Introduction
The novel 1984 by George Orwell describes a society where the authorities regularly check citizens. This essay compares the world of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four to the present world. As Orwell quotes, “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,” people should recognize the source of their data since it greatly impacts their well-being (Karamanski 39). The concept of “Big Brother” stands for constant monitoring, manipulation, and domination, and Orwell’s quote, “Big Brother is watching you,” is repeated several times in the novel (Abdu and Khafaga 421). The statement is posted all across the city to inform residents that they are being monitored and studied. In the real world, the phrase “Big Brother” symbolizes state misuse of authority, relates to personal civil authorizations, and is regularly used to denote situations of mass investigation of the populace. As Orwell foretold, people have entirely abandoned their autonomies and privileges, allowing state surveillance to grow invisibly (Frank). Although the desire to surrender solitude is founded on the novel 1984’s fear, most data breaches are due to the apparent benefits of technological breakthroughs in a modern global world.
Main body
Currently, people can virtually communicate and interact on social platforms from the luxury of their home and access data about any subject due to technology’s improved way of sharing information with ease. While the law seems to have nullified prior private protections in the story and modern society, the reality is that people have made it happen. In George Orwell’s book 1984, the residents of a dystopian society obey government dictates and follow the rules because they do not want to be arrested and prosecuted. (Gruszewska-Blaim 150). The anxiety stems from the belief that the government has safeguards designed to guarantee that it is often conscious of what individuals desire.
Due to the constant knowledge of people being watched, they learn to change their rationale to avoid opinions that can be regarded as anti-government, attributed to the additional threat of the “Thought Police. Individuals use smartboards to broadcast messages and watch the general population. Since they do not know what emotions or movements are associated with dangerous or disruptive thoughts, individuals learn to control their body language and quite often retain a blank face. The “Thought Police” are on the watch for the slightest of signs somebody is thinking “illegal” thoughts, such as a shiver or an eyebrow tick (Gruszewska-Blaim 145). Telescreens are erected in residential and public areas, on either side of every corridor and street (Gruszewska-Blaim 146). The government does not simply watch its residents through these displays.
While television may not be visible, nobody can be confident that their speech is not being collected on a hidden camera or a criminal-hunting helicopter is not flying above them. Presently, even youngsters are dreaded because they are groomed and rewarded for reporting to relatives. Despite how the system is untrustworthy and infringes privacy, no one tries to overthrow it. People give up their freedom to think, say, and act how they want in exchange for imagined security from an ostensibly never-ending battle. The government’s ominous figures supplement their anxiety; despite the reality that Oceania has a long history of cordial relations with the countries with which it is technically at war, the individuals are unsure of this (Abdu and Khafaga 421). The government’s actions of denying reality and the current to suit their purposes are the primary reasons for the doubt.
The Concept of Big Brother
The protagonist, Winston, and the antagonist, Big Brother, are introduced in the novel’s first pages. Winston, a 39-year-old male, returns home after a long day. As he walks to his flat, readers learn that there is a poster of a giant face of a man approximately 45 years old with a black beard and solid and attractive features on each landing. This visage, dubbed Big Brother, is said to have the look of an overwhelming figure that may be found in all aspects of society. The artwork creates the impression of an all-seeing eye. The idea that this anonymous figure is always present in the shadows builds a society’s order whose members are educated not to say anything that could be alleged as being serious of “Big Brother” and “The Party,” the dominant upper class. The poster, “Big Brother,” with the giant face stared from the wall on each level, opposite the lift shaft. One of those staged photographs where the eyes follow one when they move (Abdu and Khafaga 421). The idea of heavy supervision is introduced right at the start of the book.
