Secret Story Circles Seed Rebellion in an Orwellian world
Oceania | April 1984
Amidst much deliberation over whether the Brotherhood is a real rebellion effort, or just another trick the Party plays on its members, there have been reports of a different kind of revolution stirring in Oceania.
Unconfirmed reports claim that groups have been seen to go on hikes in nature, or enter the back rooms of seedy bars and sit or stand in circles, talking. One witness who claims to have come across them in the open said they seemed to just be getting to know each other. Talking about their pasts, their fears—all taboo—but nothing illegal.
An unnamed source who claims to be part of the group said:
We start with radical acceptance, trust, human connection… everything else can come out of that foundation.
Purportedly, the Story Circles are spaces for people to be themselves, share their stories, connect, and build trust under and away from the ever-seeing eye of Big Brother. A soft revolution if there was one, in a world where the Truth is constantly adjusted to suit Party interests, and any sense of individuality is suppressed in service of the Collective. The group turns away from the attractive literature-sharing of the so-called Brotherhood in favour of direct human connection and shared experiences.
Is radical acceptance the new insurgency against fascist dictatorship?
Time will tell, for now Big Brother has no comment. But he is watching…
For new readers: See our guide to reading the dispatches:
This week’s dispatch is directly inspired by last week’s book club session, on George Orwell’s 1984. We had a rich and wide-ranging conversation about a book that hits so close to home here in 2026.
For our futures activity, we played with Causal Layered Analysis, to unpack the underlying metaphors and myths that hold a world like 1984 together, and then to reframe them to imagine how a new, better world might emerge.
Frustrated with Orwell’s choice to quash any hope of rebellion in the original text, we also explored how a successful rebellion might come to pass in this too-familiar dystopia. One idea rang out: secret conversation meetings, purely for the purpose of human connection and trust in a world designed to make everyone spy and therefore completely distrustful of each other, themselves and the truth.
If radical acceptance is the way out of the Party, then what small act of rebellion can we play with now in 2026?
Join us for our next edition of Hopeful Speculations: In May we’ll be reading Sim Kern’s The Free People’s Village for some hopepunk set in a dystopia where everything is “green” on the surface…