*Cue eerie organ music*

I think it’s safe to say that everyone enjoys their privacy. People don’t just go around blurting out their every thought or opinion for the world to hear—that what secrets are for. Especially in our society, we love privacy. That’s why we put fences up around our property and use privacy settings on Facebook. That’s why bathroom stalls have doors. So imagine your life without such privacy. Every bit of it is made public, or at least somebody else knows everything you do. It’s really creepy to think about, isn’t it? But what if our society was like that and privacy ceased to exist?

Ah well, you’re in luck! Privacy doesn’t exist in 1984! Although there is seemingly a sense of privacy, that is false. The government may allow citizens to live in their own houses and think their own thoughts, which we would assume means privacy, but this is a lie. A LIE, I SAY.  The only purpose really of a telescreen is to keep an eye on the Party members. People come home perhaps to escape the prying eyes of patrol members in the streets. Well, guess what? They can still see you even when you can’t see them.

Likewise, with the presence of Thought Police, even the inside of people’s head has no privacy. Winston says that the only thing he truly owns is the few inches inside his skull, but even that’s a stretch. He may control his mind, but there is no privacy there. The Thought Police can somehow read minds or whatnot and know exactly what he’s thinking. They can’t allow even the freedom of thought because they must know of any rebellious ideas before they are acted upon. Privacy? Not even close.

In the Truman Show, a similar concept arises. Truman’s life is public. Every move he makes is broadcasted and watched by millions of viewers. Every single day. Every. Single. Second. While nowadays we have reality TV that shows us inside people’s personal lives, it’s nothing compared to the Truman show. He is kept in the dark about the whole thing and unlike 1984 society, he assumes that when he enters a “safe” place like his house, he has privacy. Little does he know that thousands of cameras track him. However, Truman still has the privacy of his own brain. As he says when he discovers the truth- “You don’t have a camera inside my head.”

Both the book and the movie show us that perhaps in the future, privacy will become obsolete and die out. Maybe we’ll get to the point where no aspect of our lives is personal or private, as in 1984. Maybe we’ll place cameras around to track certain people’s moves. Maybe we won’t. Only time will tell how privacy will evolve, but even if it fades, I hope there will still be doors on bathroom stalls.

Somehow I Don't See Myself Wearing Overalls. It's Just Not Me.

War is scary.

 

 

I thought about making that the entire blog post, but I figured it wouldn’t be satisfactory. I didn’t want to let you down. No, war is more than scary, it’s terrifying and destructive and hellish. It started with the Neanderthals probably, smashing each other with rocks. Since then we’ve evolved through blades of all sorts and big machines and biological weapons.

As we move toward the future, weapons are becoming craftier. George Orwell may have seemed delusional and inaccurate when people first read 1984. There is a whole section in the book (You know what I’m talking about—the book, but not the book 1984) which outlines “rules” for continuous warfare, one of which details the advanced weaponry. At the time, such inventions seemed outrageous. “Larger and larger rocket bombs, more and more powerful explosives, and more and more impenetrable armor-plating; other search for new and deadlier gases, or for soluble poisons… as to destroy the vegetation of whole continents, or for breeds of disease germs immunized against all possible antibodies; others strive to produce a vehicle that shall bore its way under the soil like a submarine under the water…” (194).

Feeling depressed yet? I bet as you read that, you realized that some of these things do exist in our world today. It’s not just a creation of Orwell’s imagination, it’s reality. Consider the recent issues in the Middle East. What weapons did we use in places like Pakistan and Libya? Drones. Unmanned aircraft capable of killing someone from 20,000 feet in the air? Are you sure Orwell didn’t make that up too?

Unfortunately, it’s a serious peril to enemies of the United States. If you read this handy article right about here, you can see how similar our society has become to Oceania. (I wouldn’t recommend reading the whole thing. It’s long and you could probably better use your time to stop global warming or save the tigers or something.) We have invented a machine that remotely kills whoever we perceive as a threat to our society without getting our own hands dirty. That sounds familiar, like the Thought Police and Ministry of Love who kill the intelligent, thinking individuals in 1984 society. What right do we have to murder possibly innocent people? It happens all the time in war, though. Civilians die as "collateral damage" and it doesn't mean a thing to us. Innocents are caught in the crossfire all the time, if not targeted because of some wrong information or perception. It's all very dystopian, this situation that we're in and we need to stop and look at the great destructive effects that our technologies are causing.

But weapons don't kill people. People kill people. With the use of weapons. So I guess directly that weapons are the main cause of death, but people are the main ones at fault.

It should serve as a warning. In the near future we may resort to brainwashing and killing of people who simply don’t comply with our standards, even if they’re not a serious threat to us. We could be holding Two Minutes Hate and training our kids to be killers. And perhaps worst of all, we could be stuck wearing overalls for all eternity.

Texting, Government Monitoring, & Mr. Pickles.

How would you respond if you found out the government was reading your text messages? Especially since the terrorist attacks on 9/11, (coincidentally today is the 11th anniversary) national security has been on its toes, and for good reason. We heard about the phone tapping as an initiative of the National Security Agency and many were outraged by it. Such an infringement of privacy shouldn’t be allowed, should it?

In recent years, though, the rise of online communications and mobile phone abilities like texting and apps has posed a newer threat. Just as with phone tapping, governments across the world may be imposing a monitoring system of texts and web usage to search for key words relating to possible problems for national security.

