Interesting:

Per 1:

1. Brit: At the beginning of the story, he was ‘curious’ about Big Brother, then went against him, and now seems to ‘respect’ BB towards the end of the story.  Last line of the story literally suggests this.
2. Brit: Winston seems to be respecting BB at the end even though he clearly hated him before.

Per 2:

1. Colton: (77) song re: the Chestnut Tree:  “you sold me” — the song comes back on at the end when Winston is in the bar; he realizes what it means.
2. Derek: (289) chess problem: is Big Brother white, thus always the winner?  And everyone else is black?

Per 3:

1. Keith: Room 101 — if someone knows it or it is predictable, one could ‘overcome’ it…but by customizing it, it can’t be overcome.

Per 4:

Confusing/Question:

Per 1:

1. Aditya: Why does Orwell have Winston with the rat cage and then suddenly jump to his being in the bar?
2. Aditya: Why do they let Julia live after being in Miniluv?
3. Cooper:

Per 2:

1. Brittany: Is W dreaming that he’s in the Chestnut Tree Cafe?  Likewise, is he dreaming that he’s in the white corridor on the last page?
2. Brittany: He loved Big Brother at the end:  is this an example of Doublethink?
3. Ryan: is the song supposed to be ironic?  Or coincidental?
4. Rachel: (277)  “God is power”? — is this a religious idea or other?  [hint:  reverse the sentence and don't see "God" as the center of it] – (267) — Go to the “boot stamping…”

Per 3:

1. Daniel: Is it Doublethink the entire time?  Did Winston really love BB the entire time?
2. Keith: Is the purpose of Room 101/torture to get him to betray others?
3. Alex D: (277) “GOD IS POWER” — what does this mean?  Kristen: you have to reverse it so that it says “POWER IS GOD”; O’Brien’s feeling that the Party’s ultimate goal is ‘pure power.’ Alex B: Winston says you can’t control the weather/sky – O’Brien says that they can control all aspects of reality.  Sylvia:  Winston wants to reach out and touch O’Brien: as if O’Brien is both the torturer and also

Per 4:

1. Kierston: Did Orwell have a certain understanding of what the reader ‘wanted’ to happen?  And did he do the opposite?
2. Shannon: Confused by ending — ch 5 vs ch 6 — and he leaps from the rats to the bar.  Why?  Gabriella: he’s never ‘free.’
3. Edward:  If Winston dies in Room 101 and is a ‘martyr,’ what is the point?  Would anyone gain
4. Darcy:  Why would O’Brien give him a book in the first place? What was the point?

Per 6:

1. Andrew: (17)  Did Winston show us Doublethink early on when he was chanting and wondered if O’Brien is looking at him?  Kolby — later w/ O’Brien, Winston is told: you knew, you always knew.
2. Daniella: (252)  Why does W love O’Brien?

Predictions:

Per 2:

Try the following:

1. Open up Skype
2. Go to Preferences
3. Choose Chat
4. Read the default ‘example’ chat that Skype provides
5. Sit back with an “I get it” Cheshire Cat meets Orwell grin
6. Admit that Big Brother is watching

Facebook usage warning coming. If you’re a teenager, you may want to roll your eyes in advance. [wink]

I’m sure most of you have begun tuning out teacher/parent-types who drone on and on and on and on about how you need to “be careful” with what you upload to Facebook (and other digital social networking sites like it).

On some level, that makes sense.  Until a problem arises in your life, the fears seem over-blown and perhaps only an issue of generational differences.

While most of the adult warnings/reactions stem from wanting to prevent the inappropriate uploading of photos/comments that are risky/too personal — thereby putting their college admissions and future job application opportunities at risk — there may be an entirely new level of concern that all of us have to consider when it comes to what we post on-line.

Imagine the following story that just took place in Isreal with real soldiers:

• You’re a soldier preparing for a top-secret military raid.
• Your commander (and the army/nation at large) has OK’d the use of Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites for general use (keep in touch with family, etc).
• You write:  “”On Wednesday we clean up Qatanah, and on Thursday, god willing we come home.”
• Along with it, you manage to “[reveal] the particular Israeli Defense Force unit that would be heading into [a] particular West Bank village to arrest suspected militants, as well as the time it would take place.”
• Then your Facebook ‘friends’ alert the authorities/military.
• The massive and supposedly top-secret raid/mission is then canceled.  After all, the enemy has just been told everything.
• Now you are ‘invited’ to come ‘speak to’ your commanding officer.
• Then the real fun begins.

