1984 - Book Review
While it is a big classic and its themes are constantly brought up (specially these days), I had never read 1984 , by George Orwell before.
As many of you might have heard (even if you didn't read it), 1984 talks about an empire where citizens are under constant surveillance by the government, which isn't limited by laws, and which constantly reviews history. It is a very, very dark dystopia.
It is hard to read the book and not see some disturbing parallels. Governments will keep track of you (in 1984 they only bothered with a smaller percentage of the population - Party members and up) not only through CCTV cameras, but also through your many, many electronic footprints. History can effectively be changed - for instance by having laws that only allow authorized biographies (such as in Brazil) - and also the present, by manipulating statistics (although I guess that might have been done throughout history) or by only supplying printing paper to certain newspapers (as happens in Argentina now).
The books does serve as an useful warning, since 1948. Unfortunately, most people ignored it - too far-fetched. Right?
As many of you might have heard (even if you didn't read it), 1984 talks about an empire where citizens are under constant surveillance by the government, which isn't limited by laws, and which constantly reviews history. It is a very, very dark dystopia.
It is hard to read the book and not see some disturbing parallels. Governments will keep track of you (in 1984 they only bothered with a smaller percentage of the population - Party members and up) not only through CCTV cameras, but also through your many, many electronic footprints. History can effectively be changed - for instance by having laws that only allow authorized biographies (such as in Brazil) - and also the present, by manipulating statistics (although I guess that might have been done throughout history) or by only supplying printing paper to certain newspapers (as happens in Argentina now).
The books does serve as an useful warning, since 1948. Unfortunately, most people ignored it - too far-fetched. Right?
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