The Widespread Influence of 1984
While all of the books we have read this semester are very famous and well known, I would say that 1984 is by far the most. 1984 has had an effect on our culture unmatched by almost any other dystopian novel to date, having been bought over 30 million times since its publication. Additionally, the book has seen a large spike in sales in the last few years especially and is now possibly more relevant than ever. I think 1984 reflects our own society much closer than any other dystopian novel, and this makes the book much more impactful to us.
There are two major things that i think resonate the most with modern readers of 1984: the surveillance of the population (at least the outer-Party members) and the constant manipulation of information. Firstly, the presence of the term ‘Big Brother’ in modern culture reaches much further beyond the book itself, and this is an example of how 1984 reflects our world; the fear of a totalitarian government watching over your every move is very common, especially with the increasing reach of phones, computers and devices like Amazon Alexa, and the telescreen as well as the Party’s general control in 1984 perfectly represents this fear.
Additionally, the way the truth is controlled, twisted, and sometimes removed in exchange for falsehood through the Ministry of Truth in 1984 represents the growing prevalence of things like fake news and the manipulation of information to twist public opinion to a modern reader. Many fear that these things will only become more prevalent and more manipulative in the future, and see a potential future in 1984.
Both of these major themes, as well as many other details in 1984(treatment of the proles, pointless and endless war, etc.) represent fears that many readers, especially modern readers, have had, and this leads to the incomparable influence that 1984 has had on modern culture.
-Dominck
I agree, I feel like 1984 tends to resonate with people nowadays the most since it has so much in common with our modern world, and our modern world has several things that seemingly could lead to the effects in 1984. I like your examples with the media. Current news giants often twist information to fit an agenda, which could eventually lead to the manipulation of information similar to what we see in 1984. The increased surveillance as well is eerily similar to that of 1984s. I guess that since the 2 major pillars of 1984, manipulation and surveillance, are more and more prevalent in modern day, people are more and more worried.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI found that some of the concepts that you have discussed within this blog post are very engaging. I feel that one of the reasons that people find 1984 so relatable is that in modern society it is very easy to introduce various dystopian elements, and we feel the effects of these the most. I agree with what you wrote about 1984 representing fears that many people have in the real world as well - I think that is a great point.
DeleteThe concepts that you have presented in your piece of writing are quite beguiling to me. Cameras seem like a quite familiar and realistic extension of the surveillance already present in our modern society. Manipulation of facts, may also resonate with some, since there are some humans who lie in this world. I however, have never encountered anyone who would tell me things that differ from the truth so I cannot relate to this aspect of your argument.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the themes presented in 1984 are shared in our society. With the advent of the camera, surveillance has become a pressing issue that is reflected in the telescreens of 1984. The idea that the government could connect to one of your devices at any time and monitor your behavior in the private domain is very concerning as it is basically what the Party does, but at least it is widely-known and accepted in 1984 whilst in our society we all live in fear that our privacy is being infringed upon. Manipulation, on the other hand, has recently gained prominence in our society with the mass amount of misinformation the public has access to nowadays. At least in 1984 the spread of this misinformation is uniform and due to the fact that the Party is their only source of information, leaving them no choice but to accept whatever they say. This is almost identical to our situation as most of us get our news from a single source and there is no guarantee that it won't be a twisted version of the truth or a flat-out lie. In both realms, people have to live in paranoia which is why 1984 resonates with our society now than it did then.
ReplyDeleteAlexa is an interesting example. Sometimes i ask myself if it would be that big a deal if someone is listening to me. In some ways it may not be terrible, but considering 1984 and totalitarian regimes makes it quite scary. Imagining the government acting against people discussing radical politics or ideas opens the way to those hypothetical dystopias
ReplyDeleteAll of the books that we have read so far are books that a vaguely knew about before. I think that in the last 3 years Handmaids Tale has been very prevalent in pop culture. There have been a lot of feminists movements recently like #MeToo and #TimesUp. Also the Emmy winning show of TheHandmaids Tale has also brought it back into the spotlight. So I agree that 1984 is still really prevalent and popular but I think that Handmaids Tale is also growing in popularity.
ReplyDelete^Anna
DeleteWhen I first read 1984 before the 2016 election I thought our world today resembled the surveillance state of 1984 and I never considered Newspeak or the manipulation of truth to be pertinent to our society. However, now I think the true threat behind a society such as 1984 isn't the surveillance but how they have brainwashed people to believe in falsehood. I'm worried that in today's world we've reached a point where so much false and misleading information has been disseminated that we don't care about the truth as much as we used to.
ReplyDeleteYou can see elements of books like 1984 and Handmaid's Tale in our world which makes these dystopian books seem a lot more relatable. Both of these books have ideas similar to what is happening and has happened in places like America and other countries. I like how you mention the treatment of the proles because we also tend to ignore the poor people in our world. When we do talk about 1984 though we rarely mention that and compare it to our world even though it is very prevalent. I would argue that it is more relatable than the telescreens.
ReplyDeleteI think that 1984 takes the issues of surveillance and misinformation to an extreme. Nobody (or the vast majority of people) is really arguing that what we read in 1984 is acceptable in terms of these social issues. The decision becomes a bit more unclear when we begin looking at things like Alexa and Google tracking things that we browse. Is that similarly condemnable like the telescreens where people can be directly arrested for what they say? I could see many people arguing that it is nowhere near as severe. So even though the extremes brought up in 1984 are troubling. I don't really see how they would be entirely useful given our more intermediate society today
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. 1984 is by far the most relevant to today's society. While I do not worry about whether this country would disintegrate into a place like Oceania, I do have worries about how the surveillance and information manipulation you mentioned might increase and affect our futures.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree 1984 is the most applicable to today's society. Things like the patriot act are worrying example of the direction our government is moving in and the way it uses things like war (or like in world war two or the war on terror) to take away people's rights and privacy. Especially with how intolerant our government is becoming towards some of societies more anti-government views.
ReplyDeleteI agree, some aspects of Oceania parallel with some real fears that we have in our own world. I remember one day in class we started off talking about the constant surveillance in 1984, and ended up having a really long discussion about how big tech companies are secretly storing audio and video recordings of us in our everyday lives. I think that given the way technology is headed, a world like the one in 1984 is plausible in the future.
ReplyDeleteThe amount of things that Orwell "got right" about modern society is incredible. While nothing super malicious is happening with any possible recording right now, if an even more radical group comes into power into power who knows what might qualify as ideas and thoughts crazy enough to warrant action.
ReplyDelete