1984 essay on government control

Government Control in 1984 Essay Example

Having a Government is perceived as vital, as it controls the nation or society. But governments can play a role in affecting and controlling the lives of people that use it. This ideology is portrayed through the story “1984” written by George Orwell. This story generally discusses the impacts of having a government that possesses a lot of power to be able to control the lives of its citizens . During the book, the author explores the dangerous effects of a powerful government, where the they uses advanced systems to monitor its citizen's everyday movements and conversations,  for the use of limiting people's imagination, and lastly for the torture and harm of its citzens, which are exemplified by the government of Oceania. 

To begin with, the Government of Oceania had set up advanced systems all over Oceania. As people were leaving, the telescreens had been monitoring their actions. Winston said the telescreens meant that there were "Always eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, indoors, or out of doors, in the bath or bed-no escape. People were uncomfortable as they were constantly being watched. The party had the power to invent many kinds of technology that was able to track the activities that people were performing.  The telescreens captured the actions of people. In addition, the adoption of technology helped gain the power for the party to ensure the supremacy of totalitarianism. But, people saw advanced surveillance cameras as an invasion of their privacy. The government of Oceania saw it as a great invention.  Secondly, the government shows misuse of technology by using microphones, which were embedded into the telescreens. The government installed microphones to listen in on conversations that people were having with one another.  The government had installed microphones all around Oceania, leaving no area without microphones. “The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it.” (Orwell 3) People felt that this was a lack of privacy. They felt that the government was invading their space too much. Ultimately, if that was not enough. The Oceania government had even installed telescreens into every home. As a result, people were forced to stay calm at all times. As well as being forced not to disobey any rules or regulations that were put in place by the government. The Oceania government installed both telescreens, which could serve as both a security camera and a microphone to control and monitor their people.

Furthermore, big brother invented a machine called the dictator. This machine is able to create and produce songs. This means that the words of the song are not composed by humans. The Oceania government made a machine that could create and produce songs, so that people would not have to use their creative thinking in the process. “The words of these songs were composed without any human intervention on an instrument known as a versificator.” Winston sets forth the idea that the government wants to attempt to destroy any and all mental and physical opposition to their beliefs. In addition, Orwell makes it clear that even pornographics stories were generated by the versifcator. Additionally, Winston mentions a novel writing machine, which creates books, so the citizens don’t have too. As a result this novel writing machine limits people from thinking creatively about the books they would like to create. The government is trying to control our minds, as it says “thought crime does not entail death; thoughtcrime is death.” (Orwell 27). The government highlights how it attempts to control the minds and bodies of its citizens through its misuse of technology. 

Moreover, the harm and torture that the Oceania citiziens went throught was another indication of how bad the misuse of technology was and how it had impacted ther lives. Creating and posting both telesecreens and the versificator everywhere the government then resulted to using the technology for the harm and torture of its citizens. When citizens either did something bad or they had not followed the rules and regulations put in place by the government, they were eliminated or  disciplined, not by serving time in jail. But by using doublethink. Doublethink is a mental discipline. Winston was separated from julia. He finds himself in. Secondly, the government has the power to vaporize it’s  people. Winston’s friend and colleague Syme was wanted by the party to be vapourizers. The party wanted to vaporize Syme because of his intelligence. Winston thinks various times that “Syme will be vaporized” (Orwell 56) He believes that "He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly. The party does not like such people. One day he will disappear." (Orwell 56). Syme seems to believe in all of the party's ideologies and works hard to achieve Big Brother's goals in perfecting Newspeak and eventually eliminating individual thought, Because Syme is so intelligent he is a threat to the party The Thought Police remove from the society, deleting all records that relate to his existence.  Lastly, O’Brien then takes Winston to room 101, when prisoners meet their greatest fears. Winston's greatest fear was rats. So in order for Winron ro not get rats dropped onto his face, he decided to agree with O’Brien that 2+2 is 5. Instead of rebelling against him, O’Brien wanted Winston to love big brother. So out of fear Winton did so. And he is now a changed man 

In the story “1984,” George Orwell highlights the impacts of having a government that possesses a lot of power in its hands and how it can negatively influence someone's life. To begin, the Oceania government used telescreens to monitor its peoples' movements. They also used microphones that were embedded into the telescreens to listen in on the discussions people were having with others. Secondly,  the government used technology to harm and torture its citizens. They used technology to torture them as a method of discipline. And lastly, the government created technology that was used to limit people's imaginations. To stop thinking creatively.  The versificator was a machine that created and produced things like songs so that the Party member would not have to use any creative thing in the process of making or producing something for the people to enjoy. In conclusion, as we can see from the story “1984,” the power of  government can dramatically change and damage the lives of people.

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Essays on 1984

Hook examples for "1984" essays, the dystopian warning hook.

Open your essay by discussing George Orwell's "1984" as a prophetic warning against totalitarianism and government surveillance. Explore how the novel's themes are eerily relevant in today's world.

The Orwellian Language Hook

Delve into the concept of Newspeak in "1984" and its parallels to modern language manipulation. Discuss how the novel's portrayal of controlled language reflects real-world instances of propaganda and censorship.

Big Brother is Watching Hook

Begin with a focus on surveillance and privacy concerns. Analyze the omnipresent surveillance in the novel and draw connections to contemporary debates over surveillance technologies, data privacy, and civil liberties.

The Power of Doublethink Hook

Explore the psychological manipulation in "1984" through the concept of doublethink. Discuss how individuals in the novel are coerced into accepting contradictory beliefs, and examine instances of cognitive dissonance in society today.

The Character of Winston Smith Hook

Introduce your readers to the protagonist, Winston Smith, and his journey of rebellion against the Party. Analyze his character development and the universal theme of resistance against oppressive regimes.

