Freedom is not the freedom to say that 2+2=4

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Freedom is whatever you, and/or society, says it is. Freedom is a label we give to certain situations/feelings.

It's an interesting example you have chosen though, ( 2 + 2 = 4 ), because I was just wondering what freedom to dissent would look like in the context of language. Language has all the force of a Big Brother over many people's lives.

Saying "Freedom is ... anything" is already acceptance of the laws of language.

"Freedom" is a social construct, an illusion, produced by language. Even saying "Freedom is life without language" is under language's thumb. Like thinking escape from Big Brother would be freedom is shown to be an illusion in the book.

Perhaps the greatest freedom is in accepting that Big Brother controls everything, and finding this "good". Freedom is whatever you believe it to be. You can make yourself "happy", if you believe in freedom, by thinking that it is everywhere, in any situation you find yourself in.

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Sorry. My take on what you wrote was that "freedom" was to say 2 + 2 = (anything but 4) which is true on one level but misrepresents the point that George Orwell was likely making in 1984.

The answer I would have put isn't an option
2+2 = 100

At least, it does in binary anyways...
00000100

Or better yet, I guess that would mean 10 + 10 == 100
Because

00000010 || 2
00000010 || 2 +
------------------
00000100 || 4

As someone pointed out above, Orwell was attacking a slogan of Stalinist Russia: "A five year plan in four years" (or a line similar to that).

I think Orwell's ultimate point was his satire of Marxism. The Party in 1984 has taken the dialectic logic of Marx and the notion that only certain classes, upon certain economic structures occuring, have priviledged access to truth. Orwell was deeply against Marxism and hoped his 2+2=5 would highlight the falsehood of Marx's (and consequently Stalin's) conviction that logic and access to truth were not open to everyone but only a privileged class. I do not know if Orwell thought logic was some objective human independent thing or just a human concept. He did however, think that Marx's philosophy would lead to unconsciously power hungry people to become dictators because they thought their vision of the world was the 'true one'.

I do think you confuse the issue though. There is one metaphysical question about if 2+2=4 is objective or if 2+2=5 is possible and then there is an ethical question about the nature of freedom, namely if notions of freedom should be influenced by metaphysical notions of logic. To ask if Orwell was a subjectivist only the first question needs answering, unless you are asking if Orwell was an ethical subjectivist, in which case only the second question needs answering. They are independent questions. As for my opinions, I don't trust metaphysics or ethics so I have none

I've already addressed most people who have attacked me, which is to say that you haven't beaten anyone to the punch, at all.

I know what Orwell's point was, and I know what he was attacking. I've already said as much to Orwell(the poster), and have responded with this kind of acknowledgment. Strangely enough, I am attacked for being too literal, when everyone is taking me too literally.

I don't confuse the issue, AT ALL. Everyone else who appeals to Orwell is confusing the issue. "What Orwell really meant" is actually completely irrelevant to my point, which stands no matter what is said about Orwell, as my point isn't about Orwell AT ALL. The man's dead, and his is a fiction book, not a treatise, and it wasn't written to address the issue I am addressing. The use of Orwell is to some extent, just a bit of artistic license, not a statement on Orwell's actual thinking processes.

I think AG is making a good point. Although in the context of 1984, the "2+2=4" thing works, in other contexts, like the Spanish Inquisition example, the logical conclusion would be that "freedom is the freedom to say that 2+2=whatever you believe it is, etc".

I was going to reply, but Orwell knocked this one out of the park.

I'm perfectly aware of your artistic license and that Orwell's opinion was not your point. However, most replies you got were about Orwell so I also contributed to that topic. Given that no one has spoken about Marx my contribution was original. Also, I was actually backing up your regular response that questions about the objectivity of logic are not relevant to your argument by showing they were not relevant to Orwell's either and therefore your point stood independent of Orwell's opinions.

However, you seemed to miss that I responded to your actual point, I merely used Orwell to merely phrase my point. I shall rephrase it to be Orwell-less.



