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War is Peace

The world is split up into three great super states: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. These three super-states are permanently at war, but it's a warfare without a material cause or an ideological difference between the combatants.

The primary aim of modern war (recognised by the ruling brains of the Inner Party), is to use up the products of the machines without raising the general standard of living. Since the end of the 19th century, what to do with the surplus of consumption goods had been a problem in industrial society. Science and technology were developing very fast, and it was thought that machines could eliminate hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy and disease.

But it was also clear that an increase in wealth would cause the destruction of a hierarchical society. Because if everyone worked short hours, had enough to eat and lived in a good house, wealth--the most obvious form of inequality--would disappear, it would not draw a distinction between anyone any longer.

And if everybody had enough possessions and luxuries, they would become literate and would learn to think for themselves, and soon, they would realise that the privileged minority (who had the power) hadn't got a right to rule others.

So, the second aim of this modern war is to keep the structure of society intact. And in the long run, a hierarchical society was only posible on a base of poverty and ignorance.

In order to achieve that, some thinkers dreamed of:
•  Returning to the agricultural past.
•  Restricting the output of goods.

But neither of them were good solutions, because they involved military weakness.

So war was needed to keep the wheels of industry going without increasing wealth in the world. Goods must be produced, but they must not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by a continuous warfare.

In order to keep the structure of society intact, the Inner Party tries to extinguish all the possibility of independent thought. The problem they have to solve is how to discover what another human is thinking by studying the meaning of facial expressions, gestures and tones of voice. For example, that's why there are telescreens and microphones in every room.

In all these three super-states the conditions of life are the same, the three philosophies and the social systems are barely different. But it's forbidden to study foreign languages or to have any contact with foreigners. If this was allowed, people would discover that foreigners are similar to themselves and that most of what they have been told about them are lies.

So, cut off from contact with the outer world and with the past (because all the newspapers and history books are fake), the citizen of Oceania is like someone in outer space.

We could say that by becoming continuous, war has stopped being a real war (ceased to exist). A peace that was permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This is the meaning of the Party slogan: WAR IS PEACE.