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Freedom vs Security - George Orwell, 1984

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Freedom vs. Security: 1984, a Mirror of Today’s Governments and their Methods of Mass Control Tanks to technology and, mostly, its applications in the field of communication, governments and business corporations from all around the world have now more power than ever to track and influence what we buy, what we listen to, what we read, what we watch and, ultimately, what we believe. Recent terrorist threats and armed conflicts that have taken place around the globe have prompted a general feeling of vulnerability among the international community. Now most citizens are not likely to complain, or even ask questions, when they are deprived of their individual freedoms and privacy, they assume that this reduction of individual freedoms is …show more content…

“WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”, this is one of the slogans of The Party and it is the perfect example to understand the level of manipulation the people of Oceania is subjected to. This is the first time we encounter the idea of doublethink in the novel. With the use of propaganda-induced fear, the Party is able to force the people to accept anything it declares, even if it is entirely illogical. Wilson, the protagonist of the story, suffers the effects of doublethink throughout great part of the plot. He notices the incongruences between what the party says and what he knows is true, but he can’t do anything about it because the mere act of thinking individually would be considered an act of treason. The model of government Orwell described in 1984 is an exaggeration of the totalitarian regimes he witnessed during the years he spent in the old continent, and an attempt to warn the world of the dangers that those

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