Example research essay topic: Threats To Democracy In Modern Part 1 - 1,779 words

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Threats to Democracy in Modern America The main feature of our post-industrial era is that modern societies are becoming increasingly anti-utopian. Even in as recent as 1960, the idea of punishing individual for simply having an emotional feeling, would have been thought of as utterly unacceptable by the majority of people. Yet, the ill-famed hate law is nowadays' reality and there is no public outcry against it, as people are being brainwashed that hate is necessarily evil, even though it is a righteous hate that enables individual to stand up against tyranny and suppression. George Orwell's 1984, Bradbury's The Affluence of Despair and Bly's Little Book on the Human Shadow were being conceived by the authors as spiritual warnings against what they considered to be the destructive social trends. The most dangerous of them, in my opinion, is an ongoing process of individual's alienation from its true self, instigated by the promoters of political correctness.

Let us find the most obvious parallels between what authors considered as threats to the normal functioning of democratic societies and the realities of modern living in America. (1) George Orwell's 1984 is the best-known anti-utopia of modern times. He wrote it in 1949, before the advent of Cold War. Back than, it was considered a bad taste to criticize Soviet Union in Western countries, as Soviets still were considered a great allies that helped so much in bringing down Hitler. There was a wide-spread notion among people that Soviet way of life is actually a progressive one and evolutionary changes, within Western societies, would lead to the same result elimination of economical exploitation to a large degree. In 1933 for example, there was a famine in USSR and many cases of cannibalism were recorded; yet Western press largely overlooked it. Most of Americans were unaware that when USA officially recognized Soviet Union in the same year, it was a country of cannibals that Roosevelt made friends with.

George Orwell used to be a socialist himself, but by 1949 he got disappointed in this concept and what is most important he was able to foresee what society would become to look like, if communist principles were deployed to its fullest. The most striking feature of Orwell's society is its drive to suppress peoples feelings and desires that didnt have anything to do with official Partys doctrine. Those, in charge of adopting such social policy, knew very well that if these feelings were allowed to exist, it would threaten the system in the long run. This would happen because peoples personal objectives would contradict those of the state, thus undermining the principle, which Communist society is built upon. Orwell rightly noticed that in totalitarian country the government would try to deprive people of the sense of personal uniqueness, by making them to feel being just a particle of huge social machine. Since there is no way that people can be effectively deprived of their emotions and physical drives, Communist society will try to redirect them in such way that these emotions would be harmlessly released.

The best way to do it is when person is encouraged to become emotional only within certain boundaries. Individual can be happy as long as it a social happiness and he is also allowed to feel hate, but only towards Partys enemies: All over Oceania this morning there were irrepressible spontaneous demonstrations when workers marched out of factories and offices and paraded through the streets with banners voicing their gratitude to Big Brother for the new, happy life which his wise leadership has bestowed upon us. (Orwell, p. 15). Orwell's vision of totalitarian future wasnt too far from realities of Soviet peoples everyday lives. This is why his novel 1984 was banned from public libraries. 1930 - 1950 is time when Communism in Russia was in its purest form. The only purpose of art, literature and music was to glorify Communism and Party. Up until sixties, there was only one form of art allowed social realism, where everything revolved around industrialism.

For example, a certain amount of steel had to be produced and this would be only a story line, peoples role was secondary. Orwell was able to foresee that communist society will end up in denying human basic drives, such as sex. In his novel he tells us about, so-called, Junior Anti-Sex League, which was to prevent people from having sexual relations, as it would undermine society's unity. Yet, people still had a sexy thoughts, despite the partys efforts: A narrow scarlet sash, emblem of the Junior Anti-Sex League, was wound several times round the waist of her overalls, just tightly enough to bring out the shapeliness of her hips. (Orwell, p. 20). We can draw a parallel between Orwell's anti-sexism and the paranoia over the illusive dangers of sexual harassment, promoted by the pushers of left-wing agenda in America, who clearly associate penis with evil.