What are your thoughts?

• Do we ‘owe’ our schools, companies, military, nation anything when it comes to what we post on Facebook, etc?
• Or should we be able to operate on such social networks without any worry about what effect our comments, photos, etc may have on the organizations that we join or are a part of?
• Should we go back to using “Loose Lips Sink Ships” propaganda posters as they commonly did in WWII (and elsewhere)?

Per 1:

1. Brittany: When Winston realizes that Goldstein wrote the ‘book’ that O’Brien…and therefore Goldstein is real
2. Cooper: Winston is not that ‘bright’ — compared to Julia, O’Brien…he’s a follower; Julia is the one planning where to go, the circumstances; she seems to predict his words/ideas.
3. Aditya: When he asks the old man (in the bar) about life before the Revolution
4. Trevor: the ‘book’ is interesting:  what happened in the past; you have to imagine that a normal person who would assume it is fiction (and not believe it)

Per 2:

1. Colton:  When Winston is in the Ministry of Love (jail cell) — when the man was to be taken away (skull-face man; starvation) to Room 101:  willing to turn his entire family in and see their throats slit in front of him avoid Room 101
2. Derek: (211):  “…endless purges…might perhaps commit a crime at some time in the future.” — what Stalin did (in real history)
3. Ryan: (217): the hierarchy of prison — lowest status in prison are the politicians; highest are the Proles
4. Hagen: (233): Parsons is glad he was caught; wants to say thank-you

Per 3:

1. Kristen: (229) “He loved her…only a fact…felt no love for her…he hardly even wondered what was happening to her.”
2. Caroline: (237)  Shocked that the skull-face man would request to  his family brutally killed in front of him; Keith:  seems like he would ask for something to live for; don’t take me to Room 101 and pleas to be with his family; Kristen (67) There is no place for love in marriage in Oceania “all marriages between Party members…always refused…if…attracted to each other”
3. Hersh:  (239)  “In the face of pain there are no heroes…” / pain dominates all

Per 4:

1. Benedikt: pain and suffering are more basic human instincts than love, empathy
2. Benedikt:  (238)  “regretful irony” — “They got me a long time ago” suggests he was not with them from the beginning; irony suggests he still remembers before; he is not one of the brainwashed; he is conscious and ‘buys into it’ (he actually believes this is the right thing)
3. Brendon:  Room 101 — same either direction
4. Gabriella: interesting that the poet was removed; the use of him will die out because you will not need poets in the future
5. Susie: interesting that the telescreen only repeated then said something new at the very end
6. Gabriella: they only physically torture Julia, not Winston — why?
7. Deron: W never trusts anyone, but when he finally does…they all turn out to be threats (O’Brien, Charrington, Julia)

Confusion/Questions:

Per 1:

1. Paryse:  Why is Chap 9 so focused on ‘war’? — Brittany:  the key is to point out how the various countries are divided
2. Mary:  In Book 3, after Winston has ‘the experience,’ what is his ‘job’ or ‘role’ in society?

Per 2:

1. Angela: Why did Charrington let Winston/Julia continue so long?  Charrington = Thought Police; Abbie: it will ‘break’ him even more; Alex F: agree w/ Abbie…if they only let it go on for a small period of time, it would have less impact; he would be hopeful over time, more comfortable, thus everything was shattered; Alex C: at the end of Chap 1 (Bk 3) – (238): “They got you, too?” — “They got me a long time ago.”;  Brittany:  maybe O’Brien was blackmailed to get to something bigger
2. Alex F:  what is the war ultimately?  Derek:  to keep the hierarchy of the society as it is; keep those in power still in power;  Miles:  not just keeping the people in power, but the entire world — if it ‘knew’ — would possibly be a revolution; Colton: the lower class never comes to power thus they get freedoms; Alex F: this is why Winston says that the Proles; Miles: seems so simple:  definition of war in real life is different than in Orwell’s book:   here it is to create the stalemate to keep things going on to prevent destruction; Derek:  we think of things as black/white as humans, but in this book we have to look at the purpose: Big Brother wants stalemate; Alex C: (195): “The plan is…” — refers to Hate Week

Per 3:

• Caroline:  Can the Thought Police change physically in literal terms? (re: Mr. Charrington); Hersh:  focus on the word “seems” to suggest that it is more how Winston (and the reader) mis-reads the cues; Charrington now ‘appears’ to have power thus it changes the way he physically appears
• Alex D: end of Book 2: why did they smash the paperweight?  Mr. Long: what does the paperweight represent? Jackson: it is useless, therefore important; it is “old think”; something that is beautiful ‘can exist’; Sylvia: it almost represents the power of Big Brother; the ‘fear’ itself is BB’s power

Per 4:

• Vivian:  Why is Parsons in Miniluv?  Seems to be the last person?

