The Paradox of Being a Good Person - George Orwell's Warning to the World

Damn Orwell, if you were alive to see how the socialism destroyed the 21 century... damn everything is so sad...

A totalitarian age passes ever few generations, when people forget the danger of isims. Perhaps the gift Orwell left us was a pause in this way of thinking, and that an extra generation will pass before we succumb to temptation of charismatics.

Well done. I do take issue with the suggestion that embracing the lack of objective truth is a path forward. While we must acknowledge the limitations of objective truth, there are clear and extremely important examples that are not hard to imagine, and being willing to question the truth of them comes at a terrible cost. The USA invasion of Iraq was based on lies. Biden did win the 2020 election. Canada has not been significantly exploiting the USA. The Holocaust did happen. The existence of bits of objective truth need not imply a complete and infallible understanding of the world; they are waypoints, landmarks, stars to orient ourselves in the world - and if we lose sight of them, or worse, deny their existence, we are lost.

The problem today is that most people do not know who a good person is and what their characteristics are. A good person is NOT a people pleaser, a person who cannot say no and set boundaries, a spineless person, a person obsessed with helping, volunteering, sacrificing themselves for everything and anything just so that someone can "admire" them and be grateful... NO, that is NOT a good person. That is a mental disorder.

A good person is someone who lives by the motto - "don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you" and the motto - "I can do whatever I want as long as I don't break the law and don't endanger anyone else, their health and their freedom". That is a good person. Someone who lives that way because they want to and because their greatest reward is being able to fall asleep peacefully at the end of the day and look at themselves in the mirror with pride in the morning. That is a good person. A person who doesn't even think about their actions, who doesn't even see themselves as "good", who doesn't glorify themselves or expect a reward for what they do, who isn't unhappy because their goodness isn't recognized and valued, but lives like that because it's their way of functioning and there's no other option for them because everything else is unnatural to them. Who, for example, will find a wallet, return it, and not think about it for weeks or expect a reward, but consider it normal and natural to them. Everything else is forced and pretending to be good for the sake of validation from others that you'll never get anyway, no matter what you do, but if you're a good person, you won't even care.

Do you see the difference now?

OIL WELL....ARSOM WELLS LOL

I've heard people say that 1984 was never about communism, but rather about hitler and stalin, and I think that's fairly accurate. also consider trotsky as snowball and napoleon as stalin? though I have yet to read animal farm for myself.

It’s happening…

1984 explores the new age practice (this is very subjective), I believe. In that forcing yourself to always be happy and scared to think negative thoughts because they might manifest is the definition of Big Brother, he's watching you, even your mere thoughts of negativity will lead to your demise.

Given that, in the absence of capitalism socialism has only ever produced the societies portrayed in Orwell's works, it's foolish for those sympathetic to communism to stand there and try to declare that capitalists informed by Orwell's work may not make observations on that basis.

Take note: without capitalism and the profit motive, the only thing socialists produce is negative-value-added tractors. And tyranny. So, so much tyranny.

The Cheeto man is big brothering all of you right now , good luck people of the USA

let your robot not gibber so rapidly! slow down. Even better: use a REAL human to speak the text!

I want to go to the universe where I didn't lose my 16 yo son. I miss him so much.

Really? He just said without objective truth we are doomed for totalitarianism and you say, we need to accept that we have no objective truth? ok, so you see what follows? Check out David Bohm, David Hawkin, Slovaj Zizek, there is an objective truth, pair it with the hero's journey, the inverse square law, figure to foreground, wave or particle, dead or alive, there is an objective truth, there is death and there is life, we can see that objectively not just subjectively, but also Jesus is the truth but either start or end there cause either way you go leads to the same truth.

It's so crazy how North Korea is a real world 1984.

USA 2025: We let it happen.

I read both novels. The scariest part is that this is happening right before our eyes.

Not a cynic, but more a realist.

Its fascinating how being "good" can sometimes lead to unintended results. Does true morality depend on the outcomes of our actions, or it is more about intentions? This paradox makes me question how we define goodness in a complex world. 🙃

Didn't know Orwell was coughing up turberculosis while writing 1984.

