“Nineteen Eighty-Four is a novel by George Orwell published in 1949. It is a dystopian and satirical novel set in Oceania, where society is tyrannized by the Party and its totalitarian ideology.
The Oceanian province of Airstrip One is a world of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, and public mind control, dictated by a political system euphemistically named English Socialism (Ingsoc) under the control of a privileged Inner Party elite that persecutes all individualism and independent thinking as thought crimes.
Their tyranny is headed by Big Brother, the quasi-divine Party leader who enjoys an intense cult of personality, but who may not even exist. Big Brother and the Party justify their rule in the name of a supposed greater good.
The protagonist of the novel, Winston Smith, is a member of the Outer Party who works for the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue), which is responsible for propaganda and historical revisionism. His job is to re-write past newspaper articles so that the historical record always supports the current party line. Smith is a diligent and skillful worker, but he secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion against Big Brother.”
(Wikipedia synopsis)
I originally wrote my own synopsis of this book but I decided that it was far too long and by the end of such synopsis from my own hand, you might be too bored to make the analogies, if you are not already teetering on such a predicament.
This is perhaps the greatest novel of all time and it could be looked at as a foretelling of our society as it almost exists today…….
Are we moving towards a one-party society? Daily, you will find the Republican party vilified to the point of destruction. Individuals are identified, ridiculed and vilified to the point of personal destruction, often by those who are guilty of far more.
The major newspapers have become op-eds except in the face of natural disaster, and then you even have to verify the content if it is a political year. Does anyone remember the 10,000 people reported dead in a Kansas tornado during the 2007 election campaign for Barack Obama ----- the real number was closer to 10.
And what about the euphemisms such as “outspoken”, “blunt”, “fiery” ---- doublespeak for individualism and independent thinking.
Finally, the banning of contrary thought. The latest being a high school in Boca Raton which banned the appearance of one Bradlee Dean, founder of the Minnesota-based youth ministry group, You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, to speak after school at a meeting.
The examples can go on and on, however, the purpose of this article is to make you think and take stock of how much freedom you are willing to set aside in order to “not make waves”.
Talk to me people!!!!
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