This was supposed to be Google Maps review, but then it went beyond the expected review format.

Senate House is a remarkable Art Deco building built in 1932-7 for UoL, used by the government for the Ministry of Information during WWII, and then returned to UoL. It is closed to the general public except during Open House days. While it is “young” by London standards, it already has three unmissable stories: its Art Deco origins, its role during WWII, and its connection to Orwell’s 1984.

Table Of Contents

ART DECO

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AD peak coincided with the Great Depression. While not many cities have significant AD buildings, every continent has its AD stars. North America: New York (the most iconic AD city, with inventory and guided tours by ADSNY), and Miami. South America: Buenos Aires (old money) and São Paulo (new money). Australasia: Napier (AD rebuilt after an earthquake) and Melbourne. Asia: Mumbai (Ind-Deco) and Shanghai (financial dominance assertion). Africa: Casablanca (French Imperialism) and Asmara (Duce’s experiment). Europe: Paris (the birthplace of AD) and Brussels (grassroots boom of AD townhouses).

SH in Bloomsbury is one of the relatively few London AD buildings (Rockefeller provided significant funding). Another example is Freemasons’ Hall in Covent Garden (funded by members).

WWII

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Senate House housed the Ministry of Information (propaganda and censorship) and survived WWII. The urban myth about being on the no-target list because Hitler earmarked it for post-war headquarters is false. It was hit directly 9 times and survived thanks to Charles Holden’s fortress-worthy fireproof design, rigorous masking and blackout, the Luftwaffe’s poor bombing precision and luck.

1984 & 2D [SCALE AND HARM] EXTRAPOLATION

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Connection Between the Senate House Building and A 1984 Dystopia

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George Orwell’s wife worked in the Ministry of Information (propaganda and censorship) housed in the SH building during WWII. Her experiences might have inspired the 1984’s Ministry of Truth.

Commonality Between Spartan and Hedonistic Dystopias

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Now, at least three regimes – North Korea, Russia, and Iran – opt for “permanent war”. Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” (incidentally, AH was GO’s teacher at Eton) is scarily prophetic for the Western world. Hedonistic BNW and spartan 1984 worlds have a lot in common:

1. asymmetric control over reality testing and imposing a shared narrative;
2. isolation or devaluation of alternative information sources, and general bandwidth saturation;
3. amplification and repetition of narrative-reinforcing info, criticism and minimisation of the rest (cf. Simpson’s paradox);
4. forcing homeostasis over evolution;
5. giving a one-alternative “choice” without other options, or decision-making toolbox, as a guise of freedom;
6. enforcement through guilt/fear, gifts/treats or both. This may include guilt over sacrifices the enforcer has made to run the enforcement;
7. DARVO (deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender);
8. grouping victims by non-causal traits: ethnicity, sex/gender, age.
9. chronic stress can produce ADHD-like difficulties, health issues and addictions for all. This can be weaponised to reinforce the narrative. Should improve outside.

Extrapolation on Real Life

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Do I have a selective bias or can these mechanisms apply wider? E.g. scale can differ: state, workplace, a “consultant,” or a family/partner. Degree of harm: financial or opportunity loss to genocide.

Linking Hannah Arendt’s work on the banality of evil (Eichmann), “Crimes of Obedience” and Umberto Eco’s list of 14 ur-fascism traits.

Small-scale example may be families with conditional “love” and aggression transfer. Medium-scale example is “insecure overachievers” as defined by Empson in HBR.  A “consultant” example is Molière’s Tartuffe, or doctors issuing “misunderstood ND genius with high IQ” diagnoses without an independent IQ test. Even this reasoning could be a small-scale gaslighting if misapplied.

Large-scale example does not have to be the entire state. Education systems include Soviet schools – see 08/25 NUS podcast with gen. Zaluzhny’s on Soviet school intrinsic grade issues, even if corruption and favouritism are avoided.

Self-perception Of Enforcer

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As per ex-CIA Amaryllis Fox’s 2016 interview with AJ+, everyone believes they are good; so are the enforcers (same as for corporal punishment). Pro-active enforcement can feel stressful and require sacrifices to look fit for enforcement (cf. stepsister’s feet in Grimm’s Aschenputtel). When cornered, escalation-under-threat pattern may realise.

Where To Draw The Line?

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Value transmission and self-preservation are legitimate rights of every system, but not at any price. No threory is complete (cf. Gödel), and any reasoning is biased. Recourse to objective professionals can avert Rashomon effect.