Nineteen-Eighty-Four [Archive] - Literature Network Forums

WInstonSmith

05-24-2005, 06:07 PM

George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four raises an interesting question: if you believe that the state is wrong, if you believe that your instinct tells you that life could, indeed should, be better, if you feel you have been shortchanged by the powers that govern and dissatisfied with your lot and station in life, tired of being but a cog in the great machine, tired of living in a society where the very affluence and prestige that supposedly makes it an ideal system is only given to the few upper echelons of society; whilst the rest live in squalor and disharmony, what can you do about it? Is there any real objective that can be completed, when for the most part people accept that this is the best of all possible systems and dance like good little puppets without ever once contemplating who is pulling the strings. The current social climate is such that if you disagree with the current policies and doctrines of ANY party, at best you will be branded as unpatriotic, at worst, depending on the country in which you live, you will be quietly taken from your house in the dead of night and shot in the back of the head. These atrocities are going on every day, we are in the midst of terrific economical, social and geopolitical turmoil and yet people are still too occupied with a materialistic, egocentric view of the world. The greed and avarice of today's society is worse than it ever has been. In part this is because the majority of people have the opportunity if not the inclination to indulge themselves; with the nicest TV, with the best clothes, with a new car, the list of mans material wants appears endless. However the need for materialism in a largely consumer-driven market and economy is all too obvious - this is not inherent, there is no inborn desire to be better endowed with technology than your fellow man, it is indoctrinated into people from an early age, think if you will of an infant. Does an infant place any value on items other than a personal one? Do they in fact care the of the cost, or indeed have any knowledge of what cost is? Now consider that infant three years on after exposure to the media, television and his peers, it is a fact that behaviour learned in the first few years of life determines that which we become. Thus, the small child conditioned that the newest toy, the nicest clothes and all the little gadgets will make him more popular and therefore happier. This is how a consumer-driven economy works. In this day and age compassion and empathy have fallen by the wayside. Instead of religion, money is god and there is no shortage of people willing to worship.