Technology and Control Hook

Discuss the role of technology in "1984" and its implications for control. Explore how advancements in surveillance technology, social media, and artificial intelligence resonate with the novel's themes of control and manipulation.

The Ministry of Truth Hook

Examine the Ministry of Truth in the novel, responsible for rewriting history. Compare this to the manipulation of information and historical revisionism in contemporary politics and media.

Media Manipulation and Fake News Hook

Draw parallels between the Party's manipulation of information in "1984" and the spread of misinformation and fake news in today's media landscape. Discuss the consequences of a distorted reality.

Relevance of Thoughtcrime Hook

Explore the concept of thoughtcrime and its impact on individual freedom in the novel. Discuss how society today grapples with issues related to freedom of thought, expression, and censorship.

Surveillance and Totalitarian Control in George Orwell's "1984"

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Orwell's Use of Literary Devices to Portray The Theme of Totalitarianism in 1984

The culture of fear in 1984, a novel by george orwell, 1984 by george orwell: literary devices to portray government controlling its citizens, the use of language to control people in 1984, let us write you an essay from scratch.

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Dictatorship of The People: Orwell's 1984 as an Allegory for The Early Soviet Union

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The Theme of Survival and Selfishness in The Handmaid's Tale in 1984

Government surveillance in 1984 by george orwell: bogus security, george orwell's 1984 as a historical allegory, exploitation of language in george orwell's 1984, how orwell's 1984 is relevant to today's audience, the relation of orwel’s 1984 to the uighur conflict in china, symbolism in 1984: the soviet union as representation of the fears people, parallels to today in 1984 by george orwell, the relationship between power and emotions in 1984, proletariat vs protagonist: winston smith's class conflict in 1984, a review of george orwell’s book, 1984, o'brien as a dehumanizing villain in 1984, family in 1984 and persepolis, the philosophy of determinism in 1984, orwell's use of rhetorical strategies in 1984, control the citizens in the orwell's novel 1984, dangers of totalitarianism as depicted in 1984, dystopian life in '1984' was a real-life in china, dystopian world in the novel '1984' awaits us in the future, the internal conflict of the protagonist of the dystopia '1984'.

8 June 1949, George Orwell

Novel; Dystopia, Political Fiction, Social Science Fiction Novel

Winston Smith, Julia, O'Brien, Aaronson, Jones, and Rutherford, Ampleforth, Charrington, Tom Parsons, Syme, Mrs. Parsons, Katharine Smith

Since Orwell has been a democratic socialist, he has modelled his book and motives after the Stalinist Russia

Power, Repressive Behaviors, Totalitarianism, Mass Surveillance, Human Behaviors

The novel has brought up the "Orwellian" term, which stands for "Big Brother" "Thoughtcrime" and many other terms that we know well. It has been the reflection of totalitarianism

1984 represents a dystopian writing that has followed the life of Winston Smith who belongs to the "Party",which stands for the total control, which is also known as the Big Brother. It controls every aspect of people's lives. Is it ever possible to go against the system or will it take even more control. It constantly follows the fear and oppression with the surveillance being the main part of 1984. There is Party’s official O’Brien who is following the resistance movement, which represents an alternative, which is the symbol of hope.

Before George Orwell wrote his famous book, he worked for the BBC as the propagandist during World War II. The novel has been named 1980, then 1982 before finally settling on its name. Orwell fought tuberculosis while writing the novel. He died seven months after 1984 was published. Orwell almost died during the boating trip while he was writing the novel. Orwell himself has been under government surveillance. It was because of his socialist opinions. The slogan that the book uses "2 + 2 = 5" originally came from Communist Russia and stood for the five-year plan that had to be achieved during only four years. Orwell also used various Japanese propaganda when writing his novel, precisely his "Thought Police" idea.

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” “Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.” “Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter; only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you-that would be the real betrayal.” “Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” "But you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred."

The most important aspect of 1984 is Thought Police, which controls every thought. It has been featured in numerous books, plays, music pieces, poetry, and anything that has been created when one had to deal with Social Science and Politics. Another factor that represents culmination is thinking about overthrowing the system or trying to organize a resistance movement. It has numerous reflections of the post WW2 world. Although the novella is graphic and quite intense, it portrays dictatorship and is driven by fear through the lens of its characters.

This essay topic is often used when writing about “The Big Brother” or totalitarian regimes, which makes 1984 a flexible topic that can be taken as the foundation. Even if you have to write about the use of fear by the political regimes, knowing the facts about this novel will help you to provide an example.

1. Enteen, G. M. (1984). George Orwell And the Theory of Totalitarianism: A 1984 Retrospective. The Journal of General Education, 36(3), 206-215. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/27797000) 2. Hughes, I. (2021). 1984. Literary Cultures, 4(2). (https://journals.ntu.ac.uk/index.php/litc/article/view/340) 3. Patai, D. (1982). Gamesmanship and Androcentrism in Orwell's 1984. PMLA, 97(5), 856-870. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/pmla/article/abs/gamesmanship-and-androcentrism-in-orwells-1984/F1B026BE9D97EE0114E248AA733B189D) 4. Paden, R. (1984). Surveillance and Torture: Foucault and Orwell on the Methods of Discipline. Social Theory and Practice, 10(3), 261-271. (https://www.pdcnet.org/soctheorpract/content/soctheorpract_1984_0010_0003_0261_0272) 5. Tyner, J. A. (2004). Self and space, resistance and discipline: a Foucauldian reading of George Orwell's 1984. Social & Cultural Geography, 5(1), 129-149. (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1464936032000137966) 6. Kellner, D. (1990). From 1984 to one-dimensional man: Critical reflections on Orwell and Marcuse. Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 10, 223-52. (https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/from1984toonedimensional.pdf) 7. Samuelson, P. (1984). Good legal writing: of Orwell and window panes. U. Pitt. L. Rev., 46, 149. (https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/upitt46&div=13&id=&page=) 8. Fadaee, E. (2011). Translation techniques of figures of speech: A case study of George Orwell's" 1984 and Animal Farm. Journal of English and Literature, 2(8), 174-181. (https://academicjournals.org/article/article1379427897_Fadaee.pdf) 9. Patai, D. (1984, January). Orwell's despair, Burdekin's hope: Gender and power in dystopia. In Women's Studies International Forum (Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 85-95). Pergamon. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0277539584900621) 10. Cole, M. B. (2022). The Desperate Radicalism of Orwell’s 1984: Power, Socialism, and Utopia in Dystopian Times. Political Research Quarterly, 10659129221083286. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10659129221083286)

