Question the Past

In 1984, Orwell depicts a world where all is controlled by Big Brother, including the past. It is Winston's job at the Ministry of Truth to change old newspaper articles, and other literary materials to fit Big Brother's needs. There is no set past, and what is written as the past in the textbooks is just barely grasping at the truth. This is a subject that is supposed to make us ask just how do we know what we know and where is the evidence?
These questions, along with the simple "Why?" have become more and more neglected as people distance themselves from what the textbooks say in our world today. This simple philosophy and our innate curiosity as humans is what is supposed to separate our race from the rest of the animal kingdom, but as our inquisitiveness as a species is deteriorating, somewhat rapidly, do we really have the audacity to say that we are better than all the rest?
It seems that Orwell has correctly forecasted the future in the aspect of not only do we know less, but we also care about knowing less. If we continue at our current pace, will we not end up like the Proles with memories only of useless information and having no idea of how the past was although we lived through it?

Orwell also reinstates that the past is slowly slipping away from us, when the antique shop owner explains business is bad because people don't care about the past any more. Also, the want to ask how or why is gone, so what is the need for the past. The government holds the power if they control the past.

It is incredibly unnerving to think about how much people will question the past and actually care about it, in the future. You are so correct that society today, has no intention of knowing any history other than what is mandatory in history class. Students and adults need to be reminded just how important knowing your past is! Those who don't know history are bound to repeat it.

:iagree:

But as time slips away from us and as children care less and less about our history, i ponder if like the book us too will have something- if not the same- but similar to a big brother figurehead. If we continue caring for the irrelevant, and remembering the wrong things like the old man in the pub then where will we be in these coming years before us? Surely history class teaches us of our past but the information that actually sticks with us is extremely limited, so i agree with your statements- those who don't know or want to know yet still want change are truly the odd ones for not abrogating their problems, and improving them.

The point you make is excellent, and very interesting. A quote by Arthur Conan Doyle comes to mind when I think of this topic: “Some believe what separates men from animals is our ability to reason. Others say it’s language or romantic love, or opposable thumbs. Living here in this lost world, I’ve come to believe it is more than our biology. What truly makes us human is our unending search, our abiding desire for immortality.”
But, in 1984, there is no search. There's no desire, no need for immortality, like we've seen all throughout the rest of history. If anything, the characters in Orwell's plot are searching for nothing but plain morality. They just want to live, and then die, finishing the duties they were told to complete.
Most unsettling is the fact that George Orwell, although his ideas are a bit extreme for the time period, is not wrong. Our society is most definitely suffering from this lack of want, desire, and need for immortality. There is a surplus of realism, which, although saves many from disappointment, cuts out any room for optimism. And, without optimism, humans are left with no improvement whatsoever, thanks to no one thinking above and beyond what is most "realistic".