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Ingsoc

Ingsoc (Newspeak for "English Socialism") is the totalitarian form of government of Oceania (North America) in George Orwell's dystopic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Warning: Wikipedia contains spoilers

The ruling Party is composed of three levels:

  1. The Inner Party that makes policy decisions and runs the government. (Referred to as simply The Party.)
  2. The Outer Party that works in the state jobs and is the working class of the society. The Outer Party is also under the most scrutiny, being constantly monitored by two-way telescreens and other implements of surveillance.
  3. The Proles that are the lower class, the rabble the Inner Party keeps happy and sedate with Victory Gin and Prolefeed[?]. (From the word proletariat, meaning 'lower class,' the lowest class in Marx's three-class socio-economic structure.)

Ingsoc apparently came to power during a Socialist revolution but as The Party is constantly changing history it is difficult to tell precisely how it came about. Ingsoc is constantly at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia, but does not admit that it ever changes sides and alters history to make the side it is currently on the side it has always been on. Winston Smith's job is to alter newspaper archives to reflect the current wave of historical revisionism.

Ingsoc is represented by Big Brother, an omnipresent figure constantly depicted on posters and the telescreen. Like Ingsoc itself, Big Brother is constantly watching.

Ingsoc demands complete submission to it, and uses torture to achieve that end (Room 101). In fact, Ingsoc has mastered a complex system of psychological tools and methods to make people not only confess imagined crimes and forget any thoughts of rebellion, but to actually love Ingsoc itself.



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