1984
For my final blog post, I was asked to recommend a fictional piece of media that I think should be added to the course. Numerous pieces of fiction that would be really suitable for this class crossed my mind, but after a long though process I finally settled on a work of fiction that I believe could be very beneficial to this course: The novel 1984.
1984 was written by George Orwell and published on the 8th of June 1949. This is the timeframe directly after the second world war and the events of the war served as inspiration for Orwell’s story. More specifically, what he learned about the totalitarian systems in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union led him to write 1984 as a cautionary tale for what things could be like, if a totalitarian regime were to take control in a democratic nation such as England. 1984 is considered a dystopian social science fiction novel, and just like numerous readings and black mirror episodes dealt with in class, it describes a dystopian future humanity might possibly have to face.
The novel takes place in London; London and all of England are subject to a totalitarian system where the individual is considered to be worth nothing. In this society a single party, known as “the party”, holds absolute power. The party’s slogan is “War is peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is strength”. Every home is equipped with a television, which cannot be turned off, that broadcasts propaganda throughout the entire day. All citizens are constantly watched through cameras hidden in their televisions by the so-called thought police. The job of the thought police is to make sure no thought crimes are committed. Any negative thoughts about the party or the status quo is considered a thought crime. In 1984, surveillance has reached the point that instead of only the criminal act being prosecuted, people’s thoughts are sufficient to have them imprisoned or killed by the government. The party additionally destroys all evidence that contradicts their propaganda and world view. This leads to all books and article written prior to the party seizing control being destroyed or edited to support party claims. Additionally, the party even plans to create an entirely new language called newspeak. The party creates new words, changes current ones, and even completely strikes words from this new language; some words that are stricken from newspeak are bad, to be, and freedom. This is all done in an effort to narrow the range of thought. By getting rid of words that would enable someone to express thoughtcrime, the party aims to render thoughtcrime impossible as there would be no words to express your negative thoughts.
This brief summary of the most important aspects of 1984 has a striking amount of parallels to topics we discussed in class. We spent a lot of time speaking about the topic surveillance. We discussed how we are being surveilled by companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, or Google. When we talk about how such companies are invading our privacy, most of us in the class would say how we feel rather uncomfortable about strangers knowing things about us like where we live, what our hobbies are, who are friends are, and what we would most likely buy based on our interests. Similar to 1984 the information gathered is used for a type of propaganda. In 1984 the propaganda is political, whereas the propaganda shown to us by these companies comes in the form of advertisement. I think that 1984 gives an interesting perspective of how things could be if the immense amount of information that has been collected about each and every one of us was used by a regime in a totalitarian system rather than by companies trying to make money. If we were to add some readings from 1984 when we discussed privacy in relation to big concerns, I believe it would encourage some interesting class discussions.
A different part of the class schedule where I believe 1984 could tie into nicely is when we watch the arkangel episode of black mirror (Jodie Foster. Arkangel. 2017). This episode is all about surveillance and the consequences it can have. If the students were to read 1984 before or after watching arkangel, they could contrast the types of surveillance in the two, discuss the morality in both situations, and talk about if in either case the surveillance could be used for good. I remember talking about whether or not the arkangel program was ethical and if it could maybe also be used in a different way that would justify the surveillance. I would find it interesting if the same question were posed for 1984.
Is there a way that such strict surveillance by the government can be justified or even used for good? What are pros and cons?
I believe those discussion questions would spark a lot of interesting conversations. Or even a blog post contrasting the black mirror episode and the novel could be interesting.
By adding 1984 to the syllabus, I am not suggesting that The Circle should not be read. If, however, you only want there to be one novel read in the class, 1984 is a much better novel in my eyes. Not only does it address similar topics, it is also a much more enjoyable and highly acclaimed novel. Or at least that’s my opinion. Another option would be to only read the first half of 1984. That is where most of the relevant topics for this class are covered. Overall though, I really do believe that the students would actually enjoy reading 1984 and that it could definitely contribute to the class as a whole.
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