Although such has no yet happened in the United States, private corporations may be
taking matters into their own hands. Even with relatively controlled instances like this, government intervention could increase. To get to the main question I’m supposed to be answering: Is it ever necessary to give up your civil rights to protect the greater good?

First of all, what really is the “greater good?” It’s vague but let’s just suppose that it means protecting society from whatever threat looms. I guess I would agree to some extent that screening electronic messages could be beneficial. But sometimes that power to sift through personal data gets taken to a new level. There is no need to store the information as the UK government has been doing. And clearly we know something is wrong with the way the government is going about this initiative when a group that opposes the procedures is called “Big Brother Watch.” Mr. Pickles, director of said group, has been a longtime outspoken critic of the government’s policies and loose regulations. It’s been said that these types of government actions violate the Fourth Amendment because they are done without a warrant, as well as comes close to infringing on the First Amendment of free speech.

So to sum up, in some cases a simple act of giving up these civil rights may be beneficial, though it completely depends on how the government utilizes or abuses the information they gain access to. As with the UK situation, I think the actions that they’re taking are going too far and violating civil rights beyond a reasonable level of simply screening messages. Personally, I side with Mr. Pickles on this one. Until more regulation is put in place, this “spying,” is causing more harm than good in framing the government as the enemy. I’d say it’s a good thing the Britons have the heroic Mr. Pickles on their side in advocating their privacies and civil rights.  

 

Fingers and Such.

Say I lived in the future. 2081, to be exact, in the society laid out in Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron." Of course I would have many handicaps because I am better than everybody else. I hope you caught the sarcasm there. In all honesty, I'm not much better at most things than other people.

I would consider myself relatively smart among the larger population of people. I'm no Einstein by any means, but I suppose the government would want to make sure I didn't take unfair advantage of anything. Just as George had to in the story, I would probably be subjected to piercing and disruptive noises in my ear to distract from any intelligent thinking.

Likewise, I am an artistic, crafty person. So in a world where beautiful things cannot be seen because they are of "unequal" caliber to everything else, my artsy projects would be illegal. Perhaps to cease the expression of my otherwordly creativity, the government would make sure my joints swelled up so that I couldn't use my nimble fingers to construct art. If that didn't work, the Handicapper General could resort to breaking my fingers, or cutting them off in an extreme case to ensure that I would not create anything without being in incredible amounts of pain.

Since I like these talents about myself, I don't necessarily want to live in this future society. Although equality sounds nice, I don't think we need to sacrifice individuality for the greater "good" of society. Personally, I'd prefer to keep my brain and fingers intact, but maybe that's just me.

Propaganda fit for a President

                Clearly with the 2012 election campaigns in full swing, there will be abundant advertisements, speeches, and conventions. Among all these things, there is bound to be plenty of propaganda. I feel like no political campaign is complete without a bit of subconscious messaging or even blunt newspeak (1984, anyone?). So the question is how specifically we are seeing Romney and Obama use these techniques of propaganda at their conventions in the past week and the present, respectively.

                I notice quickly in both conventions there are several techniques that are very prevalent. First off, the overriding use of testimonial in both parties is undeniable. Romney had a pretty solid line-up, including many prominent politicians like Rick Santorum and John McCain, but that was expected. Of course politicians of the GOP will support their own. What may have surprised people, myself included, was the celebrity influence at the Republican Convention. Olympic gold medalist Kim Rhode spoke and later Clint Eastwood took center stage, with the chair in the supporting role. It appears that Romney’s goal was to show Americans that famous actors and athletes support him, so you should too.

On the other hand, Obama took a slightly different approach. His lineup of speakers does not include well-known celebrities. Instead, he’s called a myriad of politicians from different states and different levels. Even without cultural icons, Obama has some big names to speak on his behalf. In a video endorsement, former President Jimmy Carter spoke, as did former President Bill Clinton. Sandra Fluke is present at the convention this week as well, or as some may know her, the woman who Rush Limbaugh called a “slut” on his radio show.  So what does this say about Obama’s propaganda techniques? He is gathering political support by using other politicians and creating credibility within the political sphere, which may be a better approach considering Clint’s little fiasco at the Republican Convention.

If you examine closely enough, you find many other types of propaganda present in the conventions, although less rampant than testimonial. Plain Folks was used nicely to establish that both candidates are not big wig politicians, but just like you and me. Mitt Romney is a jolly old grandfather figure, according to his family video, and he even “repairs” light bulb covers by using pieces of cardboard. Sounds exactly like me, doesn’t it? Obama does a similar thing, portraying himself as the family man. Michelle did a good part of the work on this one, saying she’s a mother first, and a first lady second. That she cares about the wellbeing of her daughters above all and of families across the nation.

Of course, no political campaign is complete without a hearty serving of name-calling. Although much of this is saved for the television ads, the convention speeches are riddled with such negativity about the opposing candidate. Paul Ryan took a stance against Obama, chronicling his funneling of Medicare money to the health care bill to paint him as a greedy villain. Obama responded with a speaker named Randy Johnson, who was fired from one of Romney’s Bain Capital companies. He claimed that Romney has no moral compass and portrays him as a greedy hater of the working class.

While some of these propaganda messages may be true or effective, it’s hard to sort the truth from the sheer rhetoric. The only thing we can be completely sure of is the fact that more name calling will take place in the coming months.