1984: How Orwell Predicted The Future

1984 is a book that George Orwell wrote in 1949 about his thoughts on what our society would become someday. The book details out Orwell’s fears of what the world might become if the government (Big Brother) is successful in their attempt to control the citizens of Oceania. Through the use of several tools such as Telescreens, thought police, and Newspeak Big Brother is able to monitor and control the citizens of Oceania. Specifically, Newspeak was part of the government’s plan to control and manipulate the citizens by taking away their ability to think and communicate their own personal opinions and thoughts.

Newspeak is made up of several different strategies including the removal of many words from usage, incorporating abbreviations, and shortening many words all in an effort to disempower the citizens by stripping out emotions, feelings, and opinions. Through Newspeak Big Brother attempts to control the citizens using the telescreens that broadcast messages and propaganda such as “War is Peace”, “Freedom is Slavery”, and “Ignorance is Strength”.

The citizens of Oceania accept these truths because they have no choice. If they don’t accept them then the thought police would go after them. They accept them because of the threat of the thought police, as well as their dwindling ability to express themselves due to the removal of many words from language. “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it…” PG 52. Book 1, Chapter 5, Paragraph 28. As an example of using abbreviations or compound words The English Socialist Party was known as Ingsoc which is the fictional political party of Oceania. There are four branches of government; Ministry of Love, Ministry of Peace, Ministry of Plenty, and Ministry of Truth or better known in Newspeak as Miniluv, Minipax, Miniplenty, and Minitrue. “The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink.” PG 216. Through the combined efforts of intimidation, propaganda, and reduction of vocabulary, the citizens are left with little choice but to conform to Big Brother.

Orwell was right to be concerned about the dumbing down of the English language and the repercussions it could have on thought. Through the popular usage of messaging applications and social media, today’ citizens are exposed to a significant amount of abbreviations and shortcuts such as LOL, OMG, LMAO, TY, and BRB. These shortcuts are used in order to save time and are almost universally understood. In a similar fashion, emojis have increased in popularity where they come preloaded on cell phones. Emojis are used to express ideas, emotions, or feelings; such as the smiley face that is laughing, crying, or annoyed. In the same way that newspeak controlled its citizens, texting and emojis provide a way to control messaging. “They have become so firmly ensconced in day-to-day communication streams that in 2015, Oxford Dictionaries even chose an emoji known as the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ as its Word Of The Year” (The Straits Times by Rebecca Lynne Tan PUBLISHED: JUL 23, 2017)

In the same way that Ingsoc used Newspeak to manipulate the messages and information the citizens of Oceania were exposed to, today’s politicians use Twitter, GIFS, and memes to draw focus and attention to a particular idea. The President of the United States, known as @POTUS on Twitter, has over 27.2 million followers that have access to everything he posts. This is a powerful platform that allows him to let people know what he’s thinking and at the same time, it provides him the ability to spread the message of his political supporters.

In Orwellian society, everything people did was monitored by telescreens. It was almost impossible to get away from them to have a conversation that they didn’t want to be heard by Big Brother. Everything we talk about today is recorded by Siri, Google, or Alexa. In today’s generation, it is nearly impossible to get away from technology. Smart speakers and technology are listening to our conversations and based on them providing advertisements on our phones, computers, and websites we visit. “Many people are noticing micro-targeted advertisements based on things they’ve never actually searched for online before, but have talked about in real life.” Narcity by Casey Aonso. This is an example of how our technology manipulates by showing advertisements for products we have talked about and now are pushing us to buy the products.

1984 is a book that George Orwell wrote in 1949 about his thoughts on what our society would become in the future. Newspeak is made up of several different strategies including the removal of many words from usage, incorporating abbreviations, and shortening many words all in an effort to disempower the citizens by stripping out emotions, feelings, and opinions. Through Newspeak Big Brother attempts to control the citizens using the telescreens that broadcast messages and propaganda such as “War is Peace”, “Freedom is Slavery”, and “Ignorance is Strength”. The citizens of Oceania accept these truths because they have no choice. They accept them because of the threat of the thought police, as well as their dwindling ability to express themselves due to the removal of many words from language. Orwell was right to be concerned about the dumbing down of the English language and the repercussions it could have on thought. In the same way that Ingsoc used Newspeak to manipulate the messages and information the citizens of Oceania were exposed to, today’s politicians use Twitter, GIFS, and memes to draw focus and attention to a particular idea. The President of the United States, known as @POTUS on Twitter, has over 27.2 million followers that have access to everything he posts. In Orwellian society everything people did was monitored by telescreens. It was almost impossible to get away from them to have a conversation that they didn’t want to be heard by Big Brother.

Works Cited

1. Orwell, George. 1984. London: Secker and Warburg, 1949.
2. Aonso, Casey. “There’s A Reason Why You Keep Getting Ads For Things You’ve Talked About But
3. Haven’t Actually Searched Up Online.” Narcity, Narcity, 5 Jan. 2019, 6:27 AM , www.narcity.com/news/theres-a-reason-why-you-keep-getting-ads-for-things-youve-talked-about-but-havent-actually-searched-up-online.