Is It Ok To Be A Luddite Essay

“His dystopian world both represents and decries modern alienation, itself a symptom of unbridled ‘progress’ in which, by following blind ideals, ‘we can hardly escape from ourselves’,” (Watt).

In the dystopian worlds created by the film director Andrew Niccol and renowned author George Orwell, notions of control and freedom are explored. Both worlds contain an overarching power that governs the rest of the population and restricts freedom of individuals, these powers also aid in the progression of technology, which further act to control individuals. The characterisations of the protagonists of each text portray the lack of freedom from the perspective of those that are affected. Both authors use a variety of techniques to portray themes of control and freedom in their texts.

George Orwell’s 1984 is more than just a novel, it is a warning to a potential dystopian society of the future. Written in 1949, Orwell envisioned a totalitarian government under the figurehead Big Brother. In this totalitarian society, every thought and action is carefully examined for any sign of rebellion against the ruling party. Emotion has been abolished and love is nonexistent; an entire new language is being drafted to reduce human thought to the bare minimum. In a society such as the one portrayed in 1984, one is hardly human. In George Orwell’s 1984, the party uses fear, oppression, and propaganda to strip the people of their humanity.

Have you ever thought that the world is starting to be too wrapped up in technology? In the book Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury presents a dystopia in which people of the future are so wrapped up in the mind numbing effects of technology that they refuse to think. The parlor walls in Fahrenheit 451 are used as a brainwashing mechanism, the mechanical hounds show that people refuse to think and the technology encourages an accelerated pace of life which discourages reflection.

In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, mankind is portrayed as technologically advanced, and in turn, intellectually behind. The story follows Guy Montag, a middle-aged, disoriented, and unhappy fireman as he realizes the terrors of his world. In Bradbury’s dystopia, instead of saving lives, the firemen were the official “book burners”; they were the men who eradicated all possibilities of independent thought and freedom. From the ashes rose tvs, phones, and other gadgets the people turned to instead of becoming educated and knowledgeable . Throughout Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury demonstrates how the human race will increasingly link happiness and well being to their devices as a side effect of not having to put any effort into communicating in their artificial relationships.

Your world is not real. Kennedy was never assassinated, Michael jackson has actually always been white, and subway is certainly NOT always fresh. Stop thinking you are free, you’re not. Okay, I’m just kidding. But am I really? Because sometimes subway really just sucks. Questioning. With this, through his work ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’, George Orwell has brought to my attention that I should be occasionally thinking for myself rather than constantly abiding by what I’m told is right. More specifically, ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’ suggests the plentiful ways that people can be oppressed in a totalitarian society will result in the loss of humanity and failure to rebound from the government’s control. These forces inhibit and encourage individuals’ actions and is described in the novel by the abundant use of technology combined with psychological manipulation. Orwell also uses symbols and metaphor to explain consequences of totalitarianism on a deeper level.

The world that Orwell presents in Nineteen Eighty-four has often been called a nightmare vision of the future. Writing sixteen years into that future, we can see that not all of Orwell’s predictions have been fulfilled in their entirety! Yet,

On the surface, dystopian fiction is a bleak, depressing genre that offers ‘a detailed and destructive presentation of the very worst of social alternative’ , but in actuality it is a means of speculation that reveals to the audience the real threats in society. It extrapolates contemporary socio-political trends taken into extremes , which compels its audience to re-examine the values of their society, resulting in an optimistic tale that gives the audience hope to escape their pessimistic future. Anthem by Ayn Rand (1937) is a detailed portrait of a collectivist society overstated for the purpose of satire and storytelling. As a politically conscious writer, Rand writes to communicate to her audience her political perception into the destructive psychology of collectivism. This exposes the audience to the risks of conformity, along with providing means to avoid this dystopian imagination crystallising into reality.

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is a display of how humans are relying more and more on technology for entertainment at the price of their ability for intellectual development. It is a novel about technological dystopia, often compared to other novels such as, George Orwell’s 1984 and Asimov Ender’s Game. Although today’s technology has not quite caught up with Bradbury’s expectations, the threat of having his vision of a dystrophic society is very realistic. He sees a futuristic society in which this submission of thought is highly valued. In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury displays a futuristic utopian society where "the people did not read books, enjoy nature, spend time by themselves, think independently, or have meaningful conversations" (Mogen, Pg. 111).

Several conflicting frames of mind have played defining roles in shaping humanity throughout the twentieth century. Philosophical optimism of a bright future held by humanity in general was taken advantage of by the promise of a better life through sacrifice of individuality to the state. In the books Brave New World, 1984, and Fahrenheit 451 clear opposition to these subtle entrapments was voiced in similarly convincing ways. They first all established, to varying degrees of balance, the atmosphere and seductiveness of the “utopia” and the fear of the consequences of acting in the non-prescribed way through character development. A single character is alienated because of their inability to conform – often in protest to the forced

Technology has underwent many advances in the past ten years. At this rate, the world may see a fully technological world by the next twenty years. This meaning, flat television screens everywhere, no more walking, and no more reading from paper books. The author Ray Bradbury who wrote Fahrenheit 451 and Margaret Atwood who wrote Oryx and Crake both wrote their novels in a dystopian society. A dystopia is a place or state in which society is unpleasant or bad, usually this occurs by actions brought upon by the government or someone in power. In Fahrenheit 451, it was against the law to read books, the characters are so wrapped up with their technological devices that they fail to realize how beneficial books can actually

Truly talented writers critique societies foolish actions whilst warning them of their impending future. However, few manage to genuinely depict the origin of these foolish acts. George Orwell’s 1984 and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner critique both political and social oppression to demonstrate that blind loyalty and the surrendering of free will is the demise of modern society.

Readers of George Orwell have long appreciated the significance of his representation of a futuristic dystopian world. ‘Big brother is watching you,’ ‘Thought police,’ ‘Ministry of love,’ ‘Hate week,’ are expressions that Orwell used to represent his preoccupation with the totalitarian regimes of 20th century. More than one out of four Americans said they have red his dystopia and use his expressions in their language. Many critics claim that the novel opened up new prospects of political awareness. ‘1984’ is a political fiction in which the government eliminates all forms of political opposition, be it real or imaginary. The atmosphere of the novel is completely depressing because there is no hope for change. The government dominates people morally and forces them to live in constant fear. His terrifying vision of a future in which all aspects of society are controlled by a tyrannical system attracted the

Noble's counter-argument looks at the human costs of unchecked technological growth, along the way re-examining and redefining the meaning of Luddism.

In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, oppression is the jail that imprisons man—and technology is its warden. “For Orwell,” writes comparative literature professor John Frodsham, “Nature was essentially good and technology essentially evil. Technology in Nineteen Eighty-Four is used to enslave men, not liberate them. The telescreen, the speakwrite, the helicopter…the book-writing machine on which Julia labors, and all the rest of the technological paraphernalia of the novel exist only to aggrandize the power of the state and violate human nature.”