1984

[ludicrous]

This is a little sth I wrote a couple of years ago. Notwithstanding I had not read the book at that time, I was filled in on its plot an the concept alone was captivating. At that time I happened to come across an old 'Newsweek' article about the increase of surveillance cameras and immediately the omnipresent eye of BB came to my mind hence overwhelming me with an unprecedented desire to sit down and write sth about it.<br>It was sth like a revelation!<br>Looking back on that time and having read 1984, I realize how little I knew about the magnitude, versatility and imensity of the book. <br>Furthermore, the ever-existing fear inside me that a situation as depicted in 1984 is all but impossible, has risen. Not only does it seem possible now, even worse, it appears to be imminent!! Doublethink, Newspeak, Telescreen etc., are no longer means of control and manipulation of some distant fictional horror scenario. <br><br><br> Surveillance cameras: the primary step for <br> the imminent “Big Brother”?<br><br><br>In the past years the issue of rising surveillance through the use of cameras, allegedly to help reduce and prevent delinquency, has grown to be more and more controversial and will most probably cause even more contradiction in the years to come as this phenomenon once predicted by G. Orwell and named as “Big Brother” finally seems to be becoming reality and moving at full speed ahead. Final destination: the humankind.<br>The question is whether we as a race are willing to do something against it. Do we just sit back and “enjoy the ride” while our rights are being defied and violated one by one and our personal freedom slowly but evidently eliminated or do we stand up against the very people who claim to have our protection and personal welfare as a primary goal? <br>Over half a million cameras, installed in certain blocks of major cities such as London and New York, each demonstrating high crime rates, permanently survey the perimeters.<br>Of course this kind of enduring observation has its bright sides: utilizing these cameras to inspect certain areas, hopefully catch a criminal in the act while he breaks the law and indirectly assisting in his apprehension or plainly scaring him off could ultimately contribute to getting closer to the “bigger picture”: the global diminution or even extinction of delinquency.<br>Unfortunately a world without criminality where people would coexist in utter harmony, prosperity and peace is a utopian perception as it is in man’s nature to turn love into hatred, peace into war, to divide and conquer hence bringing about his own annihilation by exterminating one another in a world where only the strong survive (T. Hobbes: homo homini lupus).<br>To blindly ignore this characteristic of the creature once described as “the most dangerous living organism” (the human) would be a delusion, a false impression, a figment of one’s imagination, for denying our own impulses is denying the very thing that makes us humans.<br>Regrettably, it is another one of our attributes and our inevitable destiny to make fatal mistakes throughout our history repetitively, usually without learning from them. And rising surveillance through cameras so as to permanently patrol and control as much territory as possible which is spreading like a disease, will be a fatal mistake for it will firstly set off the imminent phenomenon “Big Brother” and ultimately strengthen the permanent threat of dictatorship to the political future of mankind. Democracy as we know it, but fail to appreciate, will collapse. We will no longer be free.<br>Orwell’s message is unmistakable: once a power elite gains even partial control, it is by its very nature bound to advance to autocracy and to become self-perpetuating. <br>Therefore, it is essential that a substantial effort be made, in an attempt to thwart this occurrence now that it is at the beginning of its evolution in order to save ourselves from an indirect “imprisonment” in our own lives and to provide the generations to come with a better future. <br>