Orwell and We: The Future Is Now - Research Paper Example

Orwell and We: The Future Is Now Introduction In 1984 and We there are different, stark and dystopian views of the future thathave to do with an overall loss of freedom. There is a loss of sexual freedom and there is a loss of thought freedom. In both of these novels, the government is central and wants to control the citizens to the extent that the citizens are to be brainwashed into believing how the government wants them to believe. The brainwashing occurs with physical and mental torture, and this is the way for the state to absolutely control its citizens. This is a view of the future which Orwell and Zamyatin didnt actually believe was going to happen, but they both feared that the societies of the world would be going down those roads, so they wrote their dystopian novels about this. The problem is that these novels are not exactly fiction anymore. The things that they talk about are already here, at least in a limited form. There is censorship in China. The tea party in the United States wants a world that is to their vision, and only their vision, and they are willing to do anything to get it. And there is a great deal of stratification in society, because there are the haves and the have nots, and they are stratified from one another. In short, the future is already here – it might not be as stark and bleak as those novels might suggest, but the present is almost a microcosm of what the future might be in these two novels (This is the thesis statement). This is shown by the fact that the world of the future, as the world of the present, is one in which one country is too powerful. This is also shown that the world of the future, as with the world of the present, there is rigid ideology that seeks to make everybody think alike. The world of the future, as in the world of the present, has brainwashing to try to make people want to conform. The present world and the world of the future both have sexual repression. Both worlds have censorship. In both worlds, there is social stratification. Perhaps these are issues which are more pronounced in the future according to these dystopian novels, but they are still present in our society today, and, in this way, these novels were prescient. Analysis First, Orwell seems to be cautioning against the idea that any one country could become too powerful. The slogan in the future was “War is Peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength” (Orwell, 26). The implication in the novel is that there are three super states that are at perpetual war with one another (Williams, 12). That said, although some might misinterpret the novel as being against socialism or communism, in that, during this period of time, the Soviet Union was still a super power, therefore could be construed as being one of the superstates in the novel, Williams (12) states that this was not what was intended – rather, he did intend this to be an attack on a centralised economy in general. It was a full perversion of the centralised government that went beyond what was happening in the Soviet Union during this time. As with everything else in this novel, he took the concept of centralised government to the utmost extreme to make a point and to show what could happen if there is power unchecked (Orwell, 9). What is important to note, however, in this novel is that it is a caution against what happens when there is rigid ideology and everybody believes that they have the absolute right answer, and everybody else is wrong. This is a malaise that happens too often in this country, for instance, as the government is paralyzed by gridlock because one party feels that it has all the answers, and the other party is simply wrong. This attitude can be exemplified by the Tea Party movement, which is a particular wing of the Republic Party that has caused political gridlock because they refuse to compromise and they have a set of ideological ideas that must be implemented in their entirety (Goldstein, 842). The issue with the Tea Party is that it, as a movement, feels that America is on the wrong track with taxation in general, and that taxation represents an unconstitutional redistribution of wealth (Goldstein,842). They also feel that there is a Utopian future that they might get to if they simply dig in their heels and use their force to try to change America to the vision that they see fit for the country – which is an America that is based upon individualism, not collectivism, and that the government would either be nonexistent, or would only be functional for extremely limited means, such as building roads and bridges, which are activities that would not be undertaken by the private sector, because the only way to pay for roads and bridges would be through taxes or tolls (Goldstein, 843). Their view of the world would seem to be that of Ayn Rand, whose tome Atlas Shrugged was one that espoused the virtues of individualism and the evils of collectivism. Like the Tea Party, Rand espoused a philosophy that was based upon the principles and precepts of social darwinism, which means that only the strong survive in the