Dystopian Website

Plot

By: Alex Berrend

 

     Whether it be strategically controlling political dissidence or deceptively manipulating perceptions of truth,  the use of Propaganda as a form of control is a recurring theme found in both the plot of George Orwell’s 1984 and modern China as well. This happens when an authority, usually a form of government, seeks to gain power over a group of people not by political triumph, but by mere deception and duplicity. The truth is often screened or blocked completely from the minds of the public, creating a civilian body completely ignorant to reality, only possessing misconceptions engineered to the likeness of the government.

     Most instances of propaganda consist of fabrication of the truth. That would include history, news, and reality itself. In 1984, specifically, the Ministry of Truth is an agency under the government of Oceana, which despite its ironic name, exists only to eliminate knowledge of history and replace it with fabricated means of propaganda for the public. The government would take advantage “when memory memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested “ (Orwell 93). At this point in the novel, Winston has developed a keen sense of the governmental deceit. Before talking to an elderly man who was one of the few remaining people with memory of pre-revolutionary history, Winston had no knowledge of any history other than what the government of Oceania had instilled into him. The party had intentionally weeded out knowledge of history and continued to seek and destroy the minds of those remembering the truth. However, after talking to this man, Winston realizes that the recorded justness of the party is all just a mask over the corrupted past, and how the party continues to keep its citizens in a state of ignorance and poverty. The party’s concept of truth consists of only what is believed, “For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable what then?” (Orwell 86). This is very similar to the idea of a tree falling in the forest, yet not making a sound. The party would justify that it never happened, since only what is believed to be known can be true. With this logic, the party asserts its control over the historical, current, and prospective events, as it is written “Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past”(Orwell 35).  Such desecration of truth for power  is what leads Winston further in his pursuit of exploiting the party and reality as a whole.

     Fabrication of events and reality is evident in today’s world, with China being a profound offender. Publications, broadcasts, and even social media are restricted from the public selectively so that the government can control dissidence. The Chinese government has agencies dedicated to “facilitating censorship of any information that authorities deem harmful to their political or economic interests” (CFR, 2015). This concept is driven by sanctioning ignorance among citizens for means of greater political allegiance and unity. Such a phenomenon is eerily similar to the fictitious governmental activity under the “Big Brother” in 1984. Just like the Ministry of Truth, the Communist Party's Central Propaganda Department has employed directives restricting coverage of politically sensitive topics (CFR 2015). This has included the imprisonment of 44 journalists due to their violation of “drawing attention to governmental corruption”. This includes a publication from a man by the name of Tan Zuoren, who was sentenced to five years in prison for publicizing the government’s poor construction of school buildings that collapsed and resulted in thousands of children killed during the 2008 earthquake in the Sichuan province. Although the government was unsuccessful in preventing such an exploitative spread of news, actions such as imprisonment for exercising the freedom of speech suggest that stories like this are usually cut off from public records of history. Even more similar to propaganda in 1984 is the performance of a song about internet surveillance during a nationally broadcasted New Year’s celebration. A very elaborate performance was orchestrated into a symphonic extravaganza, attempting to put Chinese surveillance into a much brighter light. The lyrics from the anthem, translated into English, are sung harmonically

“Devotedly keeping watch over the space every day,

Taking up our mission as the sun rises in the east,

Innovating every day, embracing the clear and bright,

Like warm sunshine moving in our hearts” (Mozur, 2015)

Associations of a unifying mission and warm sunshine with internet screening can be equivocate with the brainwashing of the hate sessions in 1984. In both of these demonstrations, faulty logic and forced emotion are engineered and presented to the public to portray the government in a good light with a just cause.