Is a 1984 possible?

Question

For those who have read Orwell's "1984": do you think such a fictious world could ever become reality?

Answer 1

What makes you so sure it is not already a reality?

Answer 2

The real terror of Orwells Hell is the destruction of 'reality'..2+2 making 5 for example. Orwell shows a government that has broken the human will, crushed the human spirit and destroyed reality. History is, literally, dead. Freedom will never be attained, as people will no longer know what freedom was.

We are already suffering the killing of reality. Look at the current propaganda wars being fought, the centralisation fo the media into the hands of the view, the re-writing of history to favour the aggressors...people are turning to the authoritarians becausr they fear the unseen enemy


Yes, i can see Orwells Hell coming, and i fear it with my life.

PS
Just some notes on the actual book folks, orwell didnt write it as a critique of either communism or fascism, he makes the point in the book of showing how the two extremes of political thought are really the same thing...Communism and Fascism, in reality, are the same dictatorial system..however, he is attacking Stalins Russia, and also the increasing Americanisation of Britain

Answer 3

Why wouldn't it be possible. Orwell himself fashioned the novel after Stalinist Russia. It doesn't have to be 2-way televisions or those air-tubes but there are countless governments throughout history that have done some of what he described.
As fascism becomes more advanced, it becomes more efficient and layered. We're heading towards 1984 in America. Look at all the little laws that are getting passed and they keep adding up and pretty soon people will find themselves in constant war (War On Terror) and afraid to criticize the "leader" because they'll get attacked or jailed (See what Republicans and conservatives do to dissidents and see the Patriot Act) and eventually they'll wonder how it ended up that way. Most of them wont' wonder or care because they'll be too busy being a good American, which is nothing more than a brain-dead consumer. The people who will have cared will have long been dead or imprisoned, having been called terrorists. It's already happening; check out Sean Hannity, Fox News, The Washington Post, talk radio-they're ready for concentration camps for people that speak out.

Answer 4

I think it could be a reality. It seems to be based all on things I've seen humans do. I can see the insecurities of Ingsoc in some of the people I know. Like how they change the past records. But, with the world as it is, if any country tried to become as strict and invasive as the government depicted in 1984 is, another country may step in and say "No, don't do that." and hold a grudge and eventually declare war, like the United States and communism. But technology is so crazy now that the people of this country would eventually at least hear about the outside world and feel like they need to rebel. And like Winston, they all felt cheated of something but they didn't know what. There would be a rebellion eventually, in the "proles" perhaps.

Answer 5

We are almost in the situation described in "1984" and heading towards the world described in the book, "Brave New World". It's been a long time since I read, "1984"; but as I remember, "Big Brother" was in complete control of the citizens and they changed the history books frequently to get people to believe what the government wanted them to believe.

Think about the "hate speech" laws. It's not politically correct to say certain words or express certain opinions. I don't know if it's illegal in the USA, bit in Canada, It's against the law to say anything negative about homosexual behavior.

I'm 63 y/o, so I have seen at least 50 years as current events. I have a niece in high school and I was helping her with her American History course. When I was reading her text book, I couldn't believe how many lies there were and how many things were missrepresented. The intent of this was clear to see. The author wanted the student to believe certain things and changed the history to foster those beliefs.

If you haven't read, "Brave New World" yet, It is a must read. In it they talk about test tube babies and genetic engineering. This book was written before anything like this was possible. Think about; in vitro fertilization, cloning of sheep and plans to clone humans, surrogate mothers-- where a fertilized embryo is planted in a different woman's uterus.

I think we must be aware of what is going on in the world, when
political activists or politicians want to intrduce new laws, they don't say, "We want to enact this new law in order to control you more." They say, "We need this new law to 'protect' you or others. Many cities are putting video cameras on poles to tape what every one is doing. They say we need these to help control crime. Think of how the government could use those cameras to watch every thing we do.

The trend in banking is moving toward a cashless society. There are: credit cards, check cards, and debit cards. All of these are on computers that interact with each other. If they didn't, they couldn't be used. Think about the potential abuse of this. If there was no cash, whoever controled the computors, would have total control of the people in the country.

I'm not trying to scare you, we have to keep our eyes open so that we can resist those things and vote accordingly.

By the way, after reading the other answers, I just want to say that it's the Liberals that want every controled in a government run by the Liberal Elites. It's not the Consertives. Real consertives want less government and fewer laws. The only freedom the Liberals are interested in, is the freedom to have sex with anyone or anything.

Answer 6

Mr. George Orwell really had far-fetched reading about the happening around him in those days when he decided to write "1984"....(he wrote the novel in 1948).....and what we are experiencing is nothing but the situation like "Big Brother Is Watching"....its reality.

Answer 7

No. Really, it was never meant to be something that could actually happen, Mr. Orwell just wanted you to think of that future he outlined when you see fascist tendencies around you. Things can get bad, but people are simply too discordant to ever fall into a system that stable.

I don't think you need to worry about us falling into an unbreakable system that drowns the human will. For one thing, the system he proposes would eventually lead to "the Party" stagnating while the "Proles" continued to evolved. It could take thousands of years if we somehow reached that point, though we couldn't in my opinion, but we would break out.

Answer 8

Read the Patriot Act.

Answer 9

Yea, maybe...It is also like the movie "V for Vandetta". That could happen someday, but I highly doubt anytime soon.

By the way "V for Vandetta" is a great movie, I just finnished watching it 2 hours ago.

Answer 10

as long as we oppose those who lead us it is not possible as long as we educate ourselves it is not possible unfortunatly the majority of us don't and those will become the proles the rest of us who challenge the the policies of our government are doomed to be of the outer party eventually tortured either physically with our own fears or mentally with fear of war or terror it is all of our responsibility to keep 2+2 equaling 4

Answer 11

It almost did in Russia and Germany that IS why he wrote it when he did.(1948 he just reversed the last two digits)