Impact and treatment of security threats in Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four”
International Security
INTL800
Maxence Michaud-Daniel
George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” dystopia not only served as a critic of totalitarian regimes but also as a “How to ensure security to sovereignty for dummies”. Indeed, Orwell’s masterpiece evokes all characteristics of totalitarian regime pushed to its extreme in order to fully control its people and assure total security in order to preserve full sovereignty and avoid any revolt against its power. In order to prevent from any security threats, the government of Oceania, or the “Party”, used five methods of control of the population. The first one was to impose a war mentality to its people, followed by a sexual oppression (or even castration). Thirdly, Surveillance of its people served as a main tool in order to treat its security threats for Oceania’s totalitarian government. And finally, the invention of a new or shortened vocabulary in its language, the “Newspeak”, and a philosophical and mental alteration of the past served as main cultural and philosophical tools to control the population’s thinking and acting. These methods prove to be successful for Oceania’s regime, unlike its impact on the “almost enslaved population”.
Like a despotic state, the “Party” encourages a war mentality, especially amongst the party members. Although some of these members …show more content…
When all will actually adopt the Newspeak, people won’t have bad reasoning as they won’t have the words to do so. The Declaration of Human Rights, for example, is untranslatable into Newspeak, because it expresses abstract and contrary ideas to those of the party. When the word "Oldspeak" will also be forgotten, any link with the history and its literature will be definitely erased. The government believes that this limited vocabulary will therefore limit thoughts and actions, granting its total
International Security
INTL800
Maxence Michaud-Daniel
George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” dystopia not only served as a critic of totalitarian regimes but also as a “How to ensure security to sovereignty for dummies”. Indeed, Orwell’s masterpiece evokes all characteristics of totalitarian regime pushed to its extreme in order to fully control its people and assure total security in order to preserve full sovereignty and avoid any revolt against its power. In order to prevent from any security threats, the government of Oceania, or the “Party”, used five methods of control of the population. The first one was to impose a war mentality to its people, followed by a sexual oppression (or even castration). Thirdly, Surveillance of its people served as a main tool in order to treat its security threats for Oceania’s totalitarian government. And finally, the invention of a new or shortened vocabulary in its language, the “Newspeak”, and a philosophical and mental alteration of the past served as main cultural and philosophical tools to control the population’s thinking and acting. These methods prove to be successful for Oceania’s regime, unlike its impact on the “almost enslaved population”.
Like a despotic state, the “Party” encourages a war mentality, especially amongst the party members. Although some of these members …show more content…
When all will actually adopt the Newspeak, people won’t have bad reasoning as they won’t have the words to do so. The Declaration of Human Rights, for example, is untranslatable into Newspeak, because it expresses abstract and contrary ideas to those of the party. When the word "Oldspeak" will also be forgotten, any link with the history and its literature will be definitely erased. The government believes that this limited vocabulary will therefore limit thoughts and actions, granting its total