George Orwell wrote 1984 in 1948, and
it was not so much a work of science fiction as it was speculative fiction, using the
premise of a Western democratic society (Britain) falling victim to ultra-liberal
(communism) or ultra-conservative (Nazism) regimes. In other words, he did not intend
this society to necessarily exist in 1984; it could have existed as soon as 1948 (if the
communists might have won the Cold War that early, let's
say).
The society in 1984 is governed
by fear (first half) and pain (second half). Fear is managed by censorship, propaganda,
government-controlled mass media, rationing, police-state surveillance and profiling,
mandatory extremist nationalism, and a war against family and education (Ministry of
Peace, Ministry of Truth). Pain is managed by institutional torture (Ministry of Love),
brainwashing and reconditioning, and the murder of political
dissidents.
We are not seeing this society whole-scale in
Western democratic governments, but are seeing it in small-scale, especially in mass
media. Currently, Google and Facebook profile in greater numbers than even Orwell could
have imagined; the irony, of course, is that most of us don't mind it. In fact, we all
but consent to it because we feel it is contributing to a group database or network. We
have agreed to give up certain individual rights to privacy so that we can, in a sense,
be victims of and play the role of Big Brother. We like voyeurism as much as the Secret
Police: just look at reality TV programming!
Currently,
Britain is a police-state: their country has cameras on nearly every street corner, and
they recently used face-detection technology to find and indict the looters in the
London riots.
We have seen torture in our country's War
against Terror: waterboarding, Abu Ghraib prison (Iraq), Guantanamo Bay prison (Cuba).
Many have justified excessive force in capturing and killing the terrorists of
9/11.
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