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... e sees fit in order to deceive the senses of the citizens of Oceania into thinking that 2 + 2 = 5. Room 101 can also be likened to the aversion therapy employed by Anthony Burgess in A Clockwork Orange. The basis of this therapy was to control the thoughts of the patient and to force conformity to the standards set by society.
Room 101 employs similar tactics in forcing Winston's conformity. The end result is similar, a tragic suppression of individuality by denying freedom of thought, the creation of a conformist and the destruction of the individual. The issue of Newspeak is also relevant to issues of free thought and identity. In 1984, the government attempts to eliminate thought crime by systematic revision of the English language into a new dialect called Newspeak.
Words pertaining to freedom, rebellion or other undesirable concepts are eliminated. Only root words are used so as to avoid metaphor or implication of non-conformist ideas. It is the hope of the government that by eliminating the words, these undesirable concepts will become unthinkable. If a person cannot name a concept, then they will not be able to think of it. This is the most elaborate form of mind control employed by the party, an attempt to eliminate the very thought of rebellion from the human mind. It is based in a concept called linguistic determinism, which professes that humans think in terms of words.
Steven Pinker denied that Newspeak or linguistic determinism would have worked in reality. He states that we cannot deny the consciousness of an animal simply because it lacks a vocabulary. He also explains that humans think in terms of concepts and meanings, not in words. Pinker cites the cases of several adults who lacked the ability to speak, but nonetheless communicated in other ways and showed signs of understanding concepts. He concludes that Newspeak would have failed because, 'mental life goes on independently of particular languages. ' He asserts that the concepts would have remained in human consciousness even if they had become nameless. However, one must seriously question the ability of Pinker's language less adults to understand elaborate social concepts and communicate such ideas in an effective manner.
It is doubtful that a group of language less adults could formulate a social movement and rebellion strong enough to oppose Ingsoc. Perhaps the greatest crime of Big Brother is not the elimination of vocabulary, but the destruction of thought through assimilation and persecution. Newspeak may not have been as effective as planned, but thought crime may well have been eliminated by other means. Orwell's criticism of the church is not quite as overt as his criticism of totalitarianism, but is nonetheless present within 1984. Carl Freedman states that Orwell's primary targets were Soviet Communism and Roman Catholicism. The attack on communism is obvious, but the attack on church doctrine is largely disguised in metaphor.
Orwell once said of the Roman church, 'It's influence is and always must be against freedom of thought and speech, against human equality. ' It is in this sense that he equated institutionalized religion with totalitarianism. Beauchamp describes the Two-Minutes hate ritual of Oceania as the parallel to Christian prayer in which Big Brother (god) is worshipped and Goldstein (satan) is despised. Eroticism and instinctual urges are harnessed and controlled by the state, much as Christianity tries to control these urges. Sin is the equivalent of thought crime. Oceanians are like Christians in that they are punished not only for what they do, but for what they think as well. The systematic denial of obvious reality by the party can be likened to the church denouncing the Copernican solar system and the theory of evolution.
The addition of Julia into the plot offers a parallel to the Myth of the Fall in Christianity. Julia (Eve) lures Winston (Adam) into rebellion against Big Brother (god) and thus causes his fall from the 'paradise' of Ingsoc. Winston failed in humility and self-discipline in the eyes of the party and had to surrender his soul of his own free will. The parallel is obvious here. The party sees love as a social principle, forcing Winston to love the party and Big Brother but denying his love for Julia. The aim of the party is to create a new individual from Winston, to make him love Big Brother of his own free will (Hence the name 'Ministry Of Love').
When Winston is finally broken, 'the picture is not of a political dissenter crushed; it is of a heretic reclaimed. ' 1984 has come and gone. The cold war is over. The collapse of repressive totalitarian regimes leads to the conclusion that these governments by their nature generate resistance and are doomed to failure. How relevant is 1984 to modern society? Power based solely on terror and violence is rare in the world with the exception of a handful of U.
S. sponsored dictatorships. Totalitarianism has failed as a system of government. Perhaps in Orwell's socialist commentary he failed to take notice of the trends being embraced by capitalism. Behavioral psychology states that reward is a far greater incentive than punishment is a deterrent. In society today thought control is much more pleasant, subtle, and diverse than it was in Orwell's vision.
The media, television, the internet, computer games, and movies serve to indoctrinate us into the norms of society in a way which is much more complex than Big Brother's propaganda. We are depoliticized, kept away from the real issues by superficial diversions, much like the proles. Big Brother may not exist, but his name is everywhere. Perhaps Album Huxley's Brave New World would have better served as a predictor of modern society's fall. Orwell predicted that the truth would be concealed and that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley thought that the truth would be drowned in irrelevance and that what we love will ruin us.
Orwell's political commentary and philosophical issues are still relevant, but we live in a world far more complex than he could have ever predicted. Big Brother isn't watching. He doesn't need to. We " re watching him.
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Research essay sample on Freedom Of Thought Big Brother