land, and, if one is not strong, and not able to prosper without help, there is just nothing for them to lean on. Government would be the total enemy. Of course, the problem with the Tea Party is that it has one vision for America, one of many. There are many, many Americans who feel that collectivism, at least on some level, is essential to the American way of life. There are many Americans who believe in government for the greater good, and there are many different interpretations of the Constitution – if there was only one interpretation of the Constitution, then America would not have the need for a Supreme Court, whose only job is to interpret the Constitution for the American people (Goldstein, 843). Therefore, the Tea Party is trying to force an ideology that only belongs to a small slice of Americans, on America itself, and they use all different kinds of means – including threatening not to raise the debt ceiling unless they get 100% of their demands, or by shutting down the government in order to get their way – to do it. In this way, ironically, as the Tea Partiers might claim that they are the beacons of freedom – the Tea Party is affecting an Orwellian dystopia upon America. In 1984, there is a real “us” verses “them” mentality – that one group feels that they have the answers, and they are willing to summarily execute anybody who doesnt believe in their ideology. This might be an advocation of celibacy, which is what the totalitarian state in Orwells 1984 enforces, and it might be that the government is correct in all things (Orwell, 20). As further parallels between 1984 and the Tea Party, one notes that the government in Orwells future has an view of the past, which it is trying to force upon the people of those days, is something that is not accurate. For instance, the government in Orwells future believes that there is a lords privilege in deflowering virgins, bu this was something that was never meant to be condoned. It was just how the government viewed the past (Orwell, 34). Goldstein (843) states that the Tea Party has a similar view of the past which is not necessarily based upon reality – they believe that it was the destiny of the United States to be exceptional in the world, which would mean that the values and the beliefs of the United States would be what the rest of the world must aspire to. But they have a certain view of the country that is based upon a very limited perspective, and does not take into account the diversity of the country, both in thought, beliefs and creeds. That is the problem, in general, with the Tea Party – it is based upon very limited information and does not tolerate diversity (Goldstein, 843). This is like Orwells future – there is one set of beliefs, that is based upon a very limited set of circumstances, and does not take into account individual differences and diversity in backgrounds and thoughts. So, ironically enough, the Tea Party has much more in common with George Orwells dystopian future than it does with the freedom that it supposedly espouses. In fact, there are also parallels between the Tea Party and We. For instance, in We, there are very specific things that people can think and feel. The people must go through, as a mandatory procedure, a method of brainwashing. This is important to the state in We, because, if the people are not brainwashed, then they might start to riot. The imagination and the emotions are removed in a special operation, even if this operation does not necessarily always work on the citizens (for instance, it fails to work on I-330, who refuses to denounce her comrades (Zamyatin, 117). In 1984, there is a similar type of brainwashing, as Winston is summoned for rehabilitation, which means brainwashing – he goes through physical and mental torture, and in this he is able to retrain his brain to believe the things that the state wants him to believe – he learns what is expected of him and he learns to understand why the state expects this of him. In the end, Winston no longer rebels against Big Brother, but, rather, has a gratitude and love for Big Brother (Orwell, 325). Syme, in 1984, notes that brainwashing is occurring when he states that “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meaning rubbed out and forgotten” (Orwell, 52). Likewise, there is the real sense that the Tea Partiers want to brainwash everybody to think the way that they do. In fact, this would be something that would be necessary if the Tea Party would get its way (Goldstein, 843). After all, they have a very limited view of the state and of government, but they want to impose their view upon America in full. They have the right answers, and they are the ones who know what is best for America (Goldstein, 844). Because of this view that is so limited, but is to be implemented in full, it would stand to reason that they would have to brainwash the American citizens into believing that this view of government is the correct one. Because, if they get their way, then there would inevitably be an uprising and revolts, as the American people would not stand for a type of government that is as limited as what the Tea Party would