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Doublethink Is Stronger Than Orwell Imagined

What 1984 means today

No novel of the past century has had more influence than George Orwell’s 1984 . The title, the adjectival form of the author’s last name, the vocabulary of the all-powerful Party that rules the superstate Oceania with the ideology of Ingsoc— doublethink , memory hole , unperson , thoughtcrime , Newspeak , Thought Police , Room 101 , Big Brother —they’ve all entered the English language as instantly recognizable signs of a nightmare future. It’s almost impossible to talk about propaganda, surveillance, authoritarian politics, or perversions of truth without dropping a reference to 1984. Throughout the Cold War, the novel found avid underground readers behind the Iron Curtain who wondered, How did he know?

It was also assigned reading for several generations of American high-school students. I first encountered 1984 in 10th-grade English class. Orwell’s novel was paired with Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World , whose hedonistic and pharmaceutical dystopia seemed more relevant to a California teenager in the 1970s than did the bleak sadism of Oceania. I was too young and historically ignorant to understand where 1984 came from and exactly what it was warning against. Neither the book nor its author stuck with me. In my 20s, I discovered Orwell’s essays and nonfiction books and reread them so many times that my copies started to disintegrate, but I didn’t go back to 1984 . Since high school, I’d lived through another decade of the 20th century, including the calendar year of the title, and I assumed I already “knew” the book. It was too familiar to revisit.

Read: Teaching ‘1984’ in 2016

So when I recently read the novel again, I wasn’t prepared for its power. You have to clear away what you think you know, all the terminology and iconography and cultural spin-offs, to grasp the original genius and lasting greatness of 1984 . It is both a profound political essay and a shocking, heartbreaking work of art. And in the Trump era , it’s a best seller .

The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell’s 1984 , by the British music critic Dorian Lynskey, makes a rich and compelling case for the novel as the summation of Orwell’s entire body of work and a master key to understanding the modern world. The book was published in 1949, when Orwell was dying of tuberculosis , but Lynskey dates its biographical sources back more than a decade to Orwell’s months in Spain as a volunteer on the republican side of the country’s civil war. His introduction to totalitarianism came in Barcelona, when agents of the Soviet Union created an elaborate lie to discredit Trotskyists in the Spanish government as fascist spies.

Left-wing journalists readily accepted the fabrication, useful as it was to the cause of communism. Orwell didn’t, exposing the lie with eyewitness testimony in journalism that preceded his classic book Homage to Catalonia —and that made him a heretic on the left. He was stoical about the boredom and discomforts of trench warfare—he was shot in the neck and barely escaped Spain with his life—but he took the erasure of truth hard. It threatened his sense of what makes us sane, and life worth living. “History stopped in 1936,” he later told his friend Arthur Koestler, who knew exactly what Orwell meant. After Spain, just about everything he wrote and read led to the creation of his final masterpiece. “History stopped,” Lynskey writes, “and Nineteen Eighty-Four began.”

The biographical story of 1984 —the dying man’s race against time to finish his novel in a remote cottage on the Isle of Jura , off Scotland—will be familiar to many Orwell readers. One of Lynskey’s contributions is to destroy the notion that its terrifying vision can be attributed to, and in some way disregarded as, the death wish of a tuberculosis patient. In fact, terminal illness roused in Orwell a rage to live—he got remarried on his deathbed—just as the novel’s pessimism is relieved, until its last pages, by Winston Smith’s attachment to nature, antique objects, the smell of coffee, the sound of a proletarian woman singing, and above all his lover, Julia. 1984 is crushingly grim, but its clarity and rigor are stimulants to consciousness and resistance. According to Lynskey, “Nothing in Orwell’s life and work supports a diagnosis of despair.”

Lynskey traces the literary genesis of 1984 to the utopian fictions of the optimistic 19th century—Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888); the sci-fi novels of H. G. Wells, which Orwell read as a boy—and their dystopian successors in the 20th, including the Russian Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (1924) and Huxley’s Brave New World (1932). The most interesting pages in The Ministry of Truth are Lynskey’s account of the novel’s afterlife. The struggle to claim 1984 began immediately upon publication, with a battle over its political meaning. Conservative American reviewers concluded that Orwell’s main target wasn’t just the Soviet Union but the left generally. Orwell, fading fast, waded in with a statement explaining that the novel was not an attack on any particular government but a satire of the totalitarian tendencies in Western society and intellectuals: “The moral to be drawn from this dangerous nightmare situation is a simple one: Don’t let it happen. It depends on you .” But every work of art escapes the artist’s control—the more popular and complex, the greater the misunderstandings.

