FREE ESSAY ON 1984: FACT OR FICTION

1984: FACT OR FICTION

Since the onset of the United States, Americans have always viewed the future in two ways;
one, as the perfect society with a perfect government, or two, as a communistic hell
where free will no longer exists and no one is happy. The novel 1984 by George Orwell is
a combination of both theories. On the bad side, a communist state exists which is
enforced with surveillance technology and loyal patriots. On the good side, however,
everyone in the society who was born after the hostile takeover, which converted the once
democratic government into a communist government, isn't angry about their life, nor do
they wish to change any aspect of their life. For the few infidels who exist, it is a
maddening existence, of constant work and brainwashing. George Orwell's novel was
definitely different from the actual 1984, but how different were they? 
1984 starts out with a so called traitor to the party, Winston Smith, walking through the
streets nervously observing the video cameras that are watching his every move. He makes
his way into his apartment and produces a journal from his coat pocket. He thinks that
even this simple act of attempting to keep track of time and history could get him
vaporized. This scene portrays the strong grip the government has on its patrons. A
person either obeys them, or is killed, or put into a forced labor camp. After Winston
starts an illegal affair with a younger woman he gets careless and the party finds out
that he has committed what they call thought crimes. A thought crime is the intent to do
something illegal but not actually doing it. In Winston's world a thought crime is just
as severe as a physical crime. They arrest him and his girlfriend and torture them until
they realize what they did was wrong and that they love the party and will never do
anything to hurt it again.
Since the publication in 1949, Orwell's novel has consistently trigured heated debates
about whether or not our society has become like Oceania, how accurate Orwell's
predictions were, and which political parties' philosophies most resemble Ingsoc. The
political right and the political left have both used 1984 as the vasis for any number of
attacks upon their counterparts. One should remember, however, that Orwell never tells us
whether the Party's genesis grew our of the right or the left. The Party name of Ingsoc
bears no more resemblance to socialism than it does to facism. Even the old man in the
bar cannot remember "whose fault" Ingsoc is. To tell you the truth, it really doesn't
matter. While both the right and left have hailde this novel as exposing extreme
intentions of the other olitical part, the fact of the matter is that Orwell was a very
smart man and recognized that dictatorship is dictatorship- regardless of what poliical
creed the government espouses. Never once in the novel do we hear mention of the Party's
"uplifting the workers' struggle" or "saving individual rights from desecration by the
Huns." There simply are no politics in Oceania. In today's society, everything is
politcs. Its all about who you know, and who can get you what you want. Today politicians
in America are concerned about the struggles hard working Americans face each day. But
critics feel that the central idea that Orwell tried to get across is the fact that
Oceania can spring up from any society or government. Orwell places the capital right in
the heart of the nations that most represent freedom and individual rights, the United
States and Britain. From a historical context, Orwell looked at the ravages of World War
II that had yet to be repaired, and he saw the great poers ready to do glovbla battle
again. Orwell shows us that life in Oceania is dreary agony. The people have been reduced
to a lower level of cicilization; they have become little more than urban savages. The
war that is supposedly being fought with jEast Asia or Eurasia is mirrored by the war
between individuals within the Party. The greatest pessimism expressed in 1984 is that
war will be endless and that society will not recover its humanity. War in many ways has
become the worlds biggest pastime. Newspapers, radios and televisions are constantly
bombarded with stories of war and rampage from around the world. The world we live in
resembles Orwell's depiction of Oceania in many ways. We lack humanity and in many ways
fell that violice is the only solution to oru problems. 
Orwell is a socialist at heart, and he was a zealot for democracy in spirit. 1984 is a
call for individualism and independence from a government's structural control and social
organization. There must be a check on unbridled power. One cannot count on the goodness
of people. This quest for total power by The Party is an excellent dramatization of Lord
Acton's famous apothegm, power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The Party seems like it won't stop until it controls the minds of everyone under it's
power, and has complete physical and psychological surveillance on all people at all
time. This is exemplified in the fact that the government can look back at you through
your television, or telescreen as it is called in the book, and the governmet has set up
telescreens almost anywhere you can go. While they don't have telescreens in unpopulated
country sides, they have gone through the trouble to place hidden microphones disgused as
flowers in those areas. and while there are real no laws, the thought police can spy on
your thoughts at anytime, and can arrest and kill you on a whim. This policy is mythical.