Predictions:

Per 1:

• Trevor:  His age will tie in somehow…no longer ‘fit’ and may not be able to be a ‘physical’ hero…but he’ll have to fight off the brainwashing, etc
• Aditya: maybe Big Brother vaporized all of the people that ‘knew’ the past…or vaporized the majority of their memory;  people who are in their 30′s or older (alive before Revolution)
• Brittany:  Winston will get in trouble for his actions and will be sent to Big Brother; tortured to find info
• Trevor: Big Brother is not real; he’s a fraud; the people are making him seem real by ‘playing along’ with this idea; Big Brother has laid out the principles, gotten people to accept it,…had a ‘great’ idea/was very smart, but the people kept building it up, exaggerating it up…like a rumor; maybe BB is somewhere else…laid out the principles…has never been seen…but the people can’t tell
• Paryse: Winston will end up being ’2 people’ (in a way)…trying to both hate BB and also love BB…trying to find the secret about the Brotherhood (be mysterious), but then we find out he’s been faking his hatred (and loves BB); joined the Brotherhood just to learn (but is a spy-like character)

Per 3:

1. Kristen: perhaps they allowed Winston to get away with things to ‘test their system’; Hersh: they take this much time so that Winston will see how much potential he has (power he has); Mike N: if W can understand his own potential, then he could understand his own morality or limit

Per 4:

1. Connor S: Room 101 will be the last/end of Winston’s cure

Here’s a summary:

“Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems.

But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they’re mercilessly interrogated for days.

When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.”

Even better?

The book is available as a free download based on the author’s own philosophy you can read about here.  That’s right: free.  As in you can download it right now.  For free.  And read it at your convenience.  Cool, no?

An excerpt:

“If you’re not making art with the intention of having it copied, you’re not really making art for the twenty-first century. There’s something charming about making work you don’t want to be copied, in the same way that it’s nice to go to a Pioneer Village and see the olde-timey blacksmith shoeing a horse at his traditional forge. But it’s hardly, you know, contemporary. I’m a science fiction writer. It’s my job to write about the future (on a good day) or at least the present. Art that’s not supposed to be copied is from the past.”

Want to know about the author, a guy who seems to be worth keeping an eye on?

“Cory Doctorow is the author of several novels, two short story collections, and a forthcoming book of essays. He is the co-editor of the popular blog Boing Boing, and the former European Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group that works to keep cyberspace free.

Little Brother is his first novel for young adults, and he hopes it’ll inspire you to use technology to make yourself more free.

Doctorow, 36, lives in London, England with his wife and newborn daughter.”

And if you haven’t heard of or visited the Boing Boing site (see above), I highly recommend it.

Lots of eye and mind candy to chew on.

…and what this says about their sense of humor and literary insights.

Oh, and you have to love their version of Newspeak (aka “marketing language”) to describe what their product does:

…”a simple way to measure the health of your heterogeneous IT environment at-a-glance. It’s an easy-to-implement, affordable, web-based solution for IT infrastructure monitoring and diagnostics. Get real-time monitoring for any server (Windows, UNIX, Linux) or device, on any network, from any web browser, anywhere in the world. Simply follow the “red light” to detect, diagnose and resolve any alert � before it becomes an issue.”

The real question is:  can you translate what they’re really saying/doing? And why companies are buying it?

If you get time, take a look at “The picture that could land you in jail:  How police in Big Brother Britain treat you like a terrorist for taking holiday snaps.”

Unlike the previous article where undercover police using Facebook to cite underage drinkers, this article really does explore the themes of Orwell’s novel.

Tell us what you think.

For the purposes of our discussion, I’m less interested in the issue of ‘underage drinking’ (and whether the police ‘should’ use Facebook)…

…and more interested in the following underlying themes/questions.

Which one catches your eye with regards to this story?

