1984: The Year and the Time Part I -- "War Is Peace"

Recently, Mike Huckabee made reference to the “Two Minutes Hate” in one of his articles. Being an English literature aficionado, I immediately realized that Governor Huckabee was referring to a peculiar detail in George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984. What struck me as significant is that I had recently decided to reread this disturbing classic, and had begun to realize that Orwell – though an avowed atheist – had somehow revealed prophetic truths.

Before I delve into the significance of the above detail, allow me to summarize what the novel is all about. Orwell paints a world overcome and dictated to by war – and, by extension, hatred. He focuses on what we in the second decade of the 21^st century know as a country called England and its capital city, London. When the novel opens, we are introduced to a character named Winston Smith. Even to people of Orwell’s time (the novel was published just after WWII), the name “Winston” suggested that the character’s parents had admired the legendary WWII English prime Minister, Winston Churchill. The surname “Smith,” however, was (and is) a generic last name, quite common throughout the British Isles. With one stroke, Orwell gave his readers the ultimate in symbolic imagery – a character whose very existence is a mixture of ironic confusion and hopeless outrage.

From its opening sentence, the reader is made to understand the intense, soul-crushing situation the main character is in: he is trapped in a perpetually twisted world where “official” words mean their opposites. “War is peace” is the first nonsensical slogan we encounter.

Here, I would like to pause and discuss this meme and its horrific implications. Of course, those of us who still exercise rational thought and attempt righteous discussion will recognize this as a logical non sequitur of the first order. One cannot use the word “is” to link or identify these opposites. An act involving violence (“war”) can never be deemed an act that is calmly carried out (“peace”). Does this ring a bell? It should. At this writing, Portland, Oregon, has had 70+ days of “mostly peaceful” violent protests, resulting in deaths, injuries, and destruction that has wrecked businesses and jobs in that city. Logically, the authorities in that city should be doing everything they can to quell this outrage, but, night after night, they allow the violence to continue, as if they have already abandoned any hope of using common sense to end the chaos. When will the damaged buildings be repaired? When will the ruins be rebuilt? If the people involved in this farce don’t wake up, they will end up in a permanently-wrecked city.

Winston lives in just such a city – a London that is ruined and decaying. Bombed-out buildings from the ongoing war (where allegiances constantly shift and no one really is sure who the "enemy" is) are set next to tall, impressive “ministry” buildings belonging to the “Party.” The Party, of course, is frighteningly like the Communist Party around the world – privileged, educated in the most recent propaganda, and fiercely loyal to the idea that "truth" is whatever they say it is.

The "Two Minutes Hate" is a daily ritual in Winston's existence. Every person who works for the Party is encouraged to shout, scream, bluster, chant, etc., at an image of the enemy projected on a telescreen for two minutes each day. It is a ritual one cannot avoid, and loyalty to the Party is measured by the vehemence an individual displays during this time.

Let us step from fiction to reality. Supposedly, the violence and insanity evident this summer all started as "moral outrage" over a death of one man. Until this death occurred, no one in any city outside of Minneapolis had heard of an individual named "George Floyd," but once he died, he became the focus of a bizarre outburst of "righteous anger." Only it wasn't righteous, and it has been out of all proportion to what true justice demanded. The anger has been satanic and irrational in the extreme.

Furthermore, who, exactly, are the “protestors” in Portland? Well, they are definitely not the former inhabitants of the destroyed parts of the city. It is a fact that none of the business owners burned down their own establishments, and the people living in apartments within the district did not destroy their own cars and other belongings. The media hides the fact that these “protestors” – when the police manage to take them into custody – are revealed to be outsiders. What right do they have to do what they are doing?

No right at all. But that doesn’t stop the media from shaping a topsy-turvy narrative and calling it “social justice.” What exactly is the “justice” these criminals and thugs are seeking?

This is not a sane time. The prophet Isaiah said millennia ago: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isaiah 5:20). I believe he foresaw this very time, this very year.

Saint Paul stated, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Timothy 4:3). I am truly amazed at things that people in Portland (and other places) say in front of cameras and microphones that they must know are false – and yet they say them anyway.

At the end of Orwell’s novel, Winston is defeated and is waiting for death. 1984 is a hopeless book, and it is truly scary to see all of the parallels between this work of fiction and today’s reality. However, I will leave you with this one insight: God is never mentioned in this book. According to the Party, religion was foolish. Karl Marx said the exact same thing, but he was wrong. George Orwell, too, was wrong. The character Winston might resemble many, many people who are alive in this world, but it doesn’t have to be you.

God’s existence was proven by the life, teachings, sacrifice, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The world is entering a period of time which may very well be the precursor of Christ’s promised return. However dark it may seem right now, the Bible informs us that Christians are not prisoners of hopelessness.

Come, Lord Jesus!