Really? You took us through the whole video and came to the conclusion that, and I quote: "Perhaps our only hope, somewhat countering Orwell's view, is realizing that, in fact, there is no ultimate objective truth (at least that we have access to), and that objective is likely all there is, and all there will ever be for us..."
What a surprising and cowardly conclusion to come to.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts though.

Being a nice person means you ignore the red flags and put yourself in danger anyways then you realize that good and bad are merely just social constructs

Democracy is just totalitarianism against the opposition.

the fact that almost WORD FOR WORD what you described for 1984 is happening now scares the crap out of me, banned words, going against anyone who defy the government. This is becoming reality so fast

Orwell’s dark vision, there was another—slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. - from article "Huxley was Right" re Neil Postman's book “Amusing Ourselves to Death” (1985)

Good video but I'm still trying to get the title. So is the "Paradox of Being a Good Person" that you become depressed and jaded?

This entire video was just a biography of Orwell! This had nothing to do with the title! Wtf!?

Don't let it happen. It depends on you.

Not worth it 😁 life with regret of being walked over. Evil always succeeds.

Orwell's books needs to be read so we can understand the importance of freedom and picture how totalitarism can be, now is more important than ever. Trump meeting a dictator like Putin, Trump undermining facts and telling lies in such a shameless and obvious ways and people somehow love this grotesque circus. We are in very thin ice, very dangerous times can lead to very sad future.

Author writes anti socialist work. Shows how socialism leads to tyrannical nightmares. Concludes the capitalism is worse somehow.

We read Animal Farm in middle school and my teacher lied and said it was about communism despite communist economics literally never being brought up in the book even once. 🙄🙄

Orwell was born in Bihar

I recently heard someone on UK radio saying very confidently that every generation should review and if necessary rewrite history based on the opinions and cultural awareness of the time. I shouted against that (as if they could hear me!) NO! History is history. If you rewrite it you can never learn from it and you repeat the mistakes. So much we see today is giving people a skewed view of the realities of history, and people are reacting to it from today's fashionable premises.

idk how he can advocate for socialism, against capitalism while advocating for distributed economies. Capitalism is definitionally a distributed economic system. If this confuses you, read "Conflict of Visions" by Sowell

Also read Orwell's book "Road to Wigan Pier". He explains in the book he had a falling out with the socialist party of English, and remained an unaffiliated socialist. an important detail

I saw this video elsewhere

Watching the U.S. descend into a picture perfect Orwellian dystopia is horrifying. When the government bans and restricts Orwell's books it is not because the books themselves are inherently bad, but rather they are dangerous to the tyrannical fascist party(ies) in power. For Orwell's books enlighten their readers and thinking people are harder to control. I believe the governments biggest mistake was to let 1984 ever be read in classes, for it was the book that awoke my cognizance against it's fascist tenancies. If you are American you must read 1984, we may soon live it.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is largely forgotten, but in my view, it's more accurate than 1984, as good as the latter is. Huxley takes us into genetics and drugs as well, for how the elite shape and control the people.

Orwell's novels are truly genius and while I have noticed the imbalances of our country and it's leaning toward Oligarchy, I did not anticipate the effects propaganda and now book bans would ultimately have on our country. My only hope is that the people who have been lied to for years will now wake up and realize the whole sale takeover of our government due to voter suppression will hurt everyone. Also I will push back and say that there are objective truths such as, We are all in this together whether we believe or like it or not. United we stand divided we fall.

Thanks!

His real identity is Adolf

His real name is banned

Publisher ?
Elections?
You tub 😅

Step into the present. There are issues this narrator couldn't bring up and debate civilly and dispassionately, and words he couldn't say (and I don't mean horrifically vulgar ones) without this video being "demonetized." What we say and how we say it is already regulated, and may be even more so as AI "suggests" more and more words and "writes" more and more of our content. At the same time, we recently saw an election where some people who had absorbed so much one-sided propaganda were so angry and terrified at the thought of one side or the other winning, that they prophesied complete doom and even renounced friends and relatives who voted differently. I told my husband that I had never understood how the Antichrist would be able to make people so believe evil of their neighbors that they would be willing to kill them, but I think I saw a hint of that in our last election. You just have to brand people who believe differently than you with an emotive label and make that label the most important thing about them. It's simply a way of dehumanizing people.

This is really well written. Kudos.

Basically, Orwell wanted more people to be intellectual... I understand...