1. What is ‘privacy’ in this day and age?  How does it come into play with Facebook (and other on-line social networking sites)?
2. Where is the appropriate moral line for technological ‘surveillance’ in this day and age given a) our advances in technology and b) our post-9/11 culture?
3. Do you think the author authentically or superficially used “Big Brother” in the title of her article?  Since it was never referenced in the article itself, do you like or dislike her ‘writing’ strategy with regards to the title’s underlying theme?

Note to visitors:

• Students have been given a ‘recommended’ reading schedule for 1984 approximating a ‘keep up’ pace.
  
• Students have been given the freedom to read ‘at the pace of curiosity’ (as long as they are prepared for the 1984 midterm exam).
• In class: we will record various elements that catch the students’ attention re: what they’ve read.
• Students are advised to add ideas as often as possible since this blog will serve as a way to evaluate participation.

Interesting:

Per 1

1. Brittany (173):  “Are you willing to never see each other again?” — Julia:  “No.” (quickly) yet Winston’s reaction is slower/less dramatic.

Per 2:

1. Erin M.: (153)  “…in her opinion the war is not happening” (referring to Julia) — possible that the potential of war keeps people frightened.  Possible that there is no war; they are at peace with the other 2 nations.  They think BB is protecting them.  Alex C:  (Hate Week scene: Mongolian prisoners being paraded by) — possible that the other countries are parading around Oceania prisoners (who were traded)?
2. Colton — O’Brien and the Inner Party can turn off telescreens (30 min or suspicious) — what would BB think when they do this?

Per 3:

1. Hersh:  O’Brien turns off the telescreen off; seemed easier than it should be — Michael P:  If someone is truly loyal to the Party, then there is NO need to turn off. — Q to the group (by Mr. Long): what is a bigger threat to BB: a person who turns off the telescreen 1x, someone who does it randomly, or someone who does it consistently at that same time daily.

Per 6:

1. Daniella: Noticing the focus on rats (Winston is really scared)

Questions/Confusion:

Per 1:

1. Brittany:  (178) — How does O’Brien know the “last line” of the song?  — How does O’Brien know all of these ideas/things/facts?
2. Mary:  (173) — O’Brien asking questions of W/J: (are you willing to…) — “Do you understand that if he survives, it may be as a different person?” — New identity — Q: How do they have the technology to do this?
3. Trevor:  What is the Two-Minutes Hate?  Hate Week?
4. Paryse:  (166-8)  Why does O’Brien tell Winston he can never see/be with Julia again?
5. Sarah:  Why do they have to keep everything a secret (when J/W meet during Hate Week)?

Per 2:

1. Alex C:  Is Winston’s past (childhood — chocolate/greed as a kid) the reason why BB wanted to create this society?  Winston knows what is ‘right’…but is he over-looking his own past?
2. Colton:  Temptations to people to control them.  Is BB using the telescreen permission (To turn off) to weed out those that are not loyal?
3. Vance: What if the Inner Party guys are truly loyal…does it matter if they turn off their telescreen  at all?

Per 3:

1. Alex D: can people who don’t turn it off be as threatening?
2. Connor M: Is BB a real person?  Is O’Brien actually BB?  Keith:  Who can they trust in Oceania?  If everyone wants to be loyal, who can they trust to transpire against BB/The Party?

Per 4:

1. Edward:  Why Shakespeare is “on his lips” — literally or figuratively?
2. Kierston:  Do they want to ‘create’ certain people?
3. Scott:  Why would they allow the Cromwell statue to remain (and be named Cromwell)?

Per 6:

1. Hannah:  (165) “Proles are human beings but we are not.”  |  O’Brien (in the apt): “changing of the faces” — could these relate?
2. Kolby:  Could the rats foreshadow something big for Winston?

Predictions:

Per 1:

1. Cooper: Could O’Brien be Goldstein?  (since identity can be changed)
2. Hagen:  They really are at war. Everyone is at war: thus if everyone at war, they feel safe/at peace.

Per 3:

1. Rivu: BB allows telescreens to be turned off to see who is a threat?

Per 5:

1. Johnny: W may have to face his rat fears (possibly with the Brotherhood) — they want to see how he may react when he really fears

No set-up, really.  He just suggested I watch it.

While the video itself wasn’t that important/illuminating to me at the end of the day, something caught my eye down in the comment field.

I think you’ll understand why it made me smile.  And think of you guys.