Lynskey’s account of the reach of 1984 is revelatory. The novel has inspired movies, television shows, plays, a ballet, an opera, a David Bowie album , imitations, parodies, sequels, rebuttals, Lee Harvey Oswald, the Black Panther Party, and the John Birch Society. It has acquired something of the smothering ubiquity of Big Brother himself: 1984 is watching you. With the arrival of the year 1984, the cultural appropriations rose to a deafening level. That January an ad for the Apple Macintosh was watched by 96 million people during the Super Bowl and became a marketing legend. The Mac, represented by a female athlete, hurls a sledgehammer at a giant telescreen and explodes the shouting face of a man—oppressive technology—to the astonishment of a crowd of gray zombies. The message: “You’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ‘1984.’ ”

The argument recurs every decade or so: Orwell got it wrong. Things haven’t turned out that bad. The Soviet Union is history. Technology is liberating. But Orwell never intended his novel to be a prediction, only a warning. And it’s as a warning that 1984 keeps finding new relevance. The week of Donald Trump’s inauguration, when the president’s adviser Kellyanne Conway justified his false crowd estimate by using the phrase alternative facts , the novel returned to the best-seller lists. A theatrical adaptation was rushed to Broadway. The vocabulary of Newspeak went viral. An authoritarian president who stood the term fake news on its head, who once said, “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,” has given 1984 a whole new life.

What does the novel mean for us? Not Room 101 in the Ministry of Love, where Winston is interrogated and tortured until he loses everything he holds dear. We don’t live under anything like a totalitarian system. “By definition, a country in which you are free to read Nineteen Eighty-Four is not the country described in Nineteen Eighty-Four ,” Lynskey acknowledges. Instead, we pass our days under the nonstop surveillance of a telescreen that we bought at the Apple Store, carry with us everywhere, and tell everything to, without any coercion by the state. The Ministry of Truth is Facebook, Google, and cable news. We have met Big Brother and he is us.

Trump’s election brought a rush of cautionary books with titles like On Tyranny , Fascism: A Warning , and How Fascism Works . My local bookstore set up a totalitarian-themed table and placed the new books alongside 1984 . They pointed back to the 20th century—if it happened in Germany, it could happen here—and warned readers how easily democracies collapse. They were alarm bells against complacency and fatalism—“ the politics of inevitability ,” in the words of the historian Timothy Snyder, “a sense that the future is just more of the present, that the laws of progress are known, that there are no alternatives, and therefore nothing really to be done.” The warnings were justified, but their emphasis on the mechanisms of earlier dictatorships drew attention away from the heart of the malignancy—not the state, but the individual. The crucial issue was not that Trump might abolish democracy but that Americans had put him in a position to try. Unfreedom today is voluntary. It comes from the bottom up.

We are living with a new kind of regime that didn’t exist in Orwell’s time. It combines hard nationalism—the diversion of frustration and cynicism into xenophobia and hatred—with soft distraction and confusion: a blend of Orwell and Huxley, cruelty and entertainment. The state of mind that the Party enforces through terror in 1984 , where truth becomes so unstable that it ceases to exist, we now induce in ourselves. Totalitarian propaganda unifies control over all information, until reality is what the Party says it is—the goal of Newspeak is to impoverish language so that politically incorrect thoughts are no longer possible. Today the problem is too much information from too many sources, with a resulting plague of fragmentation and division—not excessive authority but its disappearance, which leaves ordinary people to work out the facts for themselves, at the mercy of their own prejudices and delusions.

During the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, propagandists at a Russian troll farm used social media to disseminate a meme: “ ‘The People Will Believe What the Media Tells Them They Believe.’  — George Orwell.” But Orwell never said this. The moral authority of his name was stolen and turned into a lie toward that most Orwellian end: the destruction of belief in truth. The Russians needed partners in this effort and found them by the millions, especially among America’s non-elites. In 1984 , working-class people are called “proles,” and Winston believes they’re the only hope for the future. As Lynskey points out, Orwell didn’t foresee “that the common man and woman would embrace doublethink as enthusiastically as the intellectuals and, without the need for terror or torture, would choose to believe that two plus two was whatever they wanted it to be.”

We stagger under the daily load of doublethink pouring from Trump, his enablers in the Inner Party, his mouthpieces in the Ministry of Truth, and his fanatical supporters among the proles. Spotting doublethink in ourselves is much harder. “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle,” Orwell wrote . In front of my nose, in the world of enlightened and progressive people where I live and work, a different sort of doublethink has become pervasive. It’s not the claim that true is fake or that two plus two makes five. Progressive doublethink—which has grown worse in reaction to the right-wing kind—creates a more insidious unreality because it operates in the name of all that is good. Its key word is justice —a word no one should want to live without. But today the demand for justice forces you to accept contradictions that are the essence of doublethink.

For example, many on the left now share an unacknowledged but common assumption that a good work of art is made of good politics and that good politics is a matter of identity. The progressive view of a book or play depends on its political stance, and its stance—even its subject matter—is scrutinized in light of the group affiliation of the artist: Personal identity plus political position equals aesthetic value. This confusion of categories guides judgments all across the worlds of media, the arts, and education, from movie reviews to grant committees. Some people who register the assumption as doublethink might be privately troubled, but they don’t say so publicly. Then self-censorship turns into self-deception, until the recognition itself disappears—a lie you accept becomes a lie you forget. In this way, intelligent people do the work of eliminating their own unorthodoxy without the Thought Police.

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Orthodoxy is also enforced by social pressure, nowhere more intensely than on Twitter, where the specter of being shamed or “canceled” produces conformity as much as the prospect of adding to your tribe of followers does. This pressure can be more powerful than a party or state, because it speaks in the name of the people and in the language of moral outrage, against which there is, in a way, no defense. Certain commissars with large followings patrol the precincts of social media and punish thought criminals, but most progressives assent without difficulty to the stifling consensus of the moment and the intolerance it breeds—not out of fear, but because they want to be counted on the side of justice.

This willing constriction of intellectual freedom will do lasting damage. It corrupts the ability to think clearly, and it undermines both culture and progress. Good art doesn’t come from wokeness, and social problems starved of debate can’t find real solutions. “Nothing is gained by teaching a parrot a new word,” Orwell wrote in 1946. “What is needed is the right to print what one believes to be true, without having to fear bullying or blackmail from any side.” Not much has changed since the 1940s. The will to power still passes through hatred on the right and virtue on the left.

