Originally Posted by
BF263533
"1984 by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party. Life in the Oceania province of Airstrip One to a supposed collective greater good." (from understanding Politics – Study Guide) emphasis added
The comments about the "greater good" in this thread take me back to a political theory course that I took around 1972. The back and forth banter in this thread could be used as assigned readings in college courses in several different disciplines.
Asking for the relevance of specific comments is fair. However, rather than leap to the idea that people maket them because they are trying to institute or back an oppressive totalitarian regime, perhaps we should apply Occam's Razor and come up with a less oppressive opinion of one's fellow posters.
The reason people discuss it is because it has to be considered, even if ultimately rejected, in any specific case.
There are examples of greater good that are, in fact, good - not saying they apply in this case, but the point is, they do exist.
- The medical system of triage in the event of limited resources. The idea is to apportion the available resources first to those who both need it urgently, and who will be most likely to benefit from it (i.e they don't have a risk of dying no matter what.)
- The greater good for overbooking was deemed to be higher revenue obtained without raising ticket prices. Ticket prices have not kept pace with inflation. Yes, this is a topic worthy of discussion, but do not assume that people necessarily want a return to higher fares.
- Business class flyers are rarely bumped out of the plane entirely but merely downgraded into a lower class.