seen, researches that could be called
scientific are still carried out for the purposes of war, but they are
essentially a kind of daydreaming, and their failure to show results is not
important. Efficiency, even military efficiency, is no longer needed.
Nothing is efficient in Oceania except the Thought Police. Since each of
the three super-states is unconquerable, each is in effect a separate
universe within which almost any perversion of thought can be safely
practised. Reality only exerts its pressure through the needs of everyday
life -- the need to eat and drink, to get shelter and clothing, to avoid
swallowing poison or stepping out of top-storey windows, and the like.
Between life and death, and between physical pleasure and physical pain,
there is still a distinction, but that is all. Cut off from contact with
the outer world, and with the past, the citizen of Oceania is like a man in
interstellar space, who has no way of knowing which direction is up and
which is down. The rulers of