It's interesting how much it parallels the novel 1984. The members of the party lived under extreme surveillance and control for what?
My analysis is that the outer party traded off those things effectively for a sense of safety, and the inner party traded off even more for pride. In total the party was only about 20% of the populace.
At any point Winston could have left. The party had obviously created an oppressive wartime environment that made it scary to leave the safety of the party, but Winston had many opportunities to simply walk away.
But he was invested.
And I think that's the parallel I see in modern capitalist society. We're so invested that we cannot imagine walking away. Disposable gadgets, next-day shipping from the comfort of your couch, virtual social scores (either crowd sourced or provided by your ruling party). These things all feed into the sunk cost fallacy that starting over would be too hard.
And maybe it is. Maybe that's why I keep marching with the herd.
My analysis is that the outer party traded off those things effectively for a sense of safety, and the inner party traded off even more for pride. In total the party was only about 20% of the populace.
At any point Winston could have left. The party had obviously created an oppressive wartime environment that made it scary to leave the safety of the party, but Winston had many opportunities to simply walk away.
But he was invested.
And I think that's the parallel I see in modern capitalist society. We're so invested that we cannot imagine walking away. Disposable gadgets, next-day shipping from the comfort of your couch, virtual social scores (either crowd sourced or provided by your ruling party). These things all feed into the sunk cost fallacy that starting over would be too hard.
And maybe it is. Maybe that's why I keep marching with the herd.