American Judges Association
Date of this Version
2021
Citation
Court Review - Volume 57
Abstract
In the conclusion of Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, George Orwell describes his protagonist Winston: “[E]verything was alright, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.” Winston had tried to fight against Big Brother but failed. To achieve domination, Orwell’s dystopian state had used physical and mental torture, drugs, as well as control of news and history. Even control of the English language was used, reducing it to Newspeak, which only allowed for limited thought and expression. In the end, the individuals were subjugated to the complete control of the state.
In the non-fiction world, the year 1984 came and went without the thought police. But in 2020 we saw how a coordinated segment of the media could shape the belief of our citizens and create disparate views of core facts. In Nineteen Eighty-Four there was no external or objective truth. The “truth” was what the collective mind says it was, a prescient forerunner of our “wiki” on the Internet.
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