Abigail Russel
Mrs. Stansbury
English 12 Honors
2 March, 2023
Ignorance is Power
In today’s world, people are very passionate about freedom and their rights. However, one aspect of freedom sometimes gets taken advantage of: personal thought and individuality. Society's thoughts are influenced everyday whether we realize it or not. Between the news and other media outlets, it can be hard to find other information that’s not being pushed out or supported by the government. This can lead to a rise in ignorance. In George Orwell’s 1984, Winston and other citizens live under a totalitarian government that constantly limits its people’s individuality and freedom which creates an ignorant society and a stronger government in Oceania. This ultimately
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Newspeak was created in order to “narrow the range of thought” with the idea that if there were “no words to express” a certain feeling then that feeling wouldn’t be expressed or felt(Orwell 52). This leads to a group of people developing weaker complex thinking skills overtime and a smaller range of vocabulary; therefore, individuality and freedom are restricted. Without the proper vocabulary, this society develops the mind of a small child that is molded and reshaped easily and can’t express or comprehend complex ideas. The end result desired by the government is a society full of unconscious minds. A malleable mind is the first step to achieving zero thought or complete ignorance in this nation. However, language is not the only thing Oceania restricts and …show more content…
In today’s world, this could easily happen. Orwell wanted to warn us so we could prevent it from happening. Society needs to stay informed by their own actions rather than relying on the government. Many people are lazy in today’s world in the aspect of getting all their news from social media and not doing their own research. This leads to a decrease in the ability to think for themselves and form their own opinions. Therefore, many begin to believe everything they see or hear. Moreover, this results in ignorance and dependency. When a nation has high levels of dependency, that makes it easier for the government to mandate things. For example, the COVID-19 crisis. Society turned to the government and followed everything that was mandated without questioning the logic or superiority behind the mandates. When a government knows that its people are ignorant and dependent on them, it will do whatever it wants which most likely takes advantage of its people. That exactly happened in 1984. Therefore, we need to take Orwell’s warning seriously by receiving our news and information from more than one source. Most importantly, we can never become dependent on the ones that govern
1984 Essay There’s no point in trying to fight the government; it will always have control over us, no matter how hard we try to fight it. Americans are like the members of Oceania in Orwell’s 1984 today due to the use of photo and media manipulation by the government in order to rewrite the past. Some people may believe that the government does not have complete control because the public voices their anti-government opinions through protesting, but little actually comes out of these protests. Manipulation by the government has been proven time after time in America, and Orwell predicted that.
Everyone has their perfect or utopian world, but once you put that world into everyone’s perspective, it looks darker. A government that creates an emotionless world can cause problems with sympathy towards others or fear keeping us away from danger. Governments that also control their people through common appliances can put everyone into some sort of trance. Our government is like those in dystopian-style books in that our government censors certain information they don’t want us to know. Fahrenheit 451 and The Giver are good examples of governments that prefer control over conformity.
Imagine living in a country where letters on paper never existed. Society would not have the same movies and novels to decompress. But society might also spend more time enjoying the things around them. So there can be good and bad when governments create restrictions. When people are allowed to make their own decisions, society benefits.
In 1949, an author by the name of George Orwell decided to put the tragedies that were happening in real life onto paper to create a frightening story that would haunt several generations. In the thrilling dystopian novel 1984, tells of a story of a new world that is filled with manipulation, fear, control, and a brainwashed public. This world depicts a government who is everywhere, sees everything, and controls every aspect of every person's life. Not only is the government controlling the public, but they are also in the media. Mainly the news being the source of manipulation, many stories get rewritten and several words get cut out of the news every day.