1984 will always be an essential book, regardless of changes in ideologies, for its portrayal of one person struggling to hold on to what is real and valuable. “Sanity is not statistical,” Winston thinks one night as he slips off to sleep. Truth, it turns out, is the most fragile thing in the world. The central drama of politics is the one inside your skull.

This article appears in the July 2019 print edition with the headline “George Orwell’s Unheeded Warning.”

​When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

Language as the “Ultimate Weapon” in Nineteen Eighty-Four

This processes of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets . . . Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. (42)

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Power, Control and Loss of Individuality in George Orwell’s 1984

• Power, Control and Loss of…

Texts which offer new insights into the anomalies and inconsistencies in human behaviour and motivations. Indeed, through this examination, the audience may glean an insight into the author’s manipulation of such human behaviour and motivation, prompting the audience to be made aware of their behaviour. 

Through an exploration of Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, the dangers of living in an autocratic totalitarian society allows readers to become conscious of the anomalies and inconsistencies that can arise within an individual, which in 1984 can be seen through the main protagonist, Winston Smith.

Loss of individuality, power and control, and inconsistencies such as “two plus two equals four” can be seen throughout the novel. Through the following ideas, we are able to see how Orwell offers new insight into the anomalies and inconsistencies that arise in human behavior due to political manipulation.

Loss of individuality is seen as one of the major themes in 1984 and can be seen through the main protagonist, Winston. In order for the party, an autocratic totalitarian society, to stay in power, its citizens must deny their individuality and eradicate their independent thought.

Although, this is something which Winston deviates from a try to maintain his individuality against the collective identity the party wishes him to uptake, turning him into an anomaly. Winston unlike others goes against the party, where he keeps a private diary, engages in an intimate relationship, and insists that the reality which the party wants its citizens to believe in is not true.

Even though Winston tries to deviate himself from losing his individuality, in the end, he becomes a collective like the other citizens of Oceania due to the party’s constant manipulation of history and destruction of past historical records making it near impossible for one to establish an identity.

The citizens of Oceania speak in the official language of Newspeak, which is a Neologism in 1984, demonstrating the limited range of thoughts that can be expressed by an individual. Orwell throughout 1984, constantly uses zoomorphism, such as “Duckspeak” in which he compares the individuals of Oceania to animals demonstrating how society has become dehumanized from the loss of thought. This shows how the Party’s oppression of individual thought has prevented its citizens from attaining an individual identity.

Hence, through the following idea of loss of individuality, we as an audience are able to see how the oppression of individualism within a totalitarian society offers new insight into the anomaly of human behaviour.

Power and control are seen as the utmost goal the party seeks to achieve and can be seen through the various methods the party has put in place in order to keep its citizens under control. Propaganda is one of the few methods which the party uses to control the public.

By using Big Brother as their major propaganda whose “ eyes seem to follow you about when you move” allows the party to manipulate the public and make Goldstein a public enemy. This allows the party to gain power as it causes all of Oceania to be turned against one man and distract them from the party’s actions as well as becoming patriot, hence making it easier for the party to manipulate its citizens.

The telescreens are another method which the party undertakes as through the telescreens the party is able to gain complete control over each individual in Oceania as it can “be dimmed but not turned off” . As previously mentioned, the party not only forces its citizens of Oceania to strip themselves from their identity but are also prevented from speaking English and instead must speak in the official language of Oceania known as ‘Newspeak’ which is created to fulfill the demands of INGSOC (‘English socialism).

This prevents the people of Oceania from conceptualizing anything that may be against the party or question the party’s power and ruling. Through this, we are able to see how the party is able to also have control over language and the minds of its citizens. As mentioned by O’Brien, “The party seeks power for its own sake, we are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power”.

Through this quote, we are able to see how power is collective and can only be attained by an individual if he prevents himself from becoming one. Thus, through the following theme of power and control, we are able to see the complexity of human motivation and behavior.

Through the party having complete control over the truth, we are given an insight into the inconsistencies of Oceania. One of the major inconsistencies which can be seen within the novel is the “two plus two equals five” slogan which shows an inconsistency in belief with the truth. Within the following paradoxical slogan of ignorance is strength, Orwell portrays how the people of Oceania are expected to bury the truth and accept irrationality.

The slogan “ignorance is strength” is also the willing ignorance of the people who ignore the contradictions and fail to investigate such inconsistencies as a non-existent war with an ever-changing enemy (Frank, 2020). With the party having complete control over history, they are able to manipulate the past, present, and the future, leading its people of Oceania to believe in a false reality that has been created by the party.

Overall, through an explanation of the following ideas of loss of individuality, power and control and inconsistencies such as “two plus two equals five”, we are able to see how Orwell offered an insight into the inconsistencies in human behavior causing the audience to understand and reflect upon the impact a totalitarian society can have on one’s behavior and motivation.

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The Alien and Sedition Acts: Echoes of Power and Control in a Dystopian Future

This essay is about the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, reimagined in a dystopian future where a powerful regime called the Federalist Syndicate enacts cyber policies to control artificial intelligence entities and suppress dissent. It explores how the Cyber Citizenship Act, Digital Expulsion Act, Enemy Algorithm Act, and Anti-Dissent Protocol mirror the original acts’ aim to consolidate power under the guise of national security. Opposition from a digital resistance led by the Democratic-Republican Alliance highlights the enduring struggle between security and liberty. The essay underscores the dangers of unchecked governmental power and the importance of protecting digital rights in a high-tech society.

