1984 Foreword - Memory and History

[jbor]

on 7/6/03 9:09 AM, Paul Nightingale wrote:

> The edit is significant, I think.

Indeed it was. The paragraph elaborates on the point Pynchon makes in the
final sentence in the previous paragraph:

     ... [The regime in Oceania's] interests lie elsewhere,
    in the exercise of power for its own sake, in its
    unrelenting war on memory, desire, and language as a
    vehicle of thought.
        Memory is relatively easy to deal with, from the
    totalitarian point of view. There is always some agency
    like the Ministry of Truth to deny the memories of
    others, to rewrite the past. It has become a commonplace
    circa 2003 for government employees to be paid more than
    most of the rest of us to debase history, trivialize truth,
    and annihilate the past on a daily basis. Those who don't
    learn from history *used to* have to relive it, but only
    until those in power could find a way to convince everybody,
    including themselves, that history never happened, or
    happened in a way best serving their own purposes - or
    best of all that it doesn't matter anyway, except as some
    dumbed-down TV documentary cobbled together for an hour's
    entertainment.
        Controlling desire, however, is ... (xxi)

Analytically-speaking, Pynchon identifies "memory" with "history". To
"rewrite the past" is to "deny the memories of others". In other words,
"history" (and, by association, "truth" and "the past") is an aspect of
"memory" or "memories". And "memory", both by definition and in the context
of Orwell's novel, is personal, partial, subjective.

The italicisation of "*used to*" in this paragraph is interesting. It seems
intended to emphasise a change between then (Orwell's time of writing the
novel) and now (Pynchon's time of writing the Foreword) in regard to what
happens to (when?) people "don't learn from history", but I'm not exactly
sure what his point is.

The next few paragraphs then pick up on Pynchon's interpretation of
Oceania's "unrelenting war on .. desire."

best

> You cut off P in full flow. He
> continues: "Those who don't learn from history used to have to relive
> it, but only until those in power could find a way to convince
> everybody, including themselves, that history never happened, or
> happened in a way best serving their own purposes ..."
> 
> Precisely. History is contested knowledge. We have to know how we've
> arrived at what we know. The "distinctions" you speak of, funnily
> enough, what Foucault calls "truth-games" or "regimes of truth", are
> defined by those who have the power to do so at any given time.
> Everything I've written has targeted that, but I guess there aren't
> enough laughs in history.