So do you claim that for every proper truth there is an opposite to it? Hence a perfect example of proper truth is 2+2=4 and if that is true then 2+2!=4 follows? If so, this is a point about the metaphysics of logic which has no relevance to ethics. Perhaps I misread and you refer to the discovery of truth, that regardless of what is true we can only conceptualise truths if that particular truth has an opposite? If so, this is an epistemological claim that has no relevance to ethics. If 2+2=4 is only possible if 2+2!=4, or if we only have access to truths with opposites is fundamentally independent of a human's rights. However, you directly say that to “discover the proper truth in the first place” requires “the right to say that 2+2!=4” (or presumably about any topic, not just logic). So to establish the truth or falsity of Catholicism in Spain under the inquisition requires the right to say atheism/Islam/whatever is true? Would this be your argument? If so, then this claim has nothing to do with notions of truth and falsify, fine, we both agree. I cannot see how it relates to freedom though. It is a sociological claim we are more likely to come across truths if there is freedom of ideas. That would be completely different to the topic of what freedom is. You then provide an analogy to back up your point: “How can a right to say one thing be truly a right, if there is no opposite to it? I certainly don't have the right to work, if I am forced into that, am I? Aren't I enslaved instead? The same seems to hold on this matter!” I cannot see how this analogy functions. That freedom is increased if concepts have opposites because it increases the possibility of truth? If so, you need first to link the desirability of truths to freedom, which is what was lacking from your original post, or I've simply not followed you.

Perhaps you could restate your opinions more clearly. Given that most people have only spoken about Orwell than what you actually want to talk about, this could be because we are uncertain what you are actually trying to say.

AG, I think the problem is that you are taking a quote from a book out of context and then attacking it as wrong. When you quote a book, people will assume the context and the meaning of the author to be relevant, and they are correct in doing so as otherwise your OP is fairly meaningless.

And that's the point. Common sense was to obey the party, even when it said 2+2=5. "How can a minority of one be right?" was a common refrain, and this was what Eric Blair was attacking. He wanted to uphold the right to say 2+2=4 even when everyone else said otherwise.


This whole time I've been thinking you meant 2+(2 factorial)=4, and not quite understanding why that was relevant. Did you mean 2+2≠4?


And again, that was the point of the statement "freedom is the freedom to say that 2+2=4." Smith (in the book) wished to have the right to believe in what was obviously true (to him) in spite of it being contrary to the commonly regarded set of truths.

I dunno, I still think the problem is mostly just you taking a quote badly out of context and misinterpreting it.

I might have to go with 'X to tha Z' if we're gonna be like that .

Surely you've done enough programming to have seen != at some point no?

Well, I've seen it used like that, but I'm a math major first and actually haven't gotten into any programming yet. To me, ! primarily means factorial, especially if I see it immediately after a number.

And don't call me Shirley.

Trust me, I'm pissed off at those people. The first time, I was fine. The second time I was getting annoyed, so the third time I am openly impatient. I remember in your reply, you claim that someone had already brought to light the 5 year plan in 4 years problem, so, it doesn't seem that new.


No, I do not claim for every truth there is an opposite, but rather the claim is that truth is found through trial and error rather than just handed down, and thus without a means to contest truth claims, we cannot determine what is true.

So, to establish whether Catholicism is right(or wrong), the freedom to express atheist opinion is necessary.

That specific point does relate to the freedom of ideas and the ability to find truth because of that, and yes, that is a separate issue.

The idea isn't that freedom is increased if concepts have opposites but rather that freedom is increased if there are multiple options. The option to work cannot logically be a freedom if there isn't an option not to work. The option to say 1+1=2 is not a freedom unless there is the option to say that 1+1 does not = 2. This point seems relatively clear, and has very little to do with epistemology or ontology. I am not linking the desirability of truth to freedom, only providing a justification for my sense of freedom in the desirability of truth, so that isn't a problem.

Actually, I am reasonably clear. I think the line is pretty evenly divided between those who think I am talking about Orwell and those who recognize that I am not talking about Orwell. In any case, I actually am more willing to blame this matter on human stupidity than anything else. You can call this unfair, but I don't consider this an issue of meaningful judgment one way or the other really, as people literally misinterpret almost every topic that anyone posts. Blaming others does keep me sane. I could also blame the human condition as well, but human stupidity is part of the human condition, and if we were all amazing super-geniuses this issue would likely be better.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 27 May 2009, 10:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well, yes, because out of that context it is wrong.

No, they aren't correct if I outright say that this is incorrect, and I make a point that extends beyond the thrust of this. My OP isn't meaningless if I deny context, as I am rebutting a quote out of context.

You can say that is wrong, but people take quotes out of context all of the time and use them without this context, so me doing the same can be somewhat valid for making a point. After all, Foucault in "Civilization and Madness" gets his timing wrong on some of his history, but this really is irrelevant to his point, even though some historian might still blabber on about that little problem.


Right, the issue is that I want to push this into something that does not seem so noble. I mean, 2+2=4 seems pretty damn noble because we all recognize it as true, but 2+2=77 is so ignoble and absurd that arguing for it needs additional justification, no matter what. So, the point I am conveying is going to be slightly different if only due to the connotation put forward being different than Orwell's point.


