George Orwell 1984 Free Essays

George Orwell wrote his novel 1984, originally published in 1949, as a forecast of what will become of the political class. The year is 2018, and much has come to pass. Orwell may have missed the date of what happens in the future, but he did stipulate in detail what becomes of the future once the oligarchs take over power. We will write a custom essay sample on George Orwell 1984 or any similar topic only for you Order Now Orwell foretold of a society where the government would peddle propaganda to the citizens, all that, in an excursion to distract the people from the real problems in society. Propaganda, in this case, is used to alter the truth and manipulate people into thinking that whatever the party says, the party is never incorrect. The works of 1984 by George Orwell is an example of where art imitates life. Through Winston, Orwell paints the picture of 1984; â€Å"large TV screens that broadcast government propaganda, news and approved entertainment† in addition to having the Ministry of Truth as the architect of the lies (Beale). Misinformation is the tool of the trade for most politicians, if not all, in the contemporary time. Propaganda in its crude form is the dispensation of untruthful information aimed at disrupting a person, nation, or idea so as the maker of the false statements can draw benefits from the situation. In 1984, The Party took its need to spread propaganda to the extremes; The Party operates the people of Oceania to say and think in a way the party deems fit. Communications made in Oceania carry politically charged messages, and the residents are to believe the words and act in accordance if the state of Oceania tells them otherwise. In the article, â€Å"Propaganda and Surveillance in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four: Two Sides of the Same Coin†, Michael Yeo states that â€Å"propaganda divides revealingly and essentially into two main forms, which I call the propaganda of fact and the propaganda of fiction† which is revealed throughout the novel (Yeo 51). Winston demonstrates a kind of propaganda that is universal in the novel, such as propagation of lies as facts, while Julia represents the propaganda of fiction working in the Fictional Department on a novel writing machine.In the novel, Winston states â€Å"I know, of course, that the past is falsified, but it would never be possible for me to prove it, even when I did the falsification myself† (Orwell 155). Winston Smith was the head of rewriting history and destroying records that did not reflect well on the regime. The Ministry of Truth was meant to update records to fit the policies of the Oceania government. The falsifying of documents had taken place for a long time, and Winston was erasing old lies with new ones. While producing propaganda for the Oceania government, Winston worked under self-censorship by working as per the estimates of The Party needs. The works of propaganda get channeled to the public through the Times newspaper. The media today just like the Times in 1984; it helps the political class spread propaganda. The need to publicize propaganda is alluring to the extent that governments own media outlets where government agenda gets spread. Propaganda has the sole of aim of changing the opinion of a person to one that is favorable for the oligarch. In the 2017 presidential elections in the United States of America, propaganda was at the center of the campaigns for the top contenders. The information supplied during the campaign period was meant to shape the opinion of the voters, and that is what propaganda does (Beale). Newspeak is a propaganda tool used in 1984, to replace ordinary English. On page fifty-two of the novel, Winston asserts â€Å"Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought crime literally impossible†. Through Newspeak, fictional ideas get spread as the truth. It is vital for lies to stand out as the truth and that was the reason Oceania oligarchs came up with Newspeak. It was strange how the government of Oceania managed to subvert the thoughts of many people by defining terms in their conceptual opposites, for example, freedom is slavery. It was important that Oceania government used a one-dimensional language to hide the truth. The style and ideas of expression presented in Newspeak are what the public and corporate officials, and the mass media utilize; when they speak for the political class. Today, democracy, freedom, and equality are a cover-up used when referring to the societal levels, and inequality in capitalist democracies like the United States of America.In the world today, governments are up in arms to fight terrorism. It is not a denial that there have been several acts of terrorism around the globe, but how can the world be at war with an enemy that is unknown. â€Å"Taxpayers’ money goes in million-dollar projects aimed at subverting the next terror act† (Tugwell 53). All this takes place while there are more pressing issues to attend to, like making sure all the old persons in society get the desired care. In Oceania, the government told of a war that never existed. The enemy’s name could change from time to time just to keep the citizens confused. Just like in the war against terrorism, the targets are in constant change. The architects of terrorism are not known, and it cannot get blamed on a race, religion or country. Luckily for those living in the current times, critical thinking is not a crime as was in 1984 where â€Å"Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death† (Orwell 36). The war on terror is not coming to an end any time soon, the longer the war, the more people live in fear, all for the benefit of the government. From the novel 1984 by George Orwell, The Party used peer group pressure, removal of privacy, dress codes, obedience, and fear of spreading propaganda. The people of Oceania were not supposed to resist new ideas as fronted by The Party; they