It is not really used for punishment, but to scare everyone else into being good
citizens. 
1984 offers us the proposisition that the government excludes each and every member of
its society from one another. While the same has been said of our country, the best
example of this condition is Russia's choosing to oppress its pople by economic
privitation, police intimidation, and surveilance. The worst criticism that can be made
of our own government is its choosing not to do enough for its poor. This fundamental
difference is however real and important. There are finite bounds on what a government
can and cannot do. If this sounds like a tirade against the Soviet Union, it is meant to
be; there are an estimated four million people in the Gulag Archipelago prison work
camps. Many felt that rulers of Soviet Russia were doing what was best for its citizens,
but history portrays a different story. Our own society, of course, is not without its
faults, and it will probably never be perfect. But, foremost, 1984 was meant as a warning
to all of us what life can be like if we cavalierly forget what civil and human rights
are and what precious privileges they are.
Orwell was amazingly accurate in some of his predictions. His perceptions about global
political ships and the emergence of permanent zones of war have proven to be all but too
correct. He foresaw a nuclear arms buildup, grossly biolent movies, and the use of
helicopters in warfare. On other issues, he was partly right and partly wrong. He
envisioned the deification of political learders in the West, and he predicted that
television would become the principal means of communication to mass audiences. He
underestimated, however, its curbing effect upon audiences expossed to live footage of
wars. Such footage has tended, increasingly, to make war less glorious. And Orwell
completely micalculated his prediction that science would stagnate and technological
advancement would stall.
Some of the more interesting creations in the novel include: the Two Minutes Hate,
letters which can be checked off instead of written, and speakwrite (which has just been
invented). Orwell's use of acronyms and short-form names for complex ideas and devices,
however, shows us how rapidly we have become to rely on new abbreviations for new
concepts which we accept as commonplace today. But we have not sacrificed old words to
replace them. Today the names of agencies such as the Federal Burea of Investigation,
North Atlantic Trade Organization, and the Central intelligence Agency have become mere
initials (FBI, NATO, CIA). 
The chief concern of today's readers is directed to the feasibility of the society of
Oceanian itself. Can that happen here? The technology of Ingsoc is already here with us
today. Indeed, we have surpassed it. The internal mental mechanisms of doublethink,
blackwhite, and crimestop are the real glue that hold it all together. We use variations
of these concepts for everyday occurences: "I'll pretend I didn't see what I thought I
saw" and "If he said it's true, then I believe him." These illustrate that we use
self-control devices similar to those in 1984 to alter our perceptions or stop us from
doing things we shouldn'' do or think we shouldn't do. The difference is that our
government does not train us to use this practice everyday concerning our political
opinions. Nor are these psychological devices directly used to control our political
behavior. But they very easily could be. Human beings are extremely susceptible towards
certain media, and we tend to believe whater is said by the media. Many studies show that
our politcal opinions are developed from "opinion leaders"- peers whose views we accept
and take as our own. In our complex society, we are forced to rely on these others in the
media for information. The risk which we run is that our best interests are not always
the foremost concern of those who supply us with the information.
There are some who take the posistion that we already live in Oceania and that we are
being controlled and ordered about by the powers that be. Others maintain the opposistion
posisition and hold that we as, individuals, control our own fate and destiny. Obviously,
there is room for innumerable views between these two extemes. Evidence supporting both
views can be found co-existing practically anywhere. We are free to stand on the street
corner and criticize the government,but if we become too rabid or noisy, we will likely
be areested by the police. Somce members of our society, because of dress, race, or
physical charactersitics, bear a presumption of being "dangerous." People in three-piece
suits are seldom arrested for distubing the peace. The dichotomy of freedom and authority
is pervasive in our society. Ideally, there should be a balance for the peaceful
resolution of these conflicting demands which would preserve our current system. 
Orwell's vision is pessimistic, and its plausibility makes us all the more squeamish to
look full-face at tis possible fulfillment. We look once in place, cannot be reversed.
