Journal Questions

Journal 5: In the book 1984 the statement "WAR IS PEACE" is a statement used by the party to displays how engaging in war will keep the peace in the country. "FREEDOM IS SLAVERY" represents how an individual cannot be separate from society. "IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH" displays how the comrades have to give themselves to Big Brother and has to give themselves away and throw away all of their beliefs. They contradict each other because the statements are false. War is not peace because there would always be constant violence and peace is not violence. Peace is like an harmonious state where everything is good. Freedom is not slavery. In the book the people are basically treated like slaves but the Party tells them that they have rights and they can do certain things as long as they follow the rules.  I would rationalize this statement by explaining how war is not considered peace in todays society due to how war is violent and brutal and peace is all about a how nothing is going wrong and everyone is getting along. Freedom is not slavery because freedom means that you can do whatever you want and that you do not have to worry about society or people. Ignorance is not strength because in order to be strong you have to have a strong mind in order to make good decisions in life.

Journal 6: The quote by George Orwell, "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." means that the past has an impact on the world in the future. For example, in today's society global warming is a major thing that is happening currently. Even though global warming has always been around it is just now concerning a lot of people around the world. What happened in the past controlled how bad global warming would be now. Due to the fact that we used a lot of products that impacted global warming in a negative way, we are now in the situation we are in now due to the past. You can look at the second half of the quote in two different ways. The first way is that people who record what happens now is controlling our past in a way. Meaning that when today's news gets written down it becomes the past so our actions today control our past. The second way is that people are writing history. For example, something that was recorded or written down a week ago is now part of the past. So people like journalist or people that work for the news channels are writing our history and are putting it in the past.

Journal 7: The quote, "The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it." by George Orwell basically means to surrender. War happens when two countries or people have an issue with one another and want to fight because of it. Both sides think they are fighting because either what they think is right or because they want something the other side has. In order for the war to end there has to be a winner and a loser. One side must come out on top and one must come out on the bottom. The only way to stop fighting is just to give up and surrender. Losing a war is better than fighting for years and killing thousands of people over something that is not worth fighting over. It also is easier to "lose" the way because then it will be over and you do not have to fight anymore.Another way you could look at this quote is with people. Say a person is having an argument with their friend and the friend thinks that this argument is going to last a long time, but the person ends of surrendering to the friend and throwing them off guard. So you could turn the quote into "The quickest way of ending an argument is to walk away."