often found the need to belong to The Party and the Anti-Sex League. In the United States of America, the two major political parties are the Democrats and the Republicans. When the people of America fight to belong to any of the parties they agree to get bound by the agenda of the party. Whatever the parties speak about other faction is taken as the truth. In Oceania, there was only one political party. In the United States there is more than one political party, but they all serve the imperial needs of the country (Beale). Much like the novel of 1984, the continuous amounts of spying and monitoring of the people can be reflected into our society currently: Today websites like Facebook track our likes and dislikes, and governments and private individuals hack into our computers and find out what they want to know. Then there are the ever-present surveillance cameras that spy on the average person as they go about their daily routine (Beale).In comparison with the novel, the telescreens, Big Brother pictures, and constant surveillance also take away people’s privacy and privilege to go about their day peacefully much like our civilization. Moreover, The Oceania government did not spy secretly; the citizens knew they were under supervision; the thought of being watched shaped people’s actions as there was no room to be ones’ self. The government of Oceania made the citizens believe there were enemies amongst them, the people who supported Goldstein, hence the measures were necessary. Propaganda not only takes away privacy away from people, but it also allows the government to monitor online activities of people, including the reading of sent texts all in the disguise of checking out for any signs of planned terror activities. Oceania was in an endless war with East Asia. The enemies of Oceania kept the government on toes, to wage wars while neglecting the needs of her people. The United States has always had enemies, and it is ever at war. The United States has taken upon itself to fight for world stability, even if the battles destabilize countries. The citizens are made to believe that they are well off than all other people around the world and it is the responsibility of the government to ‘take care’ of the world. The U.S has invaded many states in the assumed role of the world leader. The countries invaded include Vietnam, Iraq, and Libya among many others. The United States invaded the nations to restore peace and stability, but that was not the case once they left. Iraq and Libya have remained politically unstable since the they wrapped up on her mission in the countries. One wonders why the U.S would attribute stability and peace as the reasons of invading countries that are peaceful and stable before the eyes of the world, only to leave them unstable and in civil conflicts. All that is the work of propaganda, the agenda of all the wars the United States is involved in is to secure the interests of the political class.George Orwell wrote the book, 1984, not knowing how long it would take for the future to turn out as exemplified in the book, but the book is not only futuristic but also prophetic of the future. Propaganda together with other tools is used to manipulate and control the residents of Oceania and show readers how their government functions similarly to our current system of economics and media. The political class of Oceania believed that whoever was at the helm at the moment controls the future and could do the same to the past. Making people think that there is war is the government’s way to maintain peace. War brings people together by inspiring devotion and patriotism. The war on terror has done the same thing to several people around the world and the citizens of the United States of America. Propaganda keeps democracies running since it is the tool of the oligarchs to hold a nation hostage without their knowledge. Any idea, rumor, or misinformation deliberately spread about an idea, institution, government or a person, are all acts of propaganda; they are everyday occurrences in the world today.? How to cite George Orwell 1984, Papers George Orwell 1984 Free Essays â€Å"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. † (1984, Orwell, p 69). We will write a custom essay sample on George Orwell 1984 or any similar topic only for you Order Now In the book, 1984, by George Orwell, Winston –who works at the Ministry of Truth- lives a life where the government controls everything you do, even what you get to think about. The city of Oceania obeys the laws by the Big Brother, or the president. If anyone were to go against what Big Brother says or wants, he/she is to be taken into custody, and â€Å"treated† for insanity. George Orwell managed to write a fictional book about our present day society and how the government tells us we are free to do whatever, as long as we abide by the countries laws, which in itself is slavery. George Orwell incorporates the ideas of McDonaldization, where our society possess the qualities of a fast food restaurant. There are four primary components of McDonaldization; efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. Efficiency is choosing the optimal method for completing a task. For our government, this would be a way to get a bill passed the fastest or finding a way to keep the people from doing a thing they feel is out of the question. Calculability is the idea that having a large amount of product delivered in a short amount of time is the same as a high quality product. This is the same as the businesses in our society doing things as fast as they can to get more product out, and jacking up the prices to make a high profit off of these low end products. Predictability means that no matter where a person goes, they will receive the same service and receive the same product every time when interacting with a McDonaldized organization. Lastly, control is standardized and uniform employees. This is like