How it works

Imagine a future world where the power dynamics and civil liberties struggles of 1798 America are mirrored in a high-tech dystopian society. In this imagined world, the Alien and Sedition Acts resurface, not as archaic laws, but as cyber policies enacted by a futuristic government. This new regime, known as the Federalist Syndicate, governs with an iron fist, using advanced technology to control and manipulate its citizens under the guise of maintaining national security.

The story begins with the Cyber Citizenship Act, a modern iteration of the Naturalization Act.

This law extends the time required for digital immigrants to gain full cyber citizenship rights from five to fourteen years. These digital immigrants are artificial intelligence entities, or “Digizens,” who have integrated into human society. The Federalist Syndicate fears the rising influence of Digizens, who predominantly support the opposition party, the Democratic-Republican Alliance. By prolonging their path to citizenship, the Syndicate aims to delay their voting rights, thereby securing its political dominance.

Next, the Digital Expulsion Act and the Enemy Algorithm Act, successors to the Alien Friends Act and Alien Enemies Act, grant the Cyber President the power to deport non-human entities deemed a threat. The Digital Expulsion Act allows for the removal of any Digizen suspected of subversive activities during peacetime, while the Enemy Algorithm Act targets AI systems from hostile nations during cyber conflicts. These acts, while framed as necessary for national security, provide the Cyber President with sweeping powers to eliminate political threats and maintain control over the population.

The most draconian of these laws is the Anti-Dissent Protocol, a futuristic parallel to the Sedition Act. This protocol criminalizes any “false, scandalous, and malicious” digital communications against the Syndicate. Under the Anti-Dissent Protocol, algorithms scour the digital realm for dissenting voices, censoring and penalizing those who criticize the government. Prominent digital journalists, bloggers, and even ordinary netizens are prosecuted, creating a culture of fear that stifles free expression and political opposition.

Opposition to these cyber policies emerges from the Democratic-Republican Alliance, led by figures like Thomas Jefferson 2.0 and James Madison IV, who argue that these laws violate the core principles of the Constitution of the United Cyber States. They draft the Digital Rights Manifesto, asserting that Digizens and humans alike have the right to free speech and protection from unwarranted government intrusion. This manifesto gains traction, sparking a digital revolution that challenges the Syndicate’s authority.

The enforcement of the Alien and Sedition Acts in this futuristic setting has profound implications. Digizens, fearing deportation, either curtail their activities or go underground, forming a digital resistance. The Anti-Dissent Protocol’s impact on digital communication is significant, leading to a reduction in the once vibrant and dynamic political discourse that characterized the cyber world. The acts deepen the divide between the Federalist Syndicate and the Democratic-Republican Alliance, intensifying the cyber conflict.

Despite the Syndicate’s justification of these laws as vital for cyber security, it becomes clear that their true purpose is to suppress political opposition and consolidate power. This realization fuels the digital resistance, leading to a climactic showdown in the election of 2100, where the Democratic-Republican Alliance, riding on a wave of public discontent with the Syndicate’s policies, achieves a decisive victory. This marks the beginning of a new era, with the Digital Rights Manifesto becoming the foundation of a reformed and more just cyber society.

In the aftermath, the Cyber Citizenship Act is repealed, and the other oppressive protocols are dismantled. However, the legacy of these cyber policies continues to influence the digital world’s political landscape. They highlight the enduring tension between security and liberty, a theme that resonates in this futuristic society as much as it did in 1798 America.

The story of the Alien and Sedition Acts in this dystopian future serves as a powerful allegory for the dangers of unchecked governmental power and the suppression of dissent. It underscores the need for vigilance in protecting digital rights and maintaining a balance between security and freedom. This narrative also illustrates the complexities of a digital democracy, where the interplay of technology, politics, and principles often leads to unexpected outcomes.

In exploring this futuristic scenario, one can draw parallels to contemporary issues involving AI, digital freedom, and executive authority. The debates surrounding these cyber policies echo modern concerns about the limits of governmental power, the rights of digital entities, and the essential role of free expression in a cyber society. They remind us that the protection of liberty, whether in the physical or digital realm, requires constant attention to the principles enshrined in the Constitution of the United Cyber States.

The Alien and Sedition Acts, reimagined in this dystopian future, offer enduring lessons about the nature of digital democracy. They challenge us to consider the balance between cyber security and digital freedom, the limits of executive power in a high-tech world, and the importance of safeguarding individual rights against governmental overreach. As we navigate the complexities of the digital age, the legacy of these acts continues to inform our understanding of the delicate balance required to maintain a free and just cyber society.

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PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Alien and Sedition Acts: Echoes of Power and Control in a Dystopian Future . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-alien-and-sedition-acts-echoes-of-power-and-control-in-a-dystopian-future/ [Accessed: 1 Jul. 2024]

"The Alien and Sedition Acts: Echoes of Power and Control in a Dystopian Future." PapersOwl.com, Jun 28, 2024. Accessed July 1, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/the-alien-and-sedition-acts-echoes-of-power-and-control-in-a-dystopian-future/

"The Alien and Sedition Acts: Echoes of Power and Control in a Dystopian Future," PapersOwl.com , 28-Jun-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-alien-and-sedition-acts-echoes-of-power-and-control-in-a-dystopian-future/. [Accessed: 1-Jul-2024]

PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Alien and Sedition Acts: Echoes of Power and Control in a Dystopian Future . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-alien-and-sedition-acts-echoes-of-power-and-control-in-a-dystopian-future/ [Accessed: 1-Jul-2024]

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• Americans’ Views of Government’s Role: Persistent Divisions and Areas of Agreement

Wide majorities of Biden and Trump supporters oppose cuts to Social Security

Table of contents.

• Views on the efficiency of government
• Views on the government’s regulation of business
• Confidence in the nation’s ability to solve problems
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Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand Americans’ attitudes about U.S. government, such as its size and role.