Yes. I use != to mean that because I don't know how to make that sign quickly and easily, and because in Java, a programming language, putting != 'means not equal to'. It's how I've been doing this for the past few years.


Ok, but the point 2+2=77 is a less noble point, and it is telling that it is less noble. I mean, nobody is going to argue against the right to say what is true, but people are likely to be less firm with the right to be obviously wrong, and Orwell doesn't help the matter by making Winston right on this issue, and making his telling affirmation a correct affirmation. If Orwell was really making *my* point, he would make Winston paranoiac, a conspiracy theorist, a religious nut, etc, and use that as central to his story, with the affirmation as '2+2=77'. You can say that this difference isn't meaningful, but I would argue that this difference makes all of the meaning in the world, as the connotations are radically different, and connotations, while not having a denoted meaning, do have a real meaning in terms of our interpretation of reality.

Orwell, you know the issue where psychologists ask the same question but using different phrasing and get different responses? The issue here is somewhat similar, except much much more extreme than the previous example, because people will have a much greater ability to interpret these passages differently if they don't put much thought into the matter, as Orwell can realistically be taken to argue for "the good guys winning the battle of truth" by a reader who is less thoughtful, less systematic, or less rationalist than you would be, because Winston in this situation is fighting the battle for truth rather than the battle for untruth(the latter being what I am supporting), so my phrasing is taken such that it cannot realistically be interpreted in a manner similar to this at all, and even to have some odiousness to look at that would not be found in the original quote. Citing it in opposition is not problematic.

Why would I do this then? Well, I hadn't read Orwell recently at all actually, so my comment actually isn't motivated by Orwell at all. I mean, I obviously would prefer "2+2=77", considering that point more profound in general, than a right to the truth that every reader will know to be true and will identify with immediately, and other thinkers have preferred 2+2=5 such as Dostievsky in "The Underground Man", not in reference to the Soviets at all mind you, as they weren't around in that time frame. In fact, my comment is motivated by the desire of an atheist to sue the Catholic church for making claims about miracles at Lourdes. To combat this kind of a claim, I really *would* have to invoke a kind of ideology that is different than that which seems apparent with saying "freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4" as this guy certainly isn't opposed to the right to say "2+2=4", he is an evolutionary biologist as well(no it's not Dawkins) so he is very invested with having the right to say what is true and I'm certain he's involved in the fight for evolution. Rather, to make my claim, in favor of the Catholics and their miracles, I have to instead invoke a different kind of appeal, that "2+2=77", because this is obviously false, and an evolutionary biologist, who fights for truth, would thus be more prone to this kind of an attack than Orwell's "2+2=4", as no matter what Orwell meant in context, it would be toothless against a person who was fighting for a cause that many people also recognize as the cause of truth. Orwell wrote against totalitarian social control, that's fine. It's not what I am targeting though.

Now, is this attack incredibly analytical? No. It is actually more of a rant/diatribe, rather than a philosophical excursion, and the ultimate point would be more negative than it would be positive(as I am not siding with an epistemology or a clear definition of what is freedom, but rather defining it against something). It makes it's points, but it does not attempt to be perfectly point by point like an academic paper, but rather just elucidate an idea by making a false opposition and then contradicting it. To take it too analytically is to be too literal(a point you already accused me of). You can still uphold the opinion that I am just misinterpreting Orwell, but honestly, if I really cared to exegete Orwell in this situation, why didn't I even make reference to the context? I mean, this is more an instance of quote mining than it is an exegesis.

Of course it's wrong. A quote completely divorced from the context around it is quite often wrong.


Well, everyone perceives their own beliefs as obviously true, so even the person saying 2+2=77 sees it as though he were saying 2+2=4. But yeah, I see where you're going with the whole connotation bit. People have to have a right to be completely wrong, and the 2+2=77 example drives that home a lot better than Blair's 2+2=4. Although there are some later passages during Winston's interrogation that definitely support the right to hold demonstrably false beliefs.

I can very much stand behind that. It is just that some quotes are quotable, and this would be in the section of quotes that would seem quotable. So, I can oppose this quote in as much as it seems quotable, but I would have less reason to oppose the work it came from.


Right, but you have to keep in mind that I wasn't writing this with a real regard for addressing Orwell's work, otherwise I would have done more than addressed a *very* small piece of it. Obviously the section involving the torture is one of the most important aspects of the book in terms of understanding Orwell's views on the matter. I didn't review it before writing this post though, it was irrelevant to my aim.