Totalitarianism In Today's Society

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was written with the intent of warning the world on the dangers of totalitarian regimes, and to show just how far a government of such a type would go to keep its subjects in check. While the story does portray the government in an extreme fashion, it does do well to show what and how the government could go on to oppress people to such a degree. I personally think the book has worked… to an extent, because obviously, we aren’t completely living in the reality that was portrayed in Nineteen Eighty-Four, and people are mostly aware of how a government could oppress the people. However, some aspects of Nineteen Eighty-Four have been seen in today’s society, such as constant surveillance via cameras, a seemingly endless war with no definite enemy, and the masses being distracted by petty things so they’re blind to actual problems.

My first point will be

It may not be fabricated and only existing for control like in the book, but it is, however, seemingly endless. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the war was used as a tool to keep the populace under fear, and so that the Party could keep high, wartime production without raising the standard of living. The War on Terror has two things in common with the Party’s endless war—it instills some amount of fear, and looks as if it has no end in sight. Due to this “war,” some of the things that we consider private are, in fact, no longer private, like the content of our telephone calls, and what we search on the internet. Things like the War on Terror thrive on people’s fear of… well, being blown up, and while this is a very, very good thing to be afraid of, it is quite distracting because it leaves you in general fear, fear that you can’t really get rid of because there’s no definite enemy or battlefield to associate the fear with. This fear can be distracting, and actually leads me to my next and final