Privacy In 1984

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1984 ISU Looking at George Orwell’s 1984, modern society has been given a cautionary tale regarding privacy. Orwell paints a picture of a future where privacy is a relic from the past and free thought is a crime. This is all made possible through the use of technology to monitor people, a God figure, and distractions that focus attention away from real issues. Technology in 1984 is used as a tool to both watch the people and to keep them afraid of the government. In the book the technology is used to watch people to make sure that they are not discussing any actions that the party would not approve of and it is also used as a way to make people afraid. If they are constantly being watched throughout their lives they will be less likely to…show more content…
He is also never wrong, everything he says and has ever said is true. This is because the party is constantly editing and changing the history records or blaming his inaccurate predictions on war or Emmanuel Goldstein. Reading the book though it becomes clear that big brother is not necessarily a person but a fable that has been created by the party to give the people something to look up to, something to strive towards. While Winston is in the department of love O’Brien tells him that “‘Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the embodiment of the Party’…. ‘It is of no importance. He exists.’... ‘Will Big Brother ever die?’... ‘Of course not. How could he die?’”(327) He is telling him that as long as the party exists so will big brother, big brother is not a man but an idea that the party uses. In our modern society we have something similar to that, we have religion. God from creation is also an infallible being, perfect in every way, he watches us day and night. God is also never wrong, history records are not changed for God instead if something disagrees with what he has said then what he said is not to be taken literally, and it is a metaphor or is up for interpretation. The text is vague enough that it can be interpreted to fit whatever it needs to. If that still doesn’t work then God has his own Emmanuel Goldstein, he has the Devil. The Devil is the opposite of God, he is evil and has been cast down from heaven by God. Anything that goes wrong in the world is blamed on the Devil and like Big Brother there is also very little proof that God exists, like Big Brother we are just supposed to accept him as real, he is real as long as we believe in him. What we are being cautioned against is the creation of an infallible being, while religion is not inherently bad, it can be
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