The dystopia of "1984" rests on the pillars of technology, tribalism and fear. Those same pillars are evident in many parts of the world today where an ascendant nativist populism and anti-intellectual tendencies are facilitated by the viral platforms of mass social media.
Orwell's prescient view of technology in 1948 was the ability of always-on communications media to shape and ultimately control how the population thinks and acts. The modern-day reader of "1984" may find jarring the incessant trumpeting by the telescreens of Oceania's every victory over Eurasia or Eastasia -- let alone the mindless groupthink of the Two Minute Hate. Yet there are clear parallels to be seen in our world: if you question the cognitive vulnerability of humans in our age to the kind of depredations Orwell paints so vividly in those descriptions of the Two Minute Hate, a quick tour of the comments sections of any partisan online media site should suffice to answer your doubts.
Orwell also understood the central role of fear in subjugating individual thinking capabilities to the State's desired narrow constraints. In the world of Winston Smith's Oceania, fear was delivered both via the ugly, threatening stereotypes of the megastate's enemies (e.g. the contorted rage in the faces of Eurasian soldiers shown during the Hate) and via the constant reminder of zero privacy in a world where the telescreen was always watching you.
Again, parallels to today's world are abundant; for example, the lazy stereotypes our politicians employ to denigrate Muslims or illegal immigrants are intended to reinforce groupthink around the tribal "us," coupled with adrenaline-raising devices like the "Terrorism Alert Desk" features now cropping up on local TV stations. And while Facebook or Twitter may not quite pack the punch of fear delivered by those nefarious telescreens, they do imply a constant sense of being watched and exposed.
Orwell understood that the intersection of technology, tribalism and fear is ever-present in modern human society, and thus that dystopian potential is always capable of being actualized if the enabling catalysts are present. They are very much relevant today.
To complete this assignment, you'll need to draw parallels between current events and some of the dystopic elements in 1984.
Some elements of Orwell's dystopia include:
A strictly hierarchical society in which highly ranked party members can afford luxuries and servants, while the lower classes live in dilapidated conditions and struggle to afford staples like razors
A populace filled with secret police and informants, making friendship and romantic love an impossibility because "Big Brother is watching"
An assault on truth, in which citizens believe the government's claim that they "had always been at war with Eastasia," even though their own memories and their own banners showed that mere minutes ago they had been at war with Eurasia instead
Closely related to the last point, an assault on rationality via "doublethink," which Orwell describes as "The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them"
Modern occurrences that could demonstrate Orwell's relevance include:
American wealth distribution, which is currently increasing at a rapid pace. As of September, the top 1% of wealthy Americans hold nearly 40% of the country's accumulated wealth
Modern wiretapping and NSA data farms, which have potential to intrude upon the privacy of any and all electronic communications between American citizens
The spread of misinformation and so-called "fake news" through social media and propaganda websites
Anti-intellectualism and the spreading sentiment that experts and academics are less qualified to lead than those operating on gut instinct and faith
Select the elements and events that you are most comfortable with and link them clearly, taking care to identify both similarities and differences between the examples that you choose. Make sure to support both sides of the comparison with direct quotations from the book and from news articles, using appropriate citations as specified by your instructor.
Good luck!
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