1984

            I liked 1984 for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, who doesn’t enjoy a bit of thought crime? It’s not a concept we’re familiar with because we do not have the limitations concerning every aspect of our lives. But will Winston bite the hand that feeds him? Problem with that is they aren’t doing that good of a job feeding him. To fix this problem there are a few safeguards put into practice. The political philosophy INGSOC is totalitarian. And their motto is “Big Brother is Watching You.” Totalitarianism is a major theme and aspect of “Big Brothers” political indoctrination. This philosophy is explored early on in the book setting the foundation for controversy. All of the party slogans are contradictory. Maintaining that war is peace creates a paradox. This and the statement “two and two makes five” is part of the party’s concept of “double think”.  

Back to the main point, The Telescreens watch almost every single aspect of the people’s lives. This is one method of ensuring that everyone is staying in line. The second way they control the masses is by indoctrination is by writing history as they see fit. It’s clear that whoever controls the past controls the present. What I like is that they channel everyone’s emotions, fears, and energy towards one directive: Goldstein. This is one way they remove any opposition.  The newspeak language reminds me of The Giver in the fact that its purpose is to remove any emotion or “unnecessary” words from the diction. This is another means of controlling the people. If they can’t think of the concept or idea of what a words means, how can they convey that feeling? We know what a tree is merely by hearing the word. The word itself is only a conjunction of letters. It’s the idea it conjures that we focus on. 1984 is one of my favorite books because of the dystopian society. I think that Orwell wrote it in 1948 after the war to illustrate some of his fears for what a post war world could have looked like. Besides, there were more than enough types of governments present in that era and I think he saw the possibility of a new world order so to speak. Propaganda is probably the most prevalent part of the book. After all, all of the nations in that time used some tailored for to provoke a response.