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Thinking about it more:
The real irony of 1984 - one that George Orwell himself could never have foreseen - is that its rhetoric is most often parroted by those most blind to it. Those whose thinking has already been most subverted by the dearth of truthful information, original thought and genuine dialogue in today's society.
People who confront truth with sheer volume, typing really big or in weird fonts, like the figures in that illustration yelling and cheering at the viewscreen.
People who curiously blame the crumbling state of their society on the politics that AREN'T in charge.
People who believe they live in the best of all worlds despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
People who believe that most people are fools, but curiously believe the same things as most of the other "fools" and dismiss dissenting opinions out-of-hand.
People who claim to desire a better way of life, but actively support that which undermines their quality of life.
People who begin every line of thought with their programmed political ideology, then make value judgements accordingly.
People who mindlessly parrot buzzwords and phrases like "2+2=5" "bureaucrats", no matter how irrelevant the context, because yelling cliches gives them a feeling of comfort, certainty, and affiliation, and is easier than looking for substance.
People who use doublethink and doublespeak to hold onto views that are not internally consistent.
People who spout propaganda and cliches when confronted with original ideas.
People who are so utterly programmed that no argument, no proof, no evidence, will ever trigger meta-analysis of their views and lifestyle.
1984, for these people, is ironically enough like that scene with Goldstein on the viewscreen in the book itself: people hear truth, but they turn it on its head.
The difference between Winston Smith and his contemporaries and people like Jubber, is that it is very likely that within his own lifetime Jubber will see the system crumble to pieces and his livelihood destroyed in the process. And yet somehow I think that even when that happens...when real misery takes root in this country as a result of the misguided policies that have attained legitimacy by dystopic means, when things really start to implode...and even when it is his own poverty...people like Jubber will continue believing their own lies and going on believing that the attitudes they share with their countrymen are the problem and not the solution.
You see this in countries like Yugoslavia or Russia, where people still blame ethnic minorities or the lack of tyranny for all society's problems, too blinded by determined ignorance to understand they have it backwards. It's a very hard to escape that intellectual rut.
Freedom, as they say, isn't free. The cost of freedom is not resisting slavery, but freedom itself, the moral and intellectual obligations, the challenge of free thought and free life. It is a challenge that many people are not equal to. Inevitably, people like Jubber cannot live free: whether the greedy institutions of the status quo, or, at best, some sort of benevolent despotism that succeeds it, they will always be under the yoke, because they cannot find the strength necessary to preserve their freedom of thought.
Aestu of Bleeding Hollow... Nihilism is a copout.
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