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My Apologetics - March 2007

Orwellian Moments in a Post 1984 World

March 4th 2007 22:49
bb3
'War is Peace' and war is needed to justify an oppresive regime. War must never end.
Orwellian Moments in a Post 1984 World

1984
Big Brother is Watching You
There is a great Apple Computer add used to launch the first Apple Mackintosh Computer in 1984. There is a set reminiscent of anything that was dreamed by George Orwell. The crowd is watching a giant screen of a man blistering out hate and we see a woman throw a sledge hammer into the screen smashing it. "On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like "1984". Appears on the screen. The message was a commercial way of dispelling the threat of an Orwellian future. In the same year the film ‘1984’ was produced staring two ledgends of cinema Sir Richard Burton and John Hurt. The film won several awards and was Richard Burton’s last film before he died. Yet as the year changed from 1984 to 1985 the collective sigh seemed to say it did not happen.



To put the book into a historic context 1984 had created a count down to a year where people were comparing inventions and predictions to a book. I can think of no other novel that has had such a profound effect upon the psychi of the intectual world as to cause it to focus upon a year with fear and trepidation. Unlike its distopian rival Brave New World, Orwell’s novel had an achievable fixed date which should make it obsolete. Yet the book sells more copies today than it did in 1984. For a book that has the reputation of being one of the most depressing ever written, what is the attraction?

goldstien
People are ordered to hate Goldstien. Are we being ordered to hate by our rulers?
The themes and explainations of the world were all too real and in a post war Britian it was also possible. Communism was growing at an alarming rate and would continue to do so as the cold war kicked in. Socialism and Marxism had the popular ear of many intellectuals who were blind to any of its evils. Yet to think of 1984 as just some anti commie book would be a great disservice. It was a book that covered much more and explained the modern thinking and propaganda that leads to totalitarian regimes. Even as the year passed the warning are still the same. Totalitarianism is not satisfied with terrified masses, it wants total and blind obeydience. More than just fearful acceptence, they want people to believe and love their imprisonment. It is fear of our society being subtly and slowly edged into accepting a Totalitarian ruler that gives 1984 its power.

orwell
Brutality is need to control people. The boot on a human face must never be lifted.
Regardless of whether it is left or right a totalitarian regime is just as brutal and needs to justify its so called ‘goodness’ to the world. Even the mindless follower needs a reason to remain mindless in the face of over whelming evidence. Terror is used to keep the faithful from straying and indoctrination to imprison the mind. Fear of change, the outside world, of not having a strong ruler are amplified to increase the people dependance upon the regime.

Mottos sum up what is expected of the people and in some ways are being used in the modern world.

“Ignorance is Strength"
"War is Peace"
"Freedom is Slavery”
The themes of 1984 can be applied to the modern world as much as to that of 1948. Even though Communism has been all but consigned to the dust bin of history we still have other threats to our freedoms and liberties. Films like ‘Equlibrium’ show a society that has abandoned all emotion for the sake of order. The recent film ‘V for Vendeta’ shows a fascist society crushing it people brutally. Even the brilliant satire ‘Brazil’ shows a brutal regime where terrorism is used as an excuse for any retaliation and abuse of power.

bb
'Big Brother' wants you to accept everything he says.
The year has passed but the themes are still alive because the threat is still alive. How quickly we surrendered freedoms that were once held to be essential. Do we even care that our phone may be tapped or homes bugged? The constant gaze of security cameras and checking of peoples backgrounds has become second nature. The identity card, once seen as the sign of an oppresive regime is now being considered. People who are disappeared, ‘vaporized’ in the name of the ‘war on terror’. The one catch cry in all of this is that ‘the innocent have nothing to fear’. Yet as has been shown with ‘Extradinary Renditions’ innocent people can be ‘vaporized’ by mistake. We know of the few public scandles but are there more? Would we ever know? It is the same question with Abu Graib. The tortures were claimed to be out of a US training manual. Were they? If so how were they researched or were they part of the torture research. In ‘1984’ giant torture research facilities exist in the southern hemisphere in order to exploit every human weakness. Perhaps the greatest irony since 1984 is the television reality show called Big Brother. It seems that rather than run from a world of constant surveilence the modern world celebrates it and preserves it in film. Are we rehersing smaller Orwellian nightmares in preporation for the larger scale version?

Do we see echoes of the motto “War is Peace” when we hear Bush calling for people to give war a chance? Are there sessions of controlled and systematic hatred directed at external enemies just as people were being forced to hate Goldstein? Is Big Brother Watching and waiting for people to step out of line so that they can be ‘Vaporized’ or made confess to crimes that had not committed? Perhaps “Ignorance is Strength” for a generation that seems so willing to believe everything they see on Fox or read in their narrow minded opinion pieces. Who really needs to think when you can rely upon government to tell you what to think? Finally as we send people to risk lives in a war that no one can justify are we beginning to enjoy being afraid and controlled? Are we starting to believe that “Freedom is Slavery?”

The year 1984 has passed but not the Orwellian threat of ‘1984’. As we go further away from the year do we also get closer?
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