replacing all of our employees with computer based machines, because they are â€Å"more efficient†. As you can see, our society is becoming greatly McDonaldized. The government has changed so greatly of the past 100 years, that most people don’t remember or even know what it was like back then, or it is simply the fact that the government has made the past seem like such a orror, that it has been ingrained into peoples minds that we are better off now. How could you tell how much of it was lies? It might be true that the average human being was better off now than he had been before the Revolution. The only evidence to the contrary was the mute protest in your own bones, the instinctive feeling that the conditions you lived in were intolerable and that at some other time they must have been different. It struck him that the truly characteristic thing about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurity, but simply its bareness, its dinginess, its listlessness. Life if you looked about you, bore no resemblance not only to the lies that streamed out of the telescreens, but even to the ideals that the Party was trying to achieve. (1984, Orwell, p 63) Winston realizes that the past had been different that what the Party (government) was telling everyone. They had made up lies about the past just to make the future seem like a blessing. Sure, they had no privacy because of the telescreens, but they had so much more to equal it out. This is just like when the police tap a phone, or subpoena a person’s text messages, just to cross reference an alibi. This is an invasion of privacy and they have no right. Now, the Senate Intelligence Committee is looking into some allegations by two former linguists, whom are saying that the Super Secret National Security Agency routinely eavesdropped on telephone calls of American military officers, journalists, and aid workers. It is being said that they even heard such highly private conversations as them having â€Å"phone sex† and didn’t think anything was being done wrong. (Truthout, 2008) The government has taken this freedom thing that they have so generously given us, and is making it into slavery. After being captured and sent to the Ministry of Love, Winston soon learned that torture went a lot farther than just the pain of being beaten. Much like they were teaching at Fort Huachuca, they knew how to torture people. When his nerves were in rags after hours of questioning, even the appeal of bullying could reduce him to tears. In the end the nagging voices broke him down more completely than the boots and fists of the guards. He became simply a mouth that uttered, a hand that signed whatever was demanded of him. His sole concern was to find out what they wanted him to confess, and confess it quickly, before the bullying started anew. Winston was forced to do and say so many things that weren’t true just because they told him to. He was so afraid of being beaten over and over again that he would have done anything to make it stop. Is this what our military is being taught now? Why else would they arrest a priest for protesting torture training at Fort Huachuca in Arizona? An article on truth-out. org talks about how Louis Vitale, 75, a Franciscan priest, and Steve Kelly, 58, a Jesuit priest, were sentenced to five months each in federal prison for attempting to deliver a letter opposing the teaching of torture at Fort Huachuca in Arizona. Both priests were taken directly into jail from the courtroom after sentencing. So just because they were against what the government was teaching, they were arrested and sent to prison. Where’s the justice in that? The government gave us the freedom to be their slaves. As if it isn’t enough that they are taking this much control over us, but now the idea of the RFID tags is being introduced. RFID, or radiofrequency identification are miniscule microchips that have been shrank down to the size of a grit of sand. They can be attached to anything such as a sweater, which could then be traced to the credit card you bought it with, which in turn could track you to when you return. It can act like a â€Å"minority report† for the police as a trendy method of constant â€Å"cradle-to-grave† surveillance. This would mean absolutely no privacy in anything we do. We would be constantly watched, and could be questioned about anything we do. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the times. But at any rate, they could plug into your wire at any time they wanted to. You had to live- did live, from habit that became instinct- on the assumption that every sound you made was overheard and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized. (1984, Orwell, p 7) Do we really want to live like this? Like we have to be cautious about everything we say and do because we know that someone is always watching. The only reason for this chip would be so that the government could control us. They would push us so far that we would be afraid to do anything, because we would know the consequences of wrong doing in our own homes. In itself, our freedom would be our own form of slavery. In conclusion, the government has taken this whole â€Å"you are free to do as you please as long as you abide by the laws† thing to a whole new level. Sure, we have the freedom of speech and the freedom to protest and all of the other freedoms that they amendment allows, but how â€Å"free† can we really be within those guidelines. That priest was arrested for his freedom of speech, our freedom of privacy would be taken away by the chips and also by the government eavesdropping on our private phone calls. This so called freedom that we have been given, doesn’t seem so free after you take away the pretty words of the constitution. Seems more like slavery in a new form; the McDonaldized form. Reference http://www.truth-out.org/article/priests-jailed-protesting-fort-huachuca-torture-training How to cite George Orwell 1984, Essay examples