I wanted to start off by confessing that for some reason I got it in my head that 1984 was Animal Farm and Animal farm was also Animal Farm. Whatever.
It was interesting to see how Mrs. Parson's kids acted in comparison to the children in BNW. On one hand, at least the Parson's aren't engaging in en-masse erotic play, but perhaps they're even more indoctrinated in some ways than the BNW kids. Both are brainwashed into following the system, but in 1984 the kids actively try to root out people who don't follow the system. The mother is genuinely terrified that she's gonna be called out to the party by her own kids.
The party found that targeting kids with propaganda is a very effective tool for rooting out existing rulebreakers and negating the possibility of future offenders. A common trope that we've heard from conservative news hosts over the past decades is that schools are "indoctrinating kids" by forcing liberal views and demonizing conservatives. They like to draw the supposed stifling of conservative views in connection to 1984 like it's a big conspiracy.
Is it a big conspiracy? It would be interesting to hear from y'all how the US could begin morphing itself into a 1984-type system. How easily do you think the government could force this on us, if they wanted to?
Good question. I'm not sure about whether it could happen here right now, but indoctrinating kids is a "time-honored" dictatorial method, from the Hitler Youth to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. And it's terrifying.
ReplyDeleteI think children are ultimately raised by their parents, so "indoctrination of youth" can only work to a degree as long as kids are being raised by parents (as opposed to the BNW system where children are raised by the state). The Parsons kids are only so well indoctrinated because the father encourages that behavior as well
ReplyDeleteThat's definitely true, but both BNW and 1984 seem to imply that getting parents to support whatever the children are being indoctrinated into isn't always as difficult as we would like it to be. It would be very hard to indoctrinate children without the support of parents, but I think propaganda would be as effective on parents as children, resulting in a large number of Mr. Parsons-type believers.
DeleteOops profile issues this is Henry L. by the way ^^
DeleteI also thought 1984 was Animal Farm. I'm honestly not sure where this notion came from, maybe its a universal experience? Anyways, I think there are many occasions where parts of history are left out in the educational curriculum, but I don't think it's to the degree that our society can easily morph into one from 1984.
ReplyDeleteI think to establish a world like 1984, there needs to be a significant portion of the population (I believe it is about 20% ish in 1984) that supports the change. Otherwise, in a country like the US where "freedom" is heavily valued, the government would have massive backlash from attempting this. Then again, having children recite the Pledge of Allegiance is BASICALLY brainwashing already, so...
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that this novel shows the impact and importance of children actively engaging in the society that they are raised in. It is definitely more prominent in this novel than in BNW.
ReplyDeleteIn our modern age, I think it would be very difficult for the US government to impose a system like this on us (though maybe not impossible). There would need to be some pretty extreme brainwashing in order to make that happen. Because we have the internet, a place where people can freely express their opinions, I would imagine that if the government tried to impose something like that on us, people would call them out online and encourage everyone else to do the same. However, I could also see the internet being used against us. If the government were to control the internet, they could silence those who disagreed with them and use their own propaganda to brainwash people into accepting their regime, just like the telescreens in 1984.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be pretty difficult to achieve this on the scale we see in 1984. Sure, school systems indoctrinate a lot of values in children that stick as they grow older (Alice mentioned the Pledge of Allegiance), but it would take a lot more than that to do it. Plus, parents are a big influence, obviously, so they'd need to be indoctrinated too. I think this can only work if there is already some control over the people (specifically parents).
ReplyDeleteI think that if the government wanted to force something on us, they probably could (though only if they somehow were able to gain control of the entire internet). However, we might not be able to regress our technology back to a point where the world of 1984 could feasibly originate in the US.
ReplyDeleteI think that this form of brainwashing isn't just accused by those on the right of those on the left. MSNBC is often cited as the Fox news of the left. With that out of the way, I think that we are very at-risk for manipulation. Without the presence of healthy discourse, terrible ideas on both sides can fester. I've never read Animal Farm, but I think I can get the gist. I think the points you bring up are really important though!
ReplyDeleteI think a large problem with our society ever becoming 1984 is that 1984 was written itself. If anyone were to propose such a system, everyone would instantly recognize it as similar to this grim existence. People already describe any sort of overbearing control as orwellian, showing just how far the effect has permeated our culture.
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