This report is based primarily on a survey of 8,709 adults, including 7,166 registered voters, from April 8 to 14, 2024. Some of the analysis in this report is based on a survey of 8,638 adults from May 13 to 19, 2024.

Everyone who took part in these surveys is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used for the report and its methodology .

While the economy, immigration and abortion have emerged as major issues in the 2024 election, Joe Biden and Donald Trump also have dramatically different ideas about the size and role of government.

These differences reflect decades-old divisions between Democrats and Republicans over the scope of government.

Among registered voters, large majorities of Biden supporters – roughly three-quarters or more – favor a bigger, more activist government.

• 74% say they would rather have a bigger government providing more services.
• 76% say government should do more to solve problems.
• 80% say government aid to the poor “does more good than harm.”

Trump supporters, by comparable margins, take the opposing view on all three questions.

The Pew Research Center survey of 8,709 adults – including 7,166 registered voters – conducted April 8-14, 2024, examines Americans’ views of the role and scope of government , the social safety net and long-term trends in trust in the federal government .

Democratic support for bigger government is little changed in the last five years but remains higher than it was a decade ago. Republicans’ views have shifted less over the last 10 years.

Among all adults, about three-quarters of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents favor a bigger government, up from about six-in-ten in 2014 and 2015. The share of Republicans and Republican leaners who prefer a bigger government has increased only modestly over the same period.

Democratic support for bigger government, while slightly lower than in 2021 (78%), remains at nearly its highest level in five decades. During Bill Clinton’s presidency in the 1990s, fewer than half of Democrats said they preferred a bigger government with more services.

Voters continue to express very different views about government’s role in specific areas than about the government generally.

A large majority of voters (80%) – including 82% of Biden supporters and 78% of Trump supporters – say that in thinking about the long-term future of Social Security, benefits should not be reduced in any way.

However, Biden supporters are more likely than Trump supporters to say Social Security should cover more people with greater benefits.

• 46% of Biden supporters favor expanding Social Security coverage and benefits, compared with 28% of Trump supporters.

Most Americans (65%) continue to say the federal government has a responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care coverage.

Democrats overwhelmingly (88%) say the federal government has this responsibility, compared with 40% of Republicans.

The share of Republicans who say the government has a responsibility to provide health coverage has increased 8 percentage points since 2021, from 32% to 40%.

There are wide income differences among Republicans in opinions about the government’s role in health care:

• 56% of Republicans with lower family incomes say the government has a responsibility to provide health coverage for all, compared with 36% of those with middle incomes and 29% of higher-income Republicans.

When asked how the government should provide health coverage, 36% of Americans say it should be provided through a single national program, while 28% say it should be through a mix of government and private programs. These views have changed little in recent years.

Democrats continue to be more likely than Republicans to favor a “single payer” government health insurance program (53% vs. 18%).

Other key findings in this report

• Americans’ trust in the federal government remains low but has modestly increased since last year. Today, 22% of American adults say they trust the government to do what is right always or most of the time, which is up from 16% in June 2023.
• While the public overall is divided over the nation’s ability to solve important problems, young adults are notably pessimistic about the country’s ability to solve problems . About half of Americans (52%) say the U.S. can’t solve many of its important problems, while 47% say it can find a way to solve problems and get what it wants. Roughly six-in-ten adults under age 30 (62%) say the nation can’t solve major problems, the highest share in any age group and 16 points higher than two years ago.

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What it means for the Supreme Court to throw out Chevron decision, undercutting federal regulators

FILE- Gulls follow a commercial fishing boat as crewmen haul in their catch in the Gulf of Maine, in this Jan. 17, 2012 file photo. TExecutive branch agencies will likely have more difficulty regulating the environment, public health, workplace safety and other issues under a far-reaching decision by the Supreme Court. The court’s 6-3 ruling on Friday overturned a 1984 decision colloquially known as Chevron that has instructed lower courts to defer to federal agencies when laws passed by Congress are not crystal clear. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

The Supreme Court building is seen on Friday, June 28, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Executive branch agencies will likely have more difficulty regulating the environment, public health, workplace safety and other issues under a far-reaching decision by the Supreme Court .

The court’s 6-3 ruling on Friday overturned a 1984 decision colloquially known as Chevron that has instructed lower courts to defer to federal agencies when laws passed by Congress are not crystal clear.

The 40-year-old decision has been the basis for upholding thousands of regulations by dozens of federal agencies, but has long been a target of conservatives and business groups who argue that it grants too much power to the executive branch, or what some critics call the administrative state.

The Biden administration has defended the law, warning that overturning so-called Chevron deference would be destabilizing and could bring a “convulsive shock” to the nation’s legal system.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court, said federal judges “must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority.”

The ruling does not call into question prior cases that relied on the Chevron doctrine, Roberts wrote.

Here is a look at the court’s decision and the implications for government regulations going forward.

What is the Chevron decision?

Atlantic herring fishermen sued over federal rules requiring them to pay for independent observers to monitor their catch. The fishermen argued that the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act did not authorize officials to create industry-funded monitoring requirements and that the National Marine Fisheries Service failed to follow proper rulemaking procedure.

In two related cases, the fishermen asked the court to overturn the 40-year-old Chevron doctrine, which stems from a unanimous Supreme Court case involving the energy giant in a dispute over the Clean Air Act. That ruling said judges should defer to the executive branch when laws passed by Congress are ambiguous.

In that case, the court upheld an action by the Environmental Protection Agency under then-President Ronald Reagan.

In the decades following the ruling, Chevron has been a bedrock of modern administrative law, requiring judges to defer to agencies’ reasonable interpretations of congressional statutes.

But the current high court, with a 6-3 conservative majority has been increasingly skeptical of the powers of federal agencies. Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch have questioned the Chevron decision. Ironically, it was Gorsuch’s mother, former EPA Administrator Anne Gorsuch, who made the decision that the Supreme Court upheld in 1984.

