Freedom Is Freedom Rhetorical Analysis

Hate is everywhere within everyone and everything. There is no freedom. There is no such concept of individuality. There is only power and government rule. George Orwell encapsulated in two sentences that “in our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.” In view of this, Orwell is stressing the illusion of life being filled with freedom and true happiness is in reality false. Today, life is instead suffused with too much power, animosity, and confinement of individualism.

In 1984, George Orwell repeatedly presents the government’s slogan “War is Peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength” (3). The significance

of this is to clearly define the stance the government holds over its people, and to display the harsh dictation they undoubtedly hold within their hands. For instance, when Winston a fellow comrade of the Party that is taken prisoner questions “how does one man assert his power over another, O’Brien, the torturer, responds with “by making them suffer... In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement... There were will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party and no love, except the love of Big Brother” (Orwell 154). The addition of O’Brien’s response in the passage furthers Orwell's reasoning that whenever politics is involved there is only hate. Nonetheless Orwell’s 1984 version is no different than today’s government because current politics are permeated with only power over the people. “There will always be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler,” and nobody can ignore that fact (Orwell 154).
Although most of society believes that the United States is a land of freedom, it is actually subconsciously blocking expressive thinking.

Politics block the individual mind to think freely and justly because depending on what one may say or do can have a major impact on them regardless of first amendment rights. Exclusively, in the essay Serving in Florida, Barbara Ehrenreich, she encounters a time when politics had contradicted her mind to process the right thing to do. When her Vic assistant manager accuses George, a foreigner of taking a few items she writes “I should have testified as to the kid’s honesty… but something loathsome and servile infected me… in a month or two more… I might have turned into a different person altogether- say, the kind of person who would have turned George in” (Ehrenreich). In the beginning Barbara was brave, but was now afraid to speak in fear of losing her job because of politics surrounding that misunderstanding. In another case presented in A Partly Cloudy Patriot, Sarah Vowell expresses how the White House press secretary condemning a TV host forewarned “all Americans, that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do…” thus triggering Vowell “...to turn into the partly cloudy patriot she long not to be” (Vowell). No one has a choice to speak at their pleasure now without the judgement and vigilance of the government, and others surrounding. The pressure the corruptive politics and government give off is so horrid that it

forces certain individuals to commit actions they may or may not want to follow. In Shooting an Elephant, George Orwell, exemplifies a man in a highly pressured situation. When the man unwillingly shoots an elephant “trying to impress the ‘natives’, you could see the agony of the elephant, and… the thick blood welling out of him like red velvet but still he did not die… The tortured breathing continued without a pause.” Although the man felt bad for murdering the innocent elephant he cannot help to “often wonder whether any of the others grasped that he had done it solely to avoid looking like a fool” (Orwell). Politics not only surrounds us, but blocks an individual's stream of consciousness creating schizophrenia in one’s mind.
Politics are equivalent to hate when Sarah Vowell analyzes the Declaration of Independence where is declares “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights- that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” She comments how one would think “the notion so just; and yet still so wonderfully whimsical, would cause the King of Great Britain to be dethroned himself on the spot, but no instead it took a grueling six-year long war to make independence a fact”.

Simply, politics are complex in the way they do not always work out for the better and instead cause further problems along the way. Sarah Vowell included this specific quote into her essay to emphasize just how messed up the world is with a few complications such as war and

politics.
Though numerous people in the modern age have the will to bury their heads in the ground when it concludes to political matters, no one can individually concern themselves with the proverbial pebble in their shoe. If however one is fortunate in avoiding politics, at one time or another the effects of political decisions they refrained from partaking in will eventually reach their front door. Usually, by that time the person has previously had whatever “whisper of voice” the government allowed them. Thus, George Orwell could not have been more on point with his statement on politics being inevitable. One can clearly depict the kind of world ourselves are forming. “It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain” (Orwell 154) There is no escape.