¶ … 1984 Apply Today?
George Orwell wrote the book 1984 in 1949. The world had been through two world wars, the Spanish civil war and the horrors of the holocaust. Although, he was writing based in and about England, like Machiavelli's The Prince it is possible to see his vision in the workings of almost any government, especially one like the current administration, that is quite determined that it will do as it wishes irrespective of what the people want.
I have not called the present administration conservative because I don't believe that is the term that applies to it. To me conservative means to conserve the founding ideals of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution. The people who wrote those documents and founded this country were not that far removed from the monarchies and other forms of hereditary dictatorships of the Old World. Their intention was very clearly to protect the new country from the kinds of abuses their families had dealt with in Europe.
Orwell writes a novel depicting a future where individuality is only allowed to the lowest classes. If you are a prole, which is short for proletariat, you are considered too stupid to matter. They live in the worst housing, they have the least of everything except they are allowed to be themselves.
In Orwell's world, to be of the Party, to be part of the "upper class" is to be controlled always, for ever, in every way.
Winston Smith, our hero, is thinking anti-government thoughts...
He is mulling over the concepts of "Reality control," the government policy of constantly re-writing history so that there is never anything but what the Party and Big Brother says there is right in this moment. Winston works for the "Ministry of Truth." It is Winston's job to do the re-writing. It is Winston's job to make Big Brother always right. Whether it is production records -- Winston, in his thoughts, says it doesn't matter what numbers are included in the reports because none of the reports are true. (He believes that nothing was produced in the way of boots,) or who the "enemy" is this year, Winston knows. He knows none of it is true.
Is there any of 1984 in our world or how our government does things? When World War II ended in 1945, "we" the "good guys" had beaten the Axis powers, "the bad guys." Germany, Italy and Japan and t heir fascism had been stopped. The world was now safe and we would be able to live in peace. By the time Orwell wrote 1984, four years later, there was a new enemy. Our former allies, the Soviet Union, China and Communism were the new threat to decent people everywhere. We went through the Korean "Police Action," (to quote a character from MASH, "What do they think we're doing over here, giving out parking tickets?") and the long years of the "Cold War." The Berlin Wall, symbol of that Cold War, came down in November of 1989 and the Soviet Union dissolved at the same relative time. During the second half of 1990 we began the build up…
