Posted by Big Brother on January 04, 2003 at 12:27:38:
In Reply to: How is "1984" seen in today's society? posted by Lindsay on January 03, 2003 at 21:02:57:
I believe that 1984 is Orwell's prophetic vision on what are society is going towards as time progresses. He forsaw all these things way before the boom of technology, and it's scary to see how accurate his predictions have become in our society today. These are just my view points because I read the book just last week and was stunned, so you don't have to take all of these because they might be a little bit out there. My mindset and trust in the "American Way" was completely changed after reading this book. The whole part where he is reading the "War is Peace" chapter from "the book" is very possibly happening today in our society. For example, do you think the sole purpose of the war with Iraq is truly to defeat terrorism? I believe one would be naive to think this is the only motivation. War helps the economy, which ours is hurting, by getting rid of the surplus of consumption goods. It gives many "proles" like us jobs to produce goods for the war cause. It uses up our production possibilities for goods we can't really use, just like 1984 states about the ongoing war between the three world powers. I also believe that the government today has the type of mass-media control that the totalitarian regime of 1984 possesses. Almost every American has televisions (telescreens) which pump out constant propaganda making us feel a false sense of patriotism such as all the 9-11 hype. A lot of people cashed in off of that, just like the Party does in 1984. Most of the time the war is totally fictitious in the book just to keep the Party and the proletarians working and having high morales. It makes me wonder how much the news makes up about our wars in the Middle East with Afghanistan. One of the major themes of 1984 is that in powerful governments, like our own, human life becomes second important and people are looked at as merely consumers to meet the supply and demand of the economy. That is very true in our society today. What exactly are we working for? Our senators don't represent our views and ideas; only people who are filthy rich and run dirty-ads can win an election, and this is democracy? Another case of how 1984 is seen in society today is how the Ministry of Truth is constantly inventing facts that become absolute truth and rewriting history. How much truth do you think lies in our countries history books in schools? The government has the power to make us believe anything it wants us to. There are probably thousands of conspiracies that we are blind to. We are just the average, insignificant proles. Orwell's nightmarrish vision of what the world would be in 1984 is surprisingly accurate if you look at it perspectively. Yes, we still have our freedom and aren't completely controlled by a totalitarian government, but then again, how much of a threat are we to them? I believe they have the resources necessary to wipe anyone out of existence. They can get the masses to blindly believe any type of lie because who are we when we have truth against their power? The Fascist society of 1984 is not so far off from our own as we would like to believe. Orwell's classic novel is simply ingenious.