People endure constant surveillance, despite appearing overbearing because they believe it is justified in an unsafe society due to war’s possible horrors. Individual liberties have been willingly surrendered due to the belief that the government is actively stopping enemies from seizing power and hurting its residents. The author argues that the awareness of being at war makes handing overall authority to a small caste seem the inevitable, unavoidable condition of life. Throughout the novel, “Big Brother” emerges on posters and television screens as a real-life circumstance and a political slogan (Abdu and Khafaga 421). In this tale, Big Brother is the superior body in Oceania, ruling in a dictatorial way. He is the controller of “the Party,” which has absolute supremacy over the people, controlling their ideas by forming the belief that they can read their thoughts by looking at their body expressions.
How Close are We to Orwell’s Vision of a Future of Surveillance?
Several significant discussions have emerged concerning the parallels between what Orwell foretold in his publication in 1949, thirty-five years before the period stated in the title. Several people have claimed that the sorts of monitoring shown in the novel evolved due to modern technological advancements. In contrast, others have claimed that the types of supervision used today much outnumber those depicted in the novel. The distinction between the philosophies of care, the declared objective of similar monitoring by government institutions, and force have been discussed further. Bodies like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) say that the government of the US is posing a significant threat to citizens’ privacy due to increasing technical surveillance dominance to protect national security.
Government agencies like the National Security Agency (NSA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have been known to leverage into the private telecommunications of peaceful civilians. These agencies collect vast amounts of data and compile databases of what they perceive as unusual activity based on ambiguous measures. The ACLU further explains that while the government’s process of gathering this confidential data is an intolerable infringement of privacy in and of itself, how they use it is much more problematic, bordering on abuse. Innocent people are denied boarding on aircraft, cannot acquire certain types of work, their bank details are stopped, and are interrogated by officials repeatedly without knowing why. The government can publish such information widely and hold it indefinitely once it obtains the data.
The regulations governing who gets access to this surveillance data and how government organs can utilize them have been modified in secret, with the public being unaware of the changes. The government can use it to justify modifying rules or even violating the constitution, as it did in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist invasions. After 9/11, for example, security bodies used surveillance information to identify possible attackers for the CIA to apprehend them and gather data to help avoid similar future attacks. Even though torturing anyone for any reason is illegal under international law and US law, the CIA was reported to have used torture to obtain data and coerced admissions from civilians after 9/11. Additionally, twenty-six out of the one hundred and nineteen people detained and ambushed by the CIA after 9/11 were later found innocent (Hajjar 935). People were imprisoned due to a false indictment of two individuals mistakenly linked to Al Quida and a mentally challenged person held solely to coerce his family into confessing.
Conclusion
In conclusion, today’s surveillance appears to have surpassed what Orwell depicted in his publication. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, for example, has cautioned of a covert FBI monitoring technology that operates as a face cellular tower. The government can use these devices, known as Stingrays, to search huge geographic locations for a particular cell phone signal. However, in the process, the devices collect data on millions of other mobile phone signals relating to unrelated persons who chance to be in the same region. More recently, local police officers have exploited the gadget to get around constitutional limits, such as the requirement of issuing individualized warrants.
Works Cited
Abdu, K. S., and Ayman F. Khafaga. “A Critical Discourse Analysis of Mind Control Strategies in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.” International Journal of English Linguistics 9.6, 2019, p. 421. Web.
Frank, Natalie. “Similarities in The Surveillance Presented in Orwell’s “1984” Compared to The Present Day and Beyond.” Soapboxie, 2020, Web.
Gruszewska-Blaim, Ludmiła. “The dystopian beyond George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.” Utopian Studies: The Journal of the Society for Utopian Studies 31.1 (2020), pp. 142-163. Web.
Hajjar, Lisa. “The Counterterrorism War Paradigm versus International Humanitarian Law: The Legal Contradictions and Global Consequences of the US “War on Terror. ” Law & Social Inquiry 44.4 (2019), 922-956. Web.
Karamanski, Theodore. “Institutionalism and Activism in the Evolution of the Public History Movement.” The Public Historian 43.2 (2021), 38-40. Web.