Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnyD
From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
— George Orwell; 1984
I'm sure someone else has recognized the similarities but I haven't personally read similar observations anywhere.
It seems every day our government (and society as a whole) takes micro-steps that lead towards the big brother theme of 1984. Even the reporting of our troops' "victories" overseas are startlingly similar to those of Oceania's victories over Eurasia and Eastasia.
Our government preaches "vigilance" and "report any suspicious activities". The results of which have turned into innocent Americans being investigated or detained for extended periods of time.
Earlier this month on 9/11, there were numerous cases of Homeland Security taking "suspicious parties" off of planes and detaining them for hours and sometimes days - revoking their right to life, liberty and justice - because someone else reported to the authorities that they looked suspicious. Yet, not a single one of those situations resulted in detaining an actual person of interest.
The cliche example is the Patriot Act. Broad, unwarranted surveillance of any American for any reason. Just this morning I read an article about a photographer/stormchaser that was on a bridge taking pictures of Irene and someone reported his activity. Homeland security called his family and friends and had been investigating him for an undetermined length of time. I'd bet his phones were tapped, email/internet was monitored and total privacy was invaded - all because he was taking pictures of a hurricane.
I started this post with no real "point" but hopefully to foster some non-partisan discussion. These situations supersede political parties and bold examples of similarities to 1984 can be made during both Bush and Obama's presidencies.
Anyone have any thoughts?
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Sure. Orwell and Aldous Huxley were prophets of sorts, and you're seeing the arrival of some of their predictions here and in all the "developed" countries. Orwell's vision of control by propaganda, force, and fear has always been a means of controlling a populace. We are recirculating it in our society. But it seems less oppressive because we are combining a soft despotism with Huxley's vision of control by technology and seduction. Orwell's propaganda persuades us, and Huxley's technology conditions us to love it. We have evolved from a culture of "rugged individualism" to one of normative behaviorism.
Trinkets of pleasure fed to us by mass production and mass media and mass business intertwined with mass government satisfy us and medical advances, especially drugs, sustain us. But, Orwell and Huxley took their vision to the extreme. We might be, as Spence might say, "vectoring" in that direction, but, I think human nature is stronger than fiction, and it will prevail with minor or major revolutions.
We did have a revolution that gave us a Constitution which, if followed, would make the Orwellian vision impossible. On the other hand, if we keep slipping into the Huxley dependence on the elite to pleasure us with trinkets and give us drugs to blunt the pain of existence . . .