Capital One
05-24-2005, 06:07 PM
So I read 1984, finally.<br><br>So let me state the obvious, so I can then state the subtle. The obvious angle from which to view this book is that our society is becoming more and more repressive, dominating the individual's life and putting people under control. 1984 represents the ultimate in this sort of power. People believe that 1984 is just around the corner and our world will move closer and closer to that ultimate degradation.<br><br>Another way to view this book, which I think is far less obvious and far more frightening, is that 1984 has come to pass, indeed came to pass long before the book was imagined or published. But to see this, one must realize that the reality does not look exactly the same as the fiction. <br><br>Let me describe to you the important characteristics of 1984. People are ingrained in a specific sort of belief from birth. They cannot deviate from this mindset and if they do manage to do so in the least, it cannot lead anywhere except to pain, misery, and loss. Though the society is easily capable of granting material comfort to all of its citizens, they do not do so. A social structure exists, though the members of each class are not hereditary. People may move up or down within the structure, but cannot break out of it. The society is willing to give material pleasures to its servants in return for disobendiance, but these pleasures are hollow and unfulfilling. Even the life that Winston leads at the end of the novel, which is almost entirely made up of leisure and gin, is sickeningly disturbing and horrifying. <br><br>So... If the point I'm making isn't already obvious, let me spell it out.<br><br>From the time we are born we start to live a certain sort of life, created without our knowledge or input and with no regard for us as individuals. As children we learn all of the basic tenets of our society and by the time we enter the adult world are fully indoctrinated in the world we live in. We are taught that there is no other way. We are taught that humans are flawed evil creatures and that is why there is so much misery in our world. We are taught that the destruction of our sanity is a neccessary price of civilization. If anyone speaks about different ways of living, we instinctively draw back from them, believing those lives to be too horrible to even consider. We live in a heirarchal society, with politicians and lawyers and corporate flunkies making up the top of the power ladder. Then we have those who have managed to secure material comfort within the society. At the bottom are the downtrodden masses who struggle daily for things that should not be difficult to procure, given the relative cost in resources and human labor that it costs to create the various products of consumption. One may work hard and become rich, or be wasteful and careless and sink to the bottom. The most successful of us are granted material comforts like SUVs and drugs, but many of them are unsatisfied and many even commit suicide. <br><br>Looks like we've already pulled a 1984. It's even gone so far as to controlling the past, since we seem to be totally unaware of anything that happened before our sort of society came into being 5000 years ago or so. We have completely forgotten the first 1.5 million years of human existence. And what is even more insidious about our world is that we have an illusion of freedom, whereas in 1984 they had no such illusions. In our world, we believe that we can think and act as we wish. But truly, as of now, my writing this is not free. I can say these things as much as I want, but since it will have no effect on our society, is it worth the trouble it would take to stop me?<br><br>No, our world is already set up in a way that there is no reason to stop me, since nothing I can say or do will have any effect anyway. That is what I got out of 1984.