1984 - Big Brother, Thought Police, Censorship & Surveillance

Big Brother, Thought Police, National Security Administration, Surveillance, Censorship, Twitter and Facebook

 

In the novel, Nineteen Eight-Four, there are so many options available to investigate further. George Orwell’s dystopian future depicted in his novel has made a dramatic resurgence of recent and for good reason. The insight we can gain from the novel continues to be applicable even toward today’s generation. For this blog post I would like to focus on a couple of themes, surveillance and censorship, as well as the character Big Brother.

·       Surveillance

Regarding the first theme, surveillance, we can see the ways in which Winston is being watched and observed throughout the book. There are telescreens watching his every movement. There are the Thought Police. And there are even every day, younger citizens to be concerned with. As Winston becomes more aligned with the party’s opposition, the Brotherhood, he becomes more closely watched. Undercover Thought Police observe his movements, and, as the book progresses, entrap him in his anti-party movement.

Surveillance has become a grave concern; the United States’ National Security Administration has even been coined Big Brother. There has been some acceptance towards this movement in politics largely because of the fear of terrorists infiltrating America and attacking once again. The increase in technology has allowed for this to happen more often and more secretive than George Orwell would have ever imagined. It brings to question, to what extent should we give up our freedom for the sake of security? And, are we safer from doing so?

·       Censorship

The second theme we will focus on is censorship. Winston works in the Ministry of Truth, which is ironic because all they do there is produce documents and rewrite history that is anything but true. The goal of the Ministry is to only have news, historical or present, that supports the Party and aligns with their beliefs. When the Party changes alliances, Winston goes into work to edit and rewrite past news articles to support the changes in allegiances, as if it was the same allegiance the entire time.

The Party censors the media its citizens are exposed to. The hopes are to keep the population supportive of the regime while keeping them unaware of any other viewpoints except for the one that supports the Party’s agenda. Are there any other reasons for censorship? Facebook and Twitter have both been asked to censor certain groups from their social media websites, should we be concerned?

·       Big Brother

 

Big Brother is the leader of the Party. Throughout the novel, we are not even sure he exists, but his image is so profound, you would have never guessed whether he had existed or not. Regardless, the people of Oceania still pledge their allegiance to him, even Winston at the end of the novel will once again confess his admiration for Big Brother, “He loved Big Brother.” 

Big Brother is always watching, through telescreens and microphones. He is always there, but he really isn’t ever there. Big Brother is more a symbol, not a person or individual, of obedience and loyalty toward the Party. Do we see this anywhere in our culture or in other cultures? Maybe in Sports? Entertainment? Branding? Politics? Internet?