Friday, August 05, 2005

Unified reality

The topic which I’ll talk about is the 1984 book by George Orwell. From what I see, the book portraits the alienation of a person and the person to a group, thus, ‘benefits’ some other interests is the meaning I built during and after this reading. The total alienation, the immersion in a reality constructed by a Party, a State in war with other nations, without gold seeking, but the power, the total power or as the texts addresses it GOD IS POWER and vice and versa. This changed my look towards the phrase itself, which I saw sometimes stuck in cars’ windows. The reality is an individual mental construction of the person towards the objective reality, therefore, it may be changed by influence of another person, thus the alienation is built up. To have the objective reality changed to favor someone else does not look like an utopist acting. On the contrary, an current acting of control over someone else’s ‘desire’ , nevertheless this ‘desire’, ‘hatred’ or ‘will’ favors another person or group. Nowadays, this is possible and actable of with emphasis and now more than ever, as today one may rely on technology and use it as they please, in other words, the television works a lot in peoples reality, the radio, the internet and the globalization or mixing of cultures between nations by the shorting of distances and the facts, the wars, the news are of everyone’s awareness almost simultaneously as it happens, like a film, sensationalist and of a disturbed reality that many times is not the same of the spectator. To turn on the TV and see wars, deaths and many others atrocities is today an act of almost indifference, the cameras catch the images and forecast them almost simultaneously, as a theatre, the action and the spectators. But there are not just wars our ‘theatrical plays’, there is also the exposed privacy, amongst the so called ‘reality shows’. The person sees another one in almost real time, sees their necessities and needs, judge, give opinions and change their view about the filmed person, inversely it may be noticed that the spectator delights himself exposing himself through the internet, exposes his wills, his intimacy, his problems and his needs, this is, amongst other things that I will not mention in this text, a reaction of an immersion in someone else’s reality, in other words, a way of imitation, that brings on positive feelings towards the ‘actor’ and may work as a therapy for many. Of course, the technology itself is not necessarily evil, meanwhile, used to favor someone else’s desire makes it become the most powerful weapon nowadays. Let’s question the person’s appeal and from him to the community related to the alienation. These are baits to, ready to catch the person in his moment of weakness, the person uses the mass communication to his distraction and entertainment, but most of the times he is not aware that is targeted via an explosion of some else’s reality, without questioning whether it is reality or fiction, the person turns the world which he was implicit immersed into his own world, changing drastically the reality into his creator’s favor. The book 1984 addresses this theme wisely, showing to the reader that it is possible to assume, not deceivingly that 2 + 2= 5 and not 4, but that it is possible to believe that it is in fact 5. At the beginning it looks difficult to comprehend, but the reality change, in the way George Orwell shows us suggests that one group in charge does it to the society inferior at them and successively one superior group to a lower one. The physical pain, the suffering, the body degeneration are used ways to achieve an alienation in its rebel phase, in other words, when the person insists in ponder. The pondering is a great enemy of alienation, the behavior changing towards a disturbed reality is disapproved not only by the alienators but also by the alienated group, in this stage, ‘pondering’ is really incorrect, reported and exposed as ridiculous by the others, meantime it is seeing as a ‘crime’ by the oppressors. ‘Pondering’ is what leads the mean character of the story, Winston, to a prison of ‘mind rehabilitation’, Winston starts to ponder and thus he showed that he was different of the other alienated, representing a threat to the Party. Winston portraits something intrinsic in us, the capacity to question, to question the world and ask questions that look simple but complexes, with a simple ‘why’ one may question the world creation, where comes everything and why we do whatever we do. This capacity of questioning, pondering, unfortunately is almost completely erased in some of us, leaving the person unprotected against someone else’s will, in state of deep alienation, “ignorance is power’ is the motto of the party. In the book, the State uses as a way of alienation also the management of past and future, foresees made by the Big Brother (the image that materializes the oppressor Party), erasing and total forgetting the past, being everything changed all the time so everything works for the Party. This also is not utopist, the reality seen through the books and the mass communication is full of favoritism, to the interest of the ‘casting’, in other words, it is obvious that ‘the author always have an intention on what he says, the intention is to pass a message’, this message goals to change the person’s mind and the authors own mind. With no delay, I conclude this pondering and analogy with our contemporary life, which I related to the book 1984 with my own view and expression of subjective and objective reality.

WAR IS PEACE
LIBERTY IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS POWER
(from the book 1984, George Orwell)