[082349872349872]

The death squad sort of thing is part of why I believe Smith is an unreliable narrator in 1984. Real regimes don't mildly torture problematic people and then keep them around at length, as if they were boys[1] enforcing a boarding school hierarchy, instead they get rid of them shortly and cheaply, for instance by one-way helicopter rides.

[1] although the very puerile "it's no fun ruling unless the ruled know you're doing it" is the only explicit answer the book gives to the question posed by where Goldstein's text is left hanging: of what does "...the original motive, the never-questioned instinct that first led to the seizure of power and brought doublethink, the Thought Police, continuous warfare, and all the other necessary paraphernalia into existence afterwards..." really consist?

[kstenerud]

> Real regimes don't mildly torture problematic people and then keep them around at length, as if they were boys[1] enforcing a boarding school hierarchy

That's precisely how it's done in China and North Korea, as well as many other places, and almost every terror regime in history. It's also used in America whenever prosecutors / prison operators want to "send a message."

There's great value in keeping a population cowed when a small percentage of them can recount the horrors they've suffered for disobedience to authority. Execution is only reserved for actual threats to the regime, and the odd show trial.

[idoubtit]

And that's nothing new. One of the most famous examples in History is Caesar's cruelty act when the Gaul was almost totally conquered. He wanted to discourage the few inhabitants that may rebel against Rome's authority, so he "resolved to deter others by inflicting an exemplary punishment on these. Accordingly he cut off the hands of those who had borne arms against him." Thousand of men were mutilated and scattered across Gaul to send this terrifying message.

The main account about this is in the last chapter of Bellum Gallicum, probably written by one of his lieutenants. A translation to English: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Commentaries_on_the_Gallic_Wa... from the Latin: http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/caesar/gall8.shtml#44

[082349872349872]

Regimes that execute at all, judicially or extrajudicially, are outside the pale from where I sit.

[disown]

What's with the ridiculous amount of "Smith is an unreliable narrator" narrative all of a sudden? Seems like every time 1984 is mentioned, you get a comment about "Smith and unreliable narrator"?

> Real regimes don't mildly torture problematic people and then keep them around at length

"Mildly torture"? Did we read the same book? The torture in 1984 was as systematic and torturous as possible. Of course it's fiction, but nothing mild about it. Also, death squads are used by regimes that are unstable or fighting for power. Like in afghanistan. The totalitarian state described in 1984 was the opposite of afghanistan - completely secure.

Also, Smith wasn't in the "real world" with a "real regime", it's fiction. I hope you realize that. He is narrating a fictional world. So it's rather absurd to claim that he is an unreliable narrator because he isn't narrating the real world. By that logic, every narration in fiction is unreliable and as a consequence makes the claim about unreliable narration absurd.

[dugditches]

Because it's the same poster. Least I recall recently reading the concept here a few days ago and found it odd too. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25405731

[082349872349872]

Yes, mostly me, best summarised for the moment at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24737728 (tl;dr: of the two fictions, Smith et.al. require far more suspension of disbelief than Goldstein)

As for Smith's torture, I see:

Part 3, Chapter 1: hit on the elbow

Part 3, Chapter 2: beaten, but apparently not enough to break bones. Screamed at, but mostly questioned (not giving leave to urinate is another detail that makes me think Orwell was writing cathartically about his public school days. See "Such, Such Were The Joys".)

Part 3, Chapter 3: restrained. a "dial" of unclear action. scars of unknown origin (and we know that Smith already suffered from varicose lesions well before)

Part 3, Chapter 4: mention of dentures (but had he lost teeth from torture, or from his poor living conditions beforehand?)

Part 3, Chapter 5: failure to be tortured by rats

That's a lot of alleged hours of O'Brien's time, which presumably would be spent (as O'Brien, unlike Smith, got excellent marks on his A levels, thereby getting into the Inner Party) doing something of value for Oceania, rather than enabling Smith's narcissism. It's obvious Smith doesn't have any useful information to give up. How much of an example "pour encourager les autres" could Smith possibly be, considering the oh-so wide, expansive, nature of his circle of friends and acquaintances? The O'Brien of Part 3 is also cardboard, and reminds me of nothing so much as Johnny Hale from "Such, Such Were The Joys".

Consider also:

No sensory deprivation, no waterboarding. Nothing that approaches even Korean-War-era physiological-limit techniques.

[enriquto]

Unreliable narrator [0] is literary device that any writer can chose to use, it has nothing to do whether the described events are facts or fiction: it can be used for both. I don't think at all that 1984 uses this technique, but if it did it could be interpreted that Smith was receiving mild torture but describing it as brutal.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreliable_narrator

[disown]

I know what an unreliable narrator is. There are hints/clues within the story to show why the narrator may be unreliable. You can't say a narrator is unreliable because the fictional world does not align with the real world. That's my point.

It would be like saying bilbo baggins is an unreliable narrator in lord of the rings because magical rings don't exist in the real world. Absurd. But you could say the narrator in fight club may be unreliable since its revealed he has mental issues and the stories don't line up within the movie/book.

[enriquto]

I agree, it is absurd to say that 1984 uses an unreliable narrator (and any other Orwell writings for that matter, it's just not his style).

[082349872349872]

It's not absurd because in 1984, Goldstein's writing shows evidence of thinking like Orwell (based on Orwell's other writing) and evidence of rational thought processes, while Smith is an extremely dislikable protagonist, a wannabe acid-throwing murderer[1], which makes me think he's cardboard, suitable for the "fast-forward".

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24737728

[1] part II chap 8. By comparison with 1984, the FBI usually gets violent nutcases to come up with their own scenarios without such explicit prompting, but in real life these sorts of people are not lacking for supposing that (their often paranoidly fictional) ends justify the (thankfully equally fictional, at least when they procure "bombs" from HumInt sources) means, either.

[disown]

> the FBI ... but in real life

You really are failing to understand the criticism. You can't claim a narrator is unreliable because the fiction doesn't align with reality. That's not how that works.

You do realize that 1984 was written in the 1940s predicting describing a fictional world nearly 50 years in the future?

It's a simple concept you are intentionally ignoring. If you want to claim "unreliable narrator", you need to show that within the fictional world. You can claim it because the fictional world doesn't match the real world. Because using that absurd logic, everything is unreliable.

[BurningFrog]

Maybe Orwell's point was that you don't need the death squads to manage tyranny.

[idoubtit]

Orwell is not subtle enough for this. In "1984" (spoiler), the tyranny wins because they manage to torture the main characters so much that their spirits were permanently broken. If memory serves right, that was the end of the story.

For a classical tyranny were deaths squads are almost never necessary, because mass control is extremely efficient, "Brave New World" is better suited.

[082349872349872]

Except "Brave New World" isn't a tyranny at all. The only person who comes to a poor end is the savage, precisely because he refused the offer (which Mond envies) of going to the islands.

Mond also summarises why contemporary people are so willing to follow visions like ISIS or QAnon:

"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."

(NB that BNW was written after WWI, 1984 after WWII, which may, beyond the temperaments of their authors, also explain how the visions got so much darker. Note also that Huxley wrote a much-less-famous utopia near the end of his life.)

[est31]

I think it's one of the tools that regimes use. Not neccessarily on everyone, but in certain settings and scenarios. China for example has "reeducation" camps that brainwash/torture people.