allworld Ingsoc plusridiculous bookwise (credit: metaluna mutant)

by phil on Thursday Aug 21, 2003 3:46 PM
Orwell

Good comment from a writer on plastic that I noticed a while back.

Plastic: Doubleplusgood Writer Born Antecenturywise, Was No Unperson

The point of 1984 is not that Big Brother style totalitarianism will take over the earth, or how it will happen. The point of the novel is to demonstrate the METHODS that these types of governments use to exert their control over the population. Things such as:
Language control like Political Correctness and other unwords

Constant surveillance -- like J.Edgar Hoover's FBI, the patriot act, isp/email monitoring etc

Constant War as a method to increase patriotism, increase production, increasing citizen dedication to the state while decreasing dissent.

Invisible Enemies Keeping people focused on boogeymen, traitors and terrorists who plan, scheme, recruit and destroy -- but are never found, seen or captured.

Reality Control Altering/faking documents and shredding or destroying any evidence that the government is wrong.

These and many others are the methods governments use to exert complete control over the citizenry.

1984 isn't a future history, but a description of methodologies. Taking that as a vision of the novel -- were are already IN most of 1984. I'll leave it use to plasticians to debate who/what the Thought Police are these days...

"Freedom begins between your ears" - Edward Abbey