Thomas Visser V5E
1984 by George Orwell
The Lack of Privacy and the Effect of No Individualism.
He came into the hallway and at the end of the hallway there was a large colored poster with an enormous face on it. He went to the 7th floor where he lived. On each landing opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. The eyes from the poster were following him. The Party (the government )with their Big Brother is watching you ! NO PRIVACY.
The people in the Party had no privacy at all. The telescreens could not be shut off!
In Winston’s room is a camera and everything he does is filmed. But there is only one corner in his room where the camera cannot see him. In this corner he can write in his diary about the Party (what was strictly forbidden).
The Party is trying to brainwash everybody by screaming out of the telescreens what the people must do and even what to think.
There was also the Thought Police, they watched if the people lived by the rules of the Party.
Winston works for the Ministry of Truth where they remove all the data from before 1984 and to falsify the history so that nobody would know how it was before 1984. The Party is trying to manipulate and brainwash the people so that the Party can create a totalitarian state and easy to rule.
But Winston is a human being. Not a robot. He is a creative person and tried to subvert it.
He rented a room without a telescreen (he thought), had a girlfriend, had sex (all this was not allowed). People have to do secretly things if their own individuality becomes totally undermined.
The book 1984 is fiction.
But now we are in 2011 and what is become of this world. Became the fiction nonfiction?
Look into the shops, the streets . There are camera’s everywhere. If you enter a country your fingerprints and your pictures are taken and saved. What about DNA?
Do you trust your government enough to give it every last detail of your personal life if they promise they’ll only use it in terrorist cases? What more important privacy or safety?
How long will it take to the moment that you have to give your permission to the custom officers to take DNA samples?
What about the internet. How easy it is to make a movie or a picture and put it on the internet so that the whole wide world is watching you. There is not even a law against putting everything on the internet. But most of the people are decent people and we can think and behave like human beings.
Respect for privacy is very important in this (internet)world.
Orwell wrote the book 1984 in the year 1948 and in that time the future of the world was darker than nowadays. There were totalitarian states in rise. But we must be watchful to guarantee the privacy of people and that people can be free, happy and safe.
