I first read 1984 in my late teens, and it absolutely wrecked me. The whole idea of constant surveillance, thought control, and a world where the government decides what’s true or false was terrifying. It felt like the worst possible future. But then I read it again recently, and honestly? I think we ended up with something even worse.
At least in 1984, people knew who the enemy was. Big Brother, the Party, the Thought Police. It was all in-your-face oppression. Today, nobody needs to force us into compliance. We do it ourselves. People police each other. New ideologies, movements, and identities pop up constantly, and everyone’s busy fighting over them while the bigger system stays untouched.
In 1984, the government kept people in check through fear. Today, it’s done through distraction. We think we’re free because we can argue online, post opinions, and dunk on each other in the comments. But the system is still in control. Narratives are pre-written, dissent gets buried by algorithms, and outrage is manufactured on demand.
We don’t even fight for privacy anymore. In 1984, people feared surveillance. Now, we literally buy our own tracking devices, install smart speakers in our homes, and let corporations collect our data without thinking twice. The worst part? We’re totally fine with it.
Even resistance has been turned into a business model. Every time something challenges the system, it gets absorbed, rebranded, and sold back to us. Outrage is profitable. Rebellion is a trend. Nothing truly threatens the status quo because anything that does gets co-opted before it can make a real impact.
And here’s the craziest part. Nothing shocks people anymore. Corruption, scandals, systemic failures. We see it all the time, but instead of revolting, we turn it into memes and jokes. It’s like we’ve seen so much chaos that we don’t even care anymore.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that 1984, for all its horror, was at least a dystopia you could recognize and fight against. Today’s world is a dystopia so well-designed that most people don’t even realize they’re living in one. In some ways, 1984 was the greater evil, but it was also something you could eventually overthrow. What we have today might be the lesser evil, but it’s so deeply ingrained, so self-sustaining, that it’s almost impossible to remove.
by glitchychurro
5 Comments
People very famously *didn’t* know who the enemy was. Winston did, but the vast majority of the book didn’t think Big Brother was the enemy.
Interesting post.
It is well worth reading “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley to compare and contrast with 1984 – Huxley disagreed with Orwell’s premise, arguing instead that Big Brother wouldn’t bother with that level of state apparatus because he wouldn’t need it – people would simply distract themselves.
There’s still a lot of lessons to be learned about propaganda. I watched Trump’s address to Congress and immediately after saying freedom of speech was back, then he listed about a dozen ways he was going to suppress freedom of speech.
A major point of the book was that most people had no idea who the enemy was because it was constantly changing (or they were at least being told that there was a “new” enemy”). They certainly didn’t think the enemy was Big Brother.
I think Orwell’s vision was pretty similar to what’s going on today. It doesn’t feature much in the plot, but the description in the beginning of the kids living in Wilson’s apartment building makes it clear that Big Brother is upheld and propagated in part by citizens ratting on citizens, especially kids ratting on adults. Wilson is as fearful of other people as he is the surveillance systems, which is telling