Business Case

The novel, 1984 by George Orwell, portrays a future world where privacy and freedom cease to exist. Advances in technology have emerged, empowering the government. These new developments help to highlight similarities between the US government and the Party in 1984. The citizens are constantly reminded, "Big Brother is watching you." This directly relates to recent NSA intrusions on US citizens privacy. There is a global war that has been going on seemingly forever, and the enemy keeps changing. The "war on terror" has no end in sight, and an indistinct enemy who could be anyone and anywhere. The vast majority of the population, the Proles, is almost unworthy of surveillance. The Party uses a method of "Bread and Circuses" in order to keep them under control. The citizens of the US are kept under control through the use of Monday Night Football and Keeping up with the Kardashians. Newspeak, the official language of Oceania, is designed to limit the meaning of words in order to diminish the range of though possible by citizens. Political correctness is a social phenomenon, which urges people to avoid offensive words and actions. The Ministry of Truth changes history based on Oceania's shifting alliances. The story of Christopher Columbus was altered to portray him as a hero who discovered America. The Party attempts to control not only the speech and actions of its citizens, but also the thoughts. A recent hate crime bill expands the law's concern from criminal action to criminal thought. It is an exaggeration to say that the US government has turned into the totalitarian state outlined in the novel. However, there are many parallels between modern society and the society depicted in 1984.

The Party controls the totalitarian society.