This is what happens in Anthem; Equality 7-2521 was prevented from freely exercising his full academic potential, he was restricted from having curiosity about the world, and was kept in the shadows of the illusion of a flawless society. Although these laws were originally put in place to limit the amount of discrimination and egotistical minds, they became oppressors and obstructors to the freedom of thought, self-achievement, and the right to wonder. Thus, this serves as a great example of what conformity and collectivism could become when they are used solely to govern people's lives. “We are one in all and all in one, There are no men but only the great WE, One, indivisible and forever.” (Anthem page 19)
Life in the real world, compared to that in the novel, “1984” by George Orwell, is something completely different when put side to side. As soon as we get into this book, all of this “Big Brother” propaganda is shoved into our faces. It shows us their form of government, if we can call it that to begin with. Everybody lives in fear, doing what they are told to do. Already this violated our constitution, our freedom.
In the world of 1984, George Orwell reveals that words had been used not to declare truths but mostly hide them. The abuse and misuse of English become a weapon to power up the political party as they cloak the truth and deceive the public. Newspeak, technically English 2.0 had created a submission of vocabulary. The citizens had fewer words which limited their ability to share ideas. The party compounded and reduced words through a process; they changed the citizen's thoughts by carefully defining words.
George Orwell, the author of 1984, writes the book to warn his readers about the possible future of a tyrannical government. The Party manipulates its citizens through psychological methods to gain power. By restricting the words of its citizens,
First off in Orwell's 1984 the government's actions and intentions are seeking power for themselves and their own good in their unwavering actions. Orwell writes, "The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake.” This shows in a way, that the government is self-serving, and treats the citizens like property. In Orwell’s 1984 he established a self-serving government
In 1984, the restriction of information makes the population ignorant and easy to manipulate, allowing the government to stay in control by making society conform to whatever they desire. Winston states that if there is any hope that the Party would get overthrown, “it lies in the proles” (Orwell 208). However, Proles are unable to revolt against their government because they are too ignorant to question the Party’s authority. The Party uses “prolefeed” (Orwell 201) to control the population with a constant supply of entertainment and spurious news, which fills their mental horizon. Along with a lack of knowledge that keeps them from organizing themselves or questioning the powers that oppress them, the Proles are unable to rise up and overthrow the authoritarian regime, demonstrating the party slogan, “Ignorance is Strength” (Orwell 3).
Political corruption is always preceded by linguistic corruption. This means that languages are manipulative and changed for the benefit of government officials. This is represented in George Orwell’s novel, 1984 through their society’s language, Newspeak. Newspeak is a language that their government created, The Party, to control the way people communicate and express themselves. Over time, The Party has been diminishing the number of words that are in the language.
Language is a powerful tool and skill that shapes an individual’s thoughts, beliefs, and actions. In George Orwell’s book, 1984, the concept of Newspeak is presented as a portrayal of language manipulation and how sinister it is. Though a fictional language, it is proposed to not only control thoughts and actions, but also to limit one’s ability to think. With the dangers of Newspeak as a form of language manipulation and what it proposes for the modern world, by elaborating on the impact of Newspeak and its effect on an individual’s cognitive ability, society gains an understanding of the importance of free thought and critical thinking.
Has our nation ever thought about how the government could be manipulating people in believing in anything with the power of language? That is exactly what the book, 1984 by George Orwell does. The government in 1984 controls their people with the fear of having no privacy. In a result from not having privacy, the government can tell who is going against the Party and if they talk bad about the Party then they will be taken away and “vaporized”. Also, if the people do not believe in everything the Party says then they also will be taken away.
In the novel 1984, written by George Orwell, the government of Oceania controlled the citizens through a variety of ways, one of the most important being psychological manipulation. 1984, written in the perspective of a man named Winston, told a story of a dystopian society where the nonexistence of privacy lived primal and the society lived in a state of everything, almost everything, being controlled. The man, named Winston, did not agree with the way the government psychologically manipulated people into doing what they wanted. For example, the slogan “WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” (page 4) manipulated the society’s citizens into believing things that were not true. Many other examples of psychological manipulation
Oceania is diminishing the English vocabulary making words they use more simple without having to use much thought. However, making the English language shorter limits the number of words available to people. This is inferior because doing this is making the government one step closer to having full control over the