“Those who would trade their liberties for a little safety deserve neither
liberty nor safety”. That quote by Benjamin Franklin described mindset that
leads to totalitarian government. The British novelist, George Orwell is known
for his chilling governmental satire. Animal Farm, his other well-known novel is
a look into the past, his novel 1984 was a eerie prophecy into the not so
distant future. This view of a negative Utopia has become so well known that
people who believe in his theory are called Orwellian. But do we exist in a
manner similar to the prophecy of the world in which he claimed to be what life
would be like in 1984? The answer is No, but in just a few years we could.
Ironically one of the greatest differences in our society and the society of
Orwell, is that in 1984, the gene which leads to sex has been suppressed. For In
our society promiscuity and suggestiveness have gotten maybe not more common but
certainly more public. When Orwell published 1984, this seemed to be a logical
conclusion that such an event might happen. For in the Post- World War II,
generation sex was expressly hidden. For example on television the Rock musician
Elvis Presley was not shown below the hips because it was considered far too
suggestive. In this aspect Our Society more resembles the other most famous
novel of a negative utopia, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. However we do
share some similarities. Part of the power base in 1984 has its power
exclusively through the deception of the people. Winston for example accepts the”fact” that two plus two does in fact equal five. As we know, two plus two
equals four. The most important way in which we can prevent turnining into an
Orwellian society is to not be able to be misled. To prevent the society of
which we live from becoming Orwellian we must stave off apathy. For it is a
slippery slope and if we take the first step down it we could live in an
Orwellian totalitarian state. Closing, we do not as of today live in the
society, which Orwell predicted. We still maintain a level of personal freedom
in the United States greater than that described in 1984. However other nations
of this world, the Peoples Republic of China comes to mind, where they live in a
semi-Orwellian world. Even though we tend to say “it can’t happen here”,
it can. That’s what they would have said in Germany in the twenties or Russia
in the Pre-World War One era. It can happen here and it shall if we do not
remember the lesson of the American President Thomas Jefferson “The Price of
liberty is Eternal Vigilance”.
