In the words of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,
“to be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, …show more content…
Well, the answer is actually quite simple. Reality control is a necessity in these societies because without it, no one would be subject to listen to the government, which would increase the number of people who were willing to rebel against the Party. In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Party relies on the use of reality control to change the thoughts of its citizens so that they can eliminate the chances of opposition to its rule. Dedria Bryfonski, the author of the journal article “The Abuse of Power in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four,” argues that the Party uses “the obliteration of the privacy realm [and] the elimination of personal and cultural identity so that nothing [stands] between the atomised individual and the state” (Bryfonski 127). By making people lose who they are, they no longer remember or even feel like they have nothing to live for. They also feel like they have no choice but to submit because the only thing that makes them feel secure in themselves is their faith in the government to have their best interests at heart. Bryfonski goes on to argue that the goal of the Party is “to achieve complete thought-control, to cancel the past utterly from minds as well as records” (Bryfonski 110). This makes complete control imminent and sustaining power very easy because they will control everyone’s minds. This being the …show more content…
Reality control is used by the government to hide secrets about its ruling class. According to Angela Laflen, in her journal article titled "There's a Shock in This Seeing: The Problem of the Image in The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake,” “a crisis in sterility has prompted a small, but well organized group to install a mono theocratic government” in Gilead so that no one besides that trusted group knows that most men have become sterile as an after-effect of the environmental factors that also caused a large percentage of women to become infertile (Laflen 100). Male sterility should not really come as a surprise to the citizens because women are infertile for the same reason. Laflen also hypothesizes that the “appearance of control and stability is ultimately designed to maintain the status quo and to disguise the fact that the ruling body of men, the Commanders, are sterile” (Laflen 105). If the ordinary citizens were aware of the condition of their rulers, they would not be as inclined to follow them blindly. For this very reason, the small group that is aware must keep this secret to themselves in order to maintain the amount of stability they need to stay in power. This is why the government encourages people into thinking that “there is no such thing as a sterile man anymore” (Atwood 61). This fact is hidden by the
“to be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, …show more content…
Well, the answer is actually quite simple. Reality control is a necessity in these societies because without it, no one would be subject to listen to the government, which would increase the number of people who were willing to rebel against the Party. In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Party relies on the use of reality control to change the thoughts of its citizens so that they can eliminate the chances of opposition to its rule. Dedria Bryfonski, the author of the journal article “The Abuse of Power in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four,” argues that the Party uses “the obliteration of the privacy realm [and] the elimination of personal and cultural identity so that nothing [stands] between the atomised individual and the state” (Bryfonski 127). By making people lose who they are, they no longer remember or even feel like they have nothing to live for. They also feel like they have no choice but to submit because the only thing that makes them feel secure in themselves is their faith in the government to have their best interests at heart. Bryfonski goes on to argue that the goal of the Party is “to achieve complete thought-control, to cancel the past utterly from minds as well as records” (Bryfonski 110). This makes complete control imminent and sustaining power very easy because they will control everyone’s minds. This being the …show more content…
Reality control is used by the government to hide secrets about its ruling class. According to Angela Laflen, in her journal article titled "There's a Shock in This Seeing: The Problem of the Image in The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake,” “a crisis in sterility has prompted a small, but well organized group to install a mono theocratic government” in Gilead so that no one besides that trusted group knows that most men have become sterile as an after-effect of the environmental factors that also caused a large percentage of women to become infertile (Laflen 100). Male sterility should not really come as a surprise to the citizens because women are infertile for the same reason. Laflen also hypothesizes that the “appearance of control and stability is ultimately designed to maintain the status quo and to disguise the fact that the ruling body of men, the Commanders, are sterile” (Laflen 105). If the ordinary citizens were aware of the condition of their rulers, they would not be as inclined to follow them blindly. For this very reason, the small group that is aware must keep this secret to themselves in order to maintain the amount of stability they need to stay in power. This is why the government encourages people into thinking that “there is no such thing as a sterile man anymore” (Atwood 61). This fact is hidden by the