Whether we like to admit or not, there are two sides to every coin. A head and a tail, a good and a bad. The same can be said for societies. For every utopia, there’s a dystopia lurking underneath that perfection. This is especially true in the society, Oceania, in George Orwell’s book, “1984.” In an attempt to to acquire perfect peace, equality, and compliance throughout their society, they government went through a huge “reform” into a communist society with very little of the freedoms we call basic. The concepts of nationalism, freedom, and truth in “1984” are both similar and different from our society today.
A concept that was quite different to how we view it in our society from the very beginning of the book was freedom. In America, …show more content…
Truth is a tricky subject. It can be bent out of shape, distorted, or even erased. How does one really know what the truth even is? The simple answer is that they can. No one can. Unless a person was there for the event or something of the sort, they cannot unquestionably figure out what the real truth is. And even then, the truth may be muddled by their emotions. This brings in the concept mentioned earlier, the fact that each and every one of us have our own “personal truths.” This is especially true in the 1984 society, Oceania. Except, instead of everyone having their own version of the truth, there is only one version, and that is the government's version of the truth. The headquarters of all information let out into the public, the Ministry of Truth, is a major factor in the novel when it comes to the manipulation of the truth and of reality. They control everything that the nation sees. They control the present and the past, which in turn gives them absolute control over the future as well. Once again, no one can argue about whether or not what is published is true as everything will have been falsified before they got the chance to. THey would have no proof, which only further backs up the point that, “...if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth,” (Orwell, Page#). Something similar in our world is happening today. People in high up political positions, senators, congress members, and even the president have tried to cover up their tracks and change the reality of certain situations. This isn't new either. It has been going on since civilization was a thing. Leaders don't want to look foolish and they don't want their own nation to turn on them, so they lie about the truth. They tell the public that the awful thing they were accused of didn't actually happen, or that it wasn't them. Soon enough, statistics about production throughout the nation, or how
A concept that was quite different to how we view it in our society from the very beginning of the book was freedom. In America, …show more content…
Truth is a tricky subject. It can be bent out of shape, distorted, or even erased. How does one really know what the truth even is? The simple answer is that they can. No one can. Unless a person was there for the event or something of the sort, they cannot unquestionably figure out what the real truth is. And even then, the truth may be muddled by their emotions. This brings in the concept mentioned earlier, the fact that each and every one of us have our own “personal truths.” This is especially true in the 1984 society, Oceania. Except, instead of everyone having their own version of the truth, there is only one version, and that is the government's version of the truth. The headquarters of all information let out into the public, the Ministry of Truth, is a major factor in the novel when it comes to the manipulation of the truth and of reality. They control everything that the nation sees. They control the present and the past, which in turn gives them absolute control over the future as well. Once again, no one can argue about whether or not what is published is true as everything will have been falsified before they got the chance to. THey would have no proof, which only further backs up the point that, “...if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth,” (Orwell, Page#). Something similar in our world is happening today. People in high up political positions, senators, congress members, and even the president have tried to cover up their tracks and change the reality of certain situations. This isn't new either. It has been going on since civilization was a thing. Leaders don't want to look foolish and they don't want their own nation to turn on them, so they lie about the truth. They tell the public that the awful thing they were accused of didn't actually happen, or that it wasn't them. Soon enough, statistics about production throughout the nation, or how