1984

Can a society based on hate survive?
Thesis: A society based on hate can survive as long as its leader is able to alter history, manipulate language, and physically control its constituents.
With history being rewritten constantly, memories become unreliable and citizens are forced to believe in everything their ruler says. In the novel 1984, George Orwell depicts a totalitarian society where every bit of information released by the government is fabricated. The seemingly omnipotent Party rewrites the content of all books, newspapers, articles, and documents for its own ends. It even has the Ministry of Truth, a department dedicated to modify recorded facts and make sure that "changes in political alignment, or mistaken prophecies uttered by Big Brother, have been rewritten a dozen times still stood on the files bearing its original data, and no other copy existed to contradict it" (Orwell 40). For instance, the Party estimates one hundred and forty-five million pairs of boots is produced for the quarter. The actual output, however, is only sixty-two millions. In order to claim that the quota has been overfilled, the Party asks its Ministry of Truth to mark the forecast figure down to fifty-seven millions (Orwell 41). From this example, one can see how easily it can be for the government to cover up its mistakes, to erase or create history, and to abuse the very existence of facts. While the Party amends the reported data in the interests of presenting itself as infallible and omniscient, the Oceanian citizens care less about these numbers. The reason being that people can no longer tell the truths from lies after so many tiresome years of doubting the validity of every information expounded by the government. Even if they know...

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...arious groups and factions. They stood up against Stalin and called for a deemphasizing of industrial production. In response to the dissenters, Stalin "weeded out" almost one million people who opposed his ideas and not unquestioningly loyal to him (Stalin's Purges par. 4-5). During the Great Terror, purging was a functional form of physical controlling. By punishing the rebels, Stalin shot two birds with one stone. He wiped out the obstacles that stood in his way and sent a message to the rest of his people, warning them that defying Stalin would be an act of suicide. Both of the examples above are similar in that they depict two totalitarian governments who struggle to maintain their powers. Although they have dissenters who oppose their viewpoints, the leaders manage to secure their thrones through different methods of physical controlling,.