want. To prevent this kind of revolt and uprising, there would have to be procedures like are in We, to keep the people calm and to get them to believe. There would be no other peaceful way to enact their agenda, and this is something that perhaps they do not really understand. Another caution in Orwells 1984 is a warning against tyranny (Williams, 12). Lowenthal (161) sees the novel as a kind of political pessimism because it centered upon a world in the future that Big Brother and the Inner Party, that controls everything in a human life. But Orwells actual purpose in writing this tome, according to Lowenthal (165), was not that he actually believed that this future was destiny, but, rather, he wanted to warn the people of the world that this is what could happen if we are on the path that we are on. At the time that Orwell wrote 1984, the Cold War was not yet in force, but there was the sense that Nazism, which had just been defeated, would somehow return. And Orwell saw that there would be a coming atomic war and that totalitarianism would become widespread in the future. This is something that Orwell truly believed, as Lowenthal (165) examined Orwells writings during the periods between 1940 and 1949. This would have been an especially acute observation during this period, of course, as this was during the rise of Nazism, and, although he might not have known the extent to the atrocities that the Nazis were perpetuating in 1940, there is the sense that he knew that totalitarianism is something that might be on the horizon. The third caution is a warning against repression and censorship, and the possibility that every thought could be controlled (Williams, 12). “Thoughtcrime does not equal death. Thoughtcrime is death” (Orwell, 28). This is an element in both Orwell and Zamyatin. Orwell has the thought police, who spy on the citizens by looking in their windows and apparently bugging their flats – the citizens dont really know what is going on, because it is arbitrary as to who gets bugged and who doesnt, but the government needs to control what the citizens are thinking, and, most importantly, the government has to make sure that the citizens do not act upon what they are thinking. To prevent the people from acting upon seditious thoughts, the people can be executed for merely believing in certain things (Orwell, 85). “’You’re a traitor!’ yelled the boy. ‘You’re a thought criminal! You’re a Eurasian spy! I’ll shoot you, I’ll vaporize you, I’ll send you to the salt mines!’” (Orwell, 23). Likewise, in We, there is a secret police who watches all the citizens. There are things which are highly illegal in this society, and the secret police know about all of them – for instance, it is illegal to smoke or drink, or to have meaningless sex or even flirt (Zamyatin, 100). As with the Orwell future, in the future of Zamyatin, there is no freedom to pursue interests that the people long for. It is also interesting that sex, in general, is something that is either regulated or forbidden in both societies. This goes to the heart of our society as it is today, in that sex is so often something that is taboo in this society. For instance, witness all the hewing and crying about a breast that is shown for a split second on television (Mason, 180). It seems ridiculous that the showing of Janet Jacksons breast for a split second on television could cause such a reaction among so many people. Moreover, examine the fact that there are so many abstinence only views of sex education for students (Santelli, 73). These are just two examples of the fact that sex is seen as somehow dirty in this society – we cannot teach our children about how to protect themselves against STDs and pregnancy, because they arent supposed to know about such things. We have a collective case of looking for our vapors after fainting after seeing a breast for a split second on television. Both Zamyatin and Orwell envision a world where sex is seen as something that is somehow forbidden, even though, without sex, there would be no more society and no more people in the world at all. There also is a restriction upon procreation – for instance, in We, 0-90, who is considered by some to be the embodiment of Eve in The Bible has to plead with D-503 to illegally impregnate her (Zamyatin, 105). This means that there is a restriction on procreation in the future, and the babies have to be turned over to the state, anyhow (Zamyatin, 106). In 1984, there is a similar proscription, in that sexual expression is taboo, and regulated, and Winston sees his lovemaking with Julia to be an open act of defiance against the state. It seems that the American society is not too far removed from this totalitarian view of the world. After all, it was only in 2003 that Americans could feel safe performing oral sex on one another without being thrown in jail for it – the Supreme Court case in Lawrence v. Texas actually had to overturn a sodomy law, stating that this was unconstitutional (Tribe, 2004). But the thing of this was that the state had felt, up until 2004, that it could peek in the bedrooms of the American people and have them arrested for performing