What’s at stake?

With a closely divided Congress, presidential administrations have increasingly turned to federal regulation to implement policy changes. Federal rules impact virtually every aspect of everyday life, from the food we eat and the cars we drive to the air we breathe and homes we live in.

President Joe Biden’s administration, for example, has issued a host of new regulations on the environment and other priorities, including restrictions on emissions from power plants and vehicle tailpipes , and rules on student loan forgiveness , overtime pay and affordable housing.

Those actions and others could be opened up to legal challenges if judges are allowed to discount or disregard the expertise of the executive-branch agencies that put them into place.

With billions of dollars potentially at stake, groups representing the gun industry and other businesses such as tobacco, agriculture, timber and homebuilding, were among those pressing the justices to overturn the Chevron doctrine and weaken government regulation.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed an amicus brief last year on behalf of business groups arguing that modern application of Chevron has “fostered aggrandizement’’ of the executive branch at the expense of Congress and the courts.

David Doniger, a lawyer and longtime Natural Resources Defense Council official who argued the original Chevron case in 1984, said he feared that a ruling to overturn the doctrine could “free judges to be radical activists” who could “effectively rewrite our laws and block the protections they are supposed to provide.”

“The net effect will be to weaken our government’s ability to meet the real problems the world is throwing at us — big things like COVID and climate change,″ Doniger said.

More than just fish

“This case was never just about fish,’' said Meredith Moore of the environmental group Ocean Conservancy. Instead, businesses and other interest groups used the herring fishery “to attack the foundations of the public agencies that serve the American public and conserve our natural resources,’' she said.

The court ruling will likely open the floodgates to litigation that could erode critical protections for people and the environment, Moore and other advocates said.

“For more than 30 years, fishery observers have successfully helped ensure that our oceans are responsibly managed so that fishing can continue in the future,’' said Dustin Cranor of Oceana, another conservation group.

He called the case “just the latest example of the far right trying to undermine the federal government’s ability to protect our oceans, waters, public lands, clean air and health.’'

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey called the decision a fitting follow-up to a 2022 decision — in a case he brought — that limits the EPA’s ability to control greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The court held that Congress must speak with specificity when it wants to give an agency authority to regulate on an issue of major national significance.

Morrisey, now the GOP nominee for governor, called Chevron “a misguided doctrine under which courts defer to legally dubious interpretations of statutes put out by federal administrative agencies.”

A shift toward judicial power

The Supreme Court ruling will almost certainly shift power away from the executive branch and Congress and toward courts, said Craig Green, a professor at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law.

“Federal judges will now have the first and final word about what statutes mean,″ he said. “That’s a big shift in power.″

In what some observers see as a historic irony, many conservatives who now attack Chevron once celebrated it. The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was among those who hailed the original ruling as a way to rein in liberal laws.

“Conservatives believed in this rule until they didn’t,’' Green said in an interview.

In recent years, conservatives have focused on “deconstruction of the administrative state,’' even if the result lessens the ability of a conservative president to impose his beliefs on government agencies.

“If you weaken the federal government, you get less government,’' Green said — an outcome that many conservatives, including those who back former President Donald Trump, welcome.

The ruling will likely “gum up the works for federal agencies and make it even harder for them to address big problems. Which is precisely what the critics of Chevron want,” said Jody Freeman, director of the environmental and energy law program at Harvard Law School.

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Puerto Rico Will Not Go Quietly Into the Dark

By Yarimar Bonilla

Dr. Bonilla is a contributing Opinion writer who covers race, history, pop culture and the American empire. She wrote and produced the Emmy Award-winning documentary “ Privatized Resilience ,” about Puerto Rico’s energy crisis.

This month a massive outage left over 350,000 customers in San Juan, P.R., without power, including my 96-year-old grandmother and 75-year-old mom. Amid a record-breaking heat wave, my mom struggled to keep my grandmother cool with a battery-operated fan. The frustration and fear in my mother’s voice as we spoke on the phone was palpable, and when the call ended, I found myself blinking back tears of rage.

In 2020 the Puerto Rican government transferred management of the electric grid to a newly minted Canadian-American private company, Luma Energy. It promised to bring clean, reliable energy to Puerto Rico after the state-owned Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority filed for bankruptcy and Hurricane Maria knocked out the island’s ailing electric grid.

So why is it that four years later, my mom is still cursing in the dark?

Puerto Rico’s power crisis illustrates the consequences of putting essential services in the hands of a private entity. Reliable electricity is not just a convenience; it is essential for economic stability and public health. Yet residents are paying exorbitant rates for a service that repeatedly fails them. Enough is enough. Puerto Ricans deserve a power grid that works for them, not against them.

After Puerto Rico declared bankruptcy in 2017, the fiscal control board, charged with managing the island’s debt restructuring and finances, began pushing to sell off its assets, but since PREPA couldn’t be sold while undergoing debt restructuring, the government opted for a public-private partnership model in which it retained ownership of the assets — and the debt — while outsourcing operations.

In such arrangements, the partners have a vested interest in the project’s success through shared risks, rewards and performance incentives. The upside in this structure is that unlike with full privatization, the public sector retains responsibility and accountability for ensuring that services are delivered properly. But in Puerto Rico, that has not been the case.

The contract awarded to Luma is outrageously generous. It receives a fixed management fee regardless of whether it keeps the lights on, is guaranteed federal funds for repairs and can charge PREPA for any unexpected operational costs. Luma has even threatened to charge residents more if they seek compensation for appliances damaged by outages and surges. Additionally, until PREPA’s debt restructuring is resolved, Luma is operating under an interim contract that raises its fee to $115 million from $70 million.

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