! Winston was defeated!’ BUT READ IT.
At the end, before the last line, obviously, but at the end, on the last page, he dreams
“He was walking down the white-tiled corridor, with the feeling of walking in sunlight, and an armed guard at his back. The long-hoped-for-bullet was entering his brain.”
Winston was right, in the end, and lots of people miss that because they read “He loved Big Brother.” and think he’s lost his humanity and kept his life. But you cannot destroy love without destroying humanity. The most you can hope for is to twist it, but even then, that’s only a slower destruction. And it wasn’t love that destroyed humanity. It wasn’t hatred either. It was fear.
Ah, good. The artist isn’t on Tumblr. Because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings but THAT POST IS DRIVING ME NUTS. The artist got is so wrong! The point of Nineteen Eighty-Four, at least, is that the ability to love is central to being human! That humanity without love and passion is dead! That love is the most powerful method of redemption but that it can be trampled down and twisted.
I’m sorry but although that would be a neat parallel, this is wrong. At least on the Orwell side. I know nothing about Huxley.
Nineteen Eighty-Four was about FEAR. Fear of the government controlling people’s lives and relationships, fear (not hate!) of other countries making people tolerate that government, and fear overcoming love in the end. Hate and anger had little to do with it. In fact, hate and anger are what motivated Winston and Julia to break out of that fear. Because anger and hate, for all that they can harm, are at least alive.
The horrible thing about Nineteen Eighty-Four wasn’t pain, not until the end. People just disappeared, you must remember. They weren’t beaten. People weren’t injured. They were slowly starved and they were taken in the middle of the night. It was FEAR that kept people in check, not pain. Fear destroyed them and everything they loved, and even the possibility of loving.
As for the bit about censorship, censorship was important in Nineteen Eighty-Four not only because the government restricted information, but because they LIED. They twisted the truth, they replaced history with whatever fit their propaganda, and they actively gave people lies to replace and confuse the truth. “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”
Edit:
Oh, and I know nothing about Huxley, like I said, but I take issue to the terminology. Love is passion, interest, and dedication. The scenario above, as you present it, sounds nothing like love. It sounds like they are so overloaded with distractions and small insignificant things that they’ve lost the ability to love (as they have in Nineteen Eighty-Four, funnily enough. Look! An accurate parallel!). What about “passivity” and “egotism” sounds like destruction by love?
