What elements of Orwells Prophesy from "1984" came true?

Answer 1

well, the monitoring of citizens through telescreens is now done in America with phone taps and if anyone has radical revolutionary ideas in America, you will be arrested. The Patriot Act is 1984 in action.

Answer 2

Orwell's book was not intended as a prophesy, but as an indictment, not just of Communism, as upallnight asserts, but of totalitarianism in any form. Orwell was explicitly criticizing the situation in Great Britain in 1948, when he wrote most of the book, where he believed he was already seeing tendencies that would eventually lead to a totalitarian Britain. By setting his novel in a dystopian future he was doing what many authors of fantasy and science fiction have done, critiquing the here-and-now by placing his charaters in some other place and time.

There is a sense, however, in which "1984" can be seen as prophetic. Witness the increasing importance, since the end of World War II, of the "national security state" that has arisen in two of the world's oldest democracies, Great Britain and the United States. One has only to pick up a newspaper to read of the increase in surveillance that is taking place in Britain, with many thousands of cameras watching people twenty-four hours a day, or the increasing laws against "unacceptable" behavior. Similarly, in the U.S., we have a president who claims, again and again, that his primary responsibility is "to protect the American people," when in fact his sworn duty is to protect the Constitution, over which he has been riding roughshod. All of these things, and more, have been done in the name of protecting "national security," i.e., the state.

Another important element of Orwell's novel was "thoughtcrime," unapproved or "inappropriate" thinking. Just recently I have read where a group of scientists are claiming the ability to perform brainscans that will indicate future behavior. If something like that becomes an actuality, how far are we then from the thoughtcrime of "1984," or even the "precrime" of "Minority Report?" Plus, we already have situations where people are arrested for things like setting up a sexual rendezvous, via an Internet chat room, with a "14-year old girl" who in fact doesn't exist. The "girl" turns out to be a policewoman, or even a policeMAN engaged in a "sting" operation. I am not in any sense attempting to excuse adult men who want to have sex with underage girls, but how is this situation not thoughtcrime?

As for other types of surveillance, we already have increasingly large and interactive video screens, so how long could it be before we have two-way screens through which people can be watched 24/7? We also now have radio frequency ID (RFID) chips the size of a dust particle that can track people, as well as GPS trackers in cell phones, cars, and even kids shoes. We have things like ECHELON, a purported worldwide signals intelligence network that, supposedly, can track all types of electronic communication and, using computers, check for certain key words or phrases so that the communications containing them can be investigated further.

All of these things, and more, including things which probably exist but of which we are yet unaware, make the "fantasy" of Orwell's vision increasingly a reality.

Answer 3

1984 is a not-so-veiled inditement of Communism. So, in that context, much of the book came true for those living in Communist nations. In the United States, the destruction of civil liberties and the invasion of privacy have reached new heights under the Patriot Act.

Answer 4

We live in a 24/7 surveillance society, CCTV etc, and a world that has permanent war. (There hasn't been a year since the early 1900s when there hasn't been a conflict, either between states or civil war, taking place somewhere in the world.)

Answer 5

Ford is not in his Fliver and all is not right with the world!