I'm reading 1984 by George Orwell. It's interesting to note the similarities between Big Brother:Organization, Quackspeak:Pure Language, etc.

Does anyone know any good websites that discuss this? I know there's a book i'm ordering about it from Amazon.

Pat
UADNA (Unseen Apostate Directorate of North America)

Thanks, Seven. I just read it and enjoyed it. This was very interesting, among other stuff:There are so many parallels in 1984. It's fascinating. Almost seems written about the JWs. Especially the "pure language of truth" they speak.

Here's a couple of passages from the book that struck me so far:

"If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that even, it never happened that, surely was more terrifying... ‘Who controls the past,’ rant the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’"

page 20: "In the vast majority of cases there was no trial, no report of the arrest. People simply disappeared...Your name was removed from the registers...your one-time existence was ...forgotten You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word."
In JWdom, a JC deals with you (not a trial) and an announcement is made, then 'poof' you're as good as gone, because no one is allowed to speak with you.

page 49: "Perhaps 'friend' was not exactly the right word. You did not have friends nowadays, you had comrades (read brothers)."

In dubdom you have friends only so long as you agree with everything the Mother Organization states. Otherwise the "thought police" will turn you in. No harboring doubts.

pp 54-55: "(speech) jerked out very rapidly and, as it seemed, all in one piece, like a line of type cast solid. For the rest it was just a noise, a quack-quack-quacking. And yet, though you could not actually hear what the man was saying, you could not be in any doubt about its general nature....you could be certain that every word of it was pure orthodoxy, pure Ingsoc. ..There is a word in Newspeak...duckspeak, to quack like a duck."

Sounds like a lot, no all, of the public talks droning on and on, and the other talks. Plus, the ‘sermonizing’ of all JWs—it’s all the same robotic stuff.

Page 58: "The phrase 'our new, happy life' (spiritual paradise) recurred several times. It had been a favorite of late with the Ministry of Plenty (Watchtower) ....It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother (Watchtower) for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, (failed prophecies) after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it...with a furious desire to track down, denounce, and vaporize anyone who should suggest that last week the ration had been thirty grams...doublethink...Was he, then, alone in the possession of a memory?"

My comments are in red. Back to my book now!

Pat
UADNA (Unseen Apostate Directorate of North America)

Thanks Refiner's Fire for your observations. I'm at work--i plan to post more later.

Pat
UADNA (Unseen Apostate Directorate of North America)

Ho Patio,

I remeber reading "1984" long, long ago, in high school, and I think it is possible that some or Orwell's ideas might have stayed with me enough to create the cognitive dissonance that led to my eventual break. I bless George Orwell!

If I may, permit me to suggest that you get a copy of "Orwell's Revenge: The 1984 Palimpsest" by Peter William Huber. It seems to be out of print now, but in it Huber shows how technology such as you and I are enjoying right now will lead to, not the CREATION of Totalitarian "cells" but their COLLAPSE, as seen with the former Soviiet Union and is now happening with the WTS and Red China.

Let Freedom ring!

- Nathan Natas, UADNA
(Unseen Apostate Directorate of North America)

Hi Waiting,

I recently ordered The Orwellian World of Jehovah's Witnesses
by Heather Botting, Gary Norman Arthur Botting (Photographer)

List Price: $17.95
Our Price: $17.95

Usually ships within 3 to 4 weeks

from Amazon. Is that the same book you're referring to?

I will check out AlanF's page on Orwell too. Is that on Freeminds?

Pat
UADNA (Unseen Apostate Directorate of North America)

Glad I'm not the only one who (re-)reads 1984 and is overwhelmed by the parallels to life as a JW.

The amazing thing is: the first time I read it I was still in, and I didn't see the parallels! I naively thought "wow, what a terrible situation to live in such a controlling, stifling way."

HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO BLIND?

The Botting book was one of the first "apostate" books I read when exiting.

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For interesting Watchtower Society literature quotes, complete with references but without any editorial, check out:
http://Quotes.JehovahsWitnesses.com

I too read 1984 in high school and never forgot it. One day at a service meeting (late 70's) they were discussing confessing sins and if you see a wrong committed it's your duty to come forward to the elders. Even children were to turn in their parents, that triggered a memoire of the 1984 book that I quickly dismissed because of the new "truth" I was learning. Had I only known then how closely the witnesses and Orwells book paralleled each other!

Yes I also can thank Orwell for his fine work of fiction. Maybe he studied to be a witless ? lol

HCM

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