Reflections # 10

Can an entire world be completely brainwashed without anyone caring? Do we allow ourselves to be brainwashed because it is the easier way? Is what we see as reality real or is it fabricated within our minds? In the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell, and in our own society today, we can see how people can be manipulated without conscious understanding.

In our own society, media outlets control what we do and do not like. Radios keep playing the same songs over and over again until we recognize the music which leads us to think we like the song. People of the modern world work around the norm, and conform to what they think society believes is what everyone else expects from us. To do this, is actually much easier than rebelling against what is deemed acceptable.

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston Smith is told that he is insane and needs to be 'cured'. However, it is only because his sense of reality is different than the majority of the people of the party. The Party and Big Brother, stir nationalism, patriotism, and passion, leaving the society blind to the faults of the government. Reality here is what you make of it, and applying the practices of Doublespeak, CrimeStop, and the Thought Police triply insures strict obedience to the political party in charge. In this world too, anyone who believes in alternative realities than that presented by the governing party, are then prosecuted as insane. Perhaps this is not too far from where North American culture is today.

Regardless, the peoples of both societies are people and still persisting in conformity. But is this because it is 'right', or because we are we all brainwashed zombies that only believe we have the ability to think for ourselves?