1984 is a novel written by George Orwell between 1947 and 1948 in which
the author present us a dystopian society ruled by a totalitarianism regime.
One of the things that caught my attention the most is the fact that everyone
is under surveillance, and most of the civilians have no privacy which can lead
to prevent individualism to be developed. But, how are both the concept of
totalitarianism and the lack of privacy and the absence of individualism related?
Under totalitarianism the government controls every aspect of the
individual’s life. They do so by having secret police, propaganda that is
spread through the media and not allowing the population to think critically,
using different tactics and threats to provoke fear within the people.
In the novel, you can clearly see how
these features are represented. For example, there is such an efficient surveillance
system that consists on having in every citizen’s home a giant telescreen from
which the Party can watch every move of its members. Of course, this has a considerable negative effect on the way people behave, because being under surveillance will prevent them from doing whatever they want. As the government does not allow its population to think about anything, any act that implies that will be considered against the law.
If we consider our contemporary society in which there are all these social media and most of us share whatever we want on the internet, it is like we are giving all of our information for free. Even if there are privacy terms, up to what point can we take for granted that actually all these social networks are not going to use our information against us or for their own benefit?
Apart from what it was mentioned before, why is it so important to safeguard our privacy? First of all, sharing every detail of our lives makes us more vulnerable to many abuses, for example if it is known that someone has a mental illnes, that person might be target of discrimination or harassment. In addition, another important thing is related to the fact that if we are not careful enough, we might lose our human dignitity if personal information is taken from us against our will.
To conclude, in the novel, the loss of privacy was something imposed by the government, however, if 1984 was a kind of warning of what might happen in the future if we let some people to keep commiting injustices, by sharing our information the way we do, we are probably making them the things easier.
References
McFarland, Michael. Why We Care about Privacy. (n.d). Santa Clara University. Retrieved from http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/focusareas/technology/internet/privacy/why-care-about-privacy.html
Charles' George Orwell links. Totalitarianism. (n.d). Retrieved from http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/articles/col-totalitarianism.htm
Really thought-provoking entry, Valeria. I really like the way you connected some aspects of the novel with a contemporary phenomena.
ResponderEliminarWhat caught my attention the most about your entry was the finalreflection concerning about how much information we share. It is curious how many people act so irresponsably online and how they can misuse this system that was originally created to develop fast communication and make information more available.
Additionally, I believe that many internet users share almost everything only to receive some kind of boosts of self esteem (reblog in Tumblr, Likes in Facebook, retweets in Twitter, and so on). In that sense, I would add Aldous Huxley's thesis that we are controled by the tools that make us feel pleasure, summarized in the phrase "Opium is the religion of the masses".
While reading 1984 I also got surprised of the way in which citizens were controlled. In my inner self I though how it happened. This is something really obvious, but I think totalitarism and the lack of privacy is something deeply connected. However, the loss of privacy is not something exclusive for this type regime. I was thinking about the current state of affairs, in which the US is monitoring phone calls and the Internet. The privacy is lost nowadays, even when social networks such as Facebook or Twitter have privacy policies.
ResponderEliminarIn that sense, I reckon not only 1984 but also any dystopian novel have foreseen what is happening nowadays in a way. That is something that only few people have realized. We are the lucky ones in that sense, since we have been punched by this reality. At least now, I meditate about this issue.
Valeria, I think that we are the responsibles for not thinking about the information we share online and its consecuences. We are not robots, we can think about it and make our own decisions. If we let others to take control of our lives, are we going to live under their rules?, if so,we are giving them the power of controlling us; for instance, Google can detect everything we do online; your location even if you are not connected (https://maps.google.com/locationhistory), the different devices you use to log in into your account (https://security.google.com/settings/security/activity), your preferences, etc. As you said, we are more vulnerable.
ResponderEliminarAlso, I agree with Eduardo's idea regarding Huxley's thesis that we are controlled by the tools that make us feel pleasure; for instance, most of the people, nowadays, cannot live without internet connection or their cellphones, in a way, it became an addiction.
Finally, I would like to highlight what you said before: 1984 was an alert that prevented us about how our privacy will not be taken into account in the future. (Nowadays)