Liberals suggest that women are the subjects of mens sexism, which is true, just as it is true that mens sexism is the necessary precondition that leads to womens impregnation. Without it, there would be no people in the first place. The truth is that issue of sexism in America is like a rush the more we scratch it, the more it itches. The attempts of hawks of political-correctness to artificially modify human behavior, so that it would fit their concept of fair society, must be rejected out of hand, as such that represent danger to democracy in America.

In 1984 Orwell suggested that the ultimate totalitarian society would also have to introduce a some kind of artificial language to its people. The name of the language was Newspeak and its main feature was that it was very much deprived of emotional terms. Politically correct watchdogs of nowadays also suggest that society need to reconsider the usage of certain words that might have too much negative / positive emotionalism attached. There are no retards, only mentally challenged people. There are no stupid kids, only special children. There are even no dwarfs but vertically challenged individuals.

Orwell describes the purpose of Newspeak as: not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. (Orwell, p. 67). The same situation appears to be when were told that there are certain things that were not suppose to say out loud. This is the first step to telling us that there are also things that we arent allowed to think about. Yet, in my opinion, the political correctness' onslaught on the freedom of speech is only one of many symptoms that tells us that something is rotten in the kingdom of Denmark.

Just as it is a threat to Oceania having people with prominent personal features of character, is it also a threat to modern democratic societies, which make one think about them as another form of dictatorship the dictatorship of alienated forms. Dmitri Korchinski in his political statement says: Domination of the alienated forms determines nowadays. Forms, which not necessarily need understanding, and alone thing, you have to know, is orientation yourself by them. Lawyer - miserable creature, priest of the emptiness, person, who is oriented, is superior to princes and leaders. (Korchinski). There are many purely abstract categories, yet theyre the ones that determine very practical aspects of our lives. For example, we now more and more use credit cards, where information about our financial situation is saved as the combination of ones and zeroes.

If we think about it, itll appear that politics of nowadays are motivated by nothing else but by the operations with nothingness, because this is a real nature of digital information. We witness the social bureaucratic machine beginning to dominate peoples real lives and what is really threatening about this, is the fact that this machine is very much self efficient and that the time might come, when people will be considered as just a secondary element of society. The real strength of this abstract social machine is that it is well balanced. Thats why prominent features of ones character are not tolerated anymore. We all like watching movies where lonely hero prevails in the end, while facing impossible odds.

The real reason for the Hollywood blockbusters' popularity is that we subconsciously strive not to be like everyone else, yet we also know that this might cause us having problems with the law if we practice it in real life. Movies are nothing but sublimation of our desires the greatest ethical issue that modern Western society faces nowadays, is incompatibility between personal inner drives and the rules of social conduct. No matter, what is said about thermonuclear synthesis. Only three things are the symbols of our epoch - computer, credit card and penal code.

The human being is presented in the system as the quantitative factor. Community is needless. The presence of the outstanding features is dangerous says Korchinski. This seems to be the main problem that our society faces nowadays. We need to understand that the political correctness real purpose is to make it impossible for people to question surrounding reality.

Orwell's anti-utopian society does not tolerate sex not only because it would divert people from their primary duties, sex is natural human impulse and person simply cant have it if he is to exist under unnatural circumstances. The same beginning to happen nowadays as famous saying goes: The main Satan's goal is to make people do not believe that he really exists. We live in time when a new dictatorship of alienated forms begging to take over and it strives to disguise itself as just better more tolerant form of democracy. For us, as citizens of this country, it is crucial to be able to distinguish between causes and consequences. We need to understand that the historical process has a spiral form, although were told that the modern history is nothing but a continuous progress. Democracy is now being turned into some kind of fetish, where the real meaning of this term is no longer necessary to understand, in order to live democratically.

We associate dictatorship with ruthless fuehrer or with the single militant party that doesnt allow any discussion within the society. But what if ultimate dictator appears to be a well-mannered woman of 40, who has kids and loving husband and who also works as Federal judge? She can easily decide to sentence person to 10 - 20 years in jail and after this, she will stop by school to pick up her children, on her way home. The concept of evil has been altered to a...

Research essay sample on Threats To Democracy In Modern Part 1