sexual acts that it, the state, feels is somehow indecent. This is very similar to the world in both We and 1984. Perhaps the future is already here in some parts of the world, even though, as of yet, no countries have quite resorted to the tyranny of having thought police where having certain kinds of thought crimes would mean instant execution (Orwell, 8). For instance, China is notorious for censoring what their citizens can and cannot access. They do this by censoring the Internet, for instance. They filter the citizens ISPs to block traffic to sites that is considered by the Chinese government to contain information that it does not want its citizens to know about (Qiu, 3). The Chinese government also obstructs access to websites by introducing a deliberate error in its Domain Name System, which means that the users get blocked when they try to connect to their DNS servers elsewhere on the Internet, and the ISP had changed the addresses for the blocked sites (Qiu, 4). China also monitors outgoing and incoming Internet traffic, and they cut off the interception on the Internet if they see certain keywords (Qiu, 5). And, while China certainly is not alone in its censorship activities, in that other countries also censor, they are considered to be particularly egregious by anti-censorship activists because they fail to tell their citizens they are being blocked and why. The users simply get a message stating that a certain site is not available to them, while not explaining why said sites is not available (Bambauer, 14). Moreover, China is considered egregious because of the content of the sites that they block – namely they block sites that are for dissidents and human rights groups (Villeneuve, 3). They also block sites which provide the Chinese with alternative information that they might be receiving about their government (Ling, 4). The Chinese government is also arbitrary and capricious about the sites that they are blocking, as the application of its blocking is considered to be ambiguous and unpredictable (Aycock & Maurushat, 3). There is also the sense in both the novels of We and 1984 that there is a real attempt to stratify society according to different characteristics. There are layers of society, and the government attempt to keep these layers entirely separate. 0-90, for instance, in the novel We, is not supposed to cavort with I-330, because I-330 is not approved by the state to be his companion, and I-330 is also rebellious against the state, which makes her dangerous, and, by extension, it makes D-503 also dangerous (Zamyatin, 90). This is also something that is seen in Orwells Animal Farm, in that the societies are stratified there, as well – all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others (Orwell, 93). This is also seen in Aldous Huxleys Brave New World - in fact, this was a central tenet of that novel. In that novel, society is split into castes, and the castes are not supposed to associate with one another (Huxley, 15). This stratification is something that is seen in America today. The societies are separate, for the most part, as there are people who have and those that have not, and this is something that leads to dystopia in the future. Specifically, there is a great deal of income inequality in the United States, and this is what causes the stratification of society today (Denavas, 2010). Conclusion Is it so crazy to believe that society might become the way that it is in 1984 and We? That our society would try to brainwash everybody into believing one way, or that there would be class stratifications that would be imposed by the government? That sex would be something that is regulated and controlled and frowned upon? That there would be widespread censorship and a thought police that tries to control everything a person thinks or feels or knows about? These are interesting questions to ponder indeed. In fact, however, they really arent just rhetorical questions – they are questions which are increasingly being answered, in the affirmative, in the world today. References Aycock, J. & Maurushat, A. “Good Worms and Human Rights,” pp. 1-11, Available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1412007, 2006. Retrieved from the Albin O. Kuhn database. Bambauer, D. “Cybersieves,” Duke Law Journal, vol. 59, pp. 2-60, Available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1143582, 2009. Retrieved from the Albin O. Kuhn database. DeNavas-Walt, Carmen. Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States (2005). DIANE Publishing, 2010. Retrieved from the Albin O. Kuhn database. Goldstein, Jared A. "Tea Party Movement and the Perils of Popular Originalism, The." Ariz. L. 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Rand, A. Atlas Shrugged. New York: Random House, 1957. Huxley, A. Brave New World. London: Chatto and Windus, 1931. Tribe, Laurence H. "Lawrence v. Texas: The" Fundamental Right" That Dare Not Speak Its Name." Harvard Law Review 117.6 (2004): 1893-1955. Villeneuve, N. 2008, “Search Monitor Project: Toward a Measure of Transparency,” pp. 1-29, Available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1157373 Read More