1984 and Christianity

The book 1984 by George Orwell, with its stark depiction of a future society in which humanity is under totalitarian control, contains dire warnings for humans of all times. It contains both dogmatism and tribalism: the aspects of humanity that I believe are most responsible for human evil in the world as I argued in my last post.

Organized religion, though not evil in and of itself, proves to contain a particularly harmful strain of these two qualities because it takes advantage of so many human wants and desires. Furthermore, they proclaim an exact certainty without proof and an omnipotent supporter.

In 1984, the Party serves much the same purpose. With the Party’s resources, they can alter the past so that there is no record of them ever having made a mistake, and its members rally around its seemingly all-powerful leader, Big Brother. Any questioning of the Party’s moral righteousness is taboo. The populace is whipped up into a rabid, tribalistic frenzy in hatred of the Party’s enemies, particularly Eurasia, Eastasia and Emmanuel Goldstein.

There are numerous other similarities in ideology that represent these organizations’ dogmatic and tribalistic tendencies. To explore them, I’ll use Newspeak words. This simplified language was to be used by the Party in 1984 to prevent thought from entering into conversation.

Thoughtcrime – This one is obvious in meaning. In 1984, doubting Big Brother is punishable by torture. Any sort of independent thought is squelched to ensure the Party’s continuation. Christianity is a frightening historical parallel. In the Inquisitions, the Church attempted to destroy any ideas contrary to their ideology, and most denominations believe that some thoughts are sinful and can send a person to Hell. (In fact, I’m not aware of a single brand of Christianity that does not believe this.) Sexcrime – In Christianity, at least the Catholic Church, sex is considered “good” only if it is between a married man and woman and done, first and foremost, to have children. The Party takes this only a step further and regulates sex more strictly within a married couple, but the principle is the same. In both ideologies, the free choices of those who are not causing harm to anyone are considered evil. In 1984, such offenses are punishable by death. In Christianity, the punishment can be even worse: eternal torture in Hell. Doublethink – This is the most difficult Orwellian concept to understand. It means to hold two conflicting ideas in your mind at the same time and accept both as true. Doublethink is, essentially, controlling your own mind to accept whatever it is told to accept by the Party even if it contradicts with another thing the Party said. They are both true and inviolable. Religion does this in many ways. Compartmentalizing, the practice of applying one type of thought to your religion and one to the rest of your life is common. In my church, the celebrants simultaneously believed the statement “It doesn’t matter what you wear to Mass, because Jesus doesn’t care how you look.” And “It matters what you wear to Mass, because you want to look good for Jesus.”

Finally, the Party works to make every member of the populace love Big Brother, their oppressor and punisher. Religion does the same when it says that you should love God even though He doesn’t prevent evil in your life and may send you to eternal torture. These qualities shared between 1984 and mainstream Christianity are the result of the dogmatism and tribalism they represent; I consider both of them to be dire warnings of the future.