Once we make our great mistake and forget our duty to act for ourselves and watch those
whom we set to watch for us, the boot will stamp down upon our faces-forever.
Oceania relies upon control of reality to maintain its control of reality to maintain its
control over the populance. This control is made possible by denying people of Oceania
access to the truth. Thus, no one has any idea what is really going on in the world. In
the middle of Hate Week, which is realy a perverted St. Valentine's Day, a speaker
changes from one enemy, Eurasia, to the other, Eastasia, in mid-sentence. His actual
speech never changes in substance or form; only one word is substituded for another. Yet
everyone accepts the change within minutes. The Ingsoc maxim "He who controls the past
controls the present,a and he who controls the present controls the future" is shown to
be devastingly effective. As Winstion writes his journal, he is not even sure whether it
is 1984 or not. It is important for him to prove this fact, one way or another. Yet he
daily aids, and sometimes he derives great pleasure, in fabircating lies. His grip on
reality is a tenuous as his grip on the glass crystal. The truth has been altered beyond
all recgnition. As memories fade and written records are destroyed and altered, all touh
with truth becomes permantly lost. The Party's truth can be fosisted on the populace
because there is nothing remotely cohesive or accurate enough to compete with it. Thus,
it is no surprise that Julia believes that the Party invented the airplane; in a few more
years, the Party can even claim that the Party has always existed and no one can prove
them wrong. Winston and those who try to remember have no proof and, if they rebel, they
are destroyed.
Adolph Hitler once boasted that if you tell a lie enough times, people will accept it as
being the truth. Truth is a very delicate thing. It is subject to an individual's own
perceptions and the perceptions of society at large. In the 1400s, it was not wise to
profess to believe that the world was round; that view considered to be heresy, and
heretics were tortured and burned at the stake. There are many people today who do not
believe that Neil Armstrong ever walked on the moon. Truth can be espoused by many
sources, and each person chooses his own sources in which to believe. Orwell demonstrates
the danger of having only one outside source for one's information and facts. The
populace comes to rely on that one source as being right - no matter if every word of it
is false. The Party will go to any lengths to enforce its version. Since there are no
laws or even any objective concern as to what the Party is doing to its own people, the
monopoly on truth is unchallenged, and it, in turn, evolves into a monopoly of power.
Truth is an important tool in the hands of the Party. It is thecenter fro controlling the
populace and enforcing its desire for absolute power on the people of Oceania. There can
be no resistance to such a system, for the very idea of resistance cannot be formulated.
People are forbidden to communicate or are afraid to do so; therefore, any possibility of
rebellion is doomed at its inception. The Inner Party members are as badly deluded by
their lies as the most stupid Outer Party members. They won't change anything. The proles
know nothing and won't change anything either. Worse yet, since the only way to fight
these lies is to totally disbelieve them, prospective rebels in a non-existent
Brotherhood finally fall into the hands of the Thought Police. The erosion of factual
truth is an extremely dangerous quality in our society. Potentilally, our values and
knowledge become undermindend, and we risk having a "truth" impose upon us by an O'Brien
or his party.
Living in a society with limited freedom of expression is not, in any case, enjoyable. A
Totalitarian society is a good example of such a society, because although it provides
control for the people, it can deny them a great deal of freedom to express themselves.
The fictional society in George Orwell's 1984 also stands as a metaphor for a
Totalitarian society. Communication, personal beliefs, and individual loyalty to the
government are all controlled by the inner party which governs the people of Oceania in
order to keep them from rebelling. Current society in America is much more democratic. It
contrasts with Orwell's society of 1984 because communication, personal beliefs and the
people's loyalty to the government are all determined by the individual.
The story of 1984 reflects a society that totally contrasts with America today. While
Orwell's objective was primarily written to exaggerate the Totalitarian/Communist and
other conditions of society surrounding him, 1984 presents an important guide to life for
modern Americans. Just as a major objective of learning American history is to ensure
that we do not repeat our mistakes, 1984 can give warnings to both government systems and
individuals regarding how society should not be controlled. It is scary to think how
close the world could have come to having a society like the one in Nineteen
Eighty-Four.