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Rodrigo Raez 4/23/14 Mr.

Robert Arnold

1984 Microtheme In our age, could a society exist like the one in 1984? Specifically, what would/could cause it to exist or not exist?

Nineteen Eighty-Four begins on a cold April morning in a London, the major city of Airstrip One, a province of Oceania, where the weather is still lousy and residents endure a endless austerity. Private telescreens broadcast the Partys platform and its constant stream of infotainment. Everyone simply assumes that they are always being watched, and most no longer know to care. I have always found made conclusions after reading 1984 that the society we live in know is a replica from the book. The first instance I see similarities from the book and society are from the telescreens. In the book, all public and private places have large TV screens that broadcast government propaganda, news and entertainment. They are also two-way monitors that spy on citizens private lives. Today sites like Facebook track our likes and dislikes, and governments and private individuals hack into our computers and find out what they want to know. Then there are the surveillance cameras that spy on the average person as they go about their daily routine. The second similarity is found is the war. In the book, there's a global war that has been going on forever, and as Winston Smith, realizes the enemy keeps changing. One week we're at war with Eastasia and buddies with Eurasia. The next week, it's just the opposite. There seems little to distinguish the two adversaries, and they are used primarily to keep the populace of

Oceania in a constant state of fear, thereby making dissent punishable. Today we have the war on terror where we have societal fear, suspension of certain civil liberties, and an enemy who could be anywhere, and anything. The anti sex league was an organization set up to take the pleasure out of sex, and to make sure that it was a mechanical function used for procreation only. Organizations that promote abstinence only sex education, or want to ban artificial birth control, are the modern versions of this. I feel like the technological possibilities of surveillance and data collection and storage definitely surpass what Orwell imagined. There is a line in the book As for sending a letter through the mails, it was out of the question. By a routine that was not even secret, all letters were opened in transit, which could be translated many ways but makes you think how powerful government agencies are. The NSA was proved that they target the communications of everyone. Even if a person is not saying anything interesting or controversial, and even if no one is actually monitoring our communication, the notion that ones personal digital messages would remain inviolably private forever, or that they would not be saved or stored, was probably nave. We live in a frightening society where a government agency can monitor everyone's phone calls. Unless you spend your life in a space, totally off the grid, there is simply no way the government won't have information about you stored away somewhere.

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