George Orwell’s final book. ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ was published in 1949. A talked about and futuristic theme, it is the story of a totalitarian government regime, as described. A centralised dictatorship that was said to rely on high surveillance and control.
A previous book said to have had a pronounced effect on Orwell was ‘The Managerial Revolution’ written by as called ex-communist James Burnham in 1941. Described as prophetic, the book is believed to depict a revolution of managers and beurocrats.
Orwell is said to have believed that totalitarianism was beginning to look attractive to many beurocrats in the political scene of the 1940’s and roundabout. The book is believed to have described an insiduous and creeping authoritarianism which ultimately results in the extinction of individual freedom.
The ultimate aim of Orwell’s government in ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ was said to be to teach citizens to self regulate their thoughts, which Orwell was said to have believed was the highest form of totalitarian control. This might be done over time. A process of hegemony and conditioning with the aim of a change of heart, resulting in an individual’s refusal to challenge the tyranny of the day, and become willing accomplices.
Themes are the thinking of forbidden thoughts, as called thought police, mass surveillance and the response of so called Crimestop; may be described as a victim’s ability to rid him or herself of thoughts that don’t align to the regime’s order. Crimestop is described in the book as a faculty or a blind spot, which instinctively stops short at the so called threshhold of a dangerous thought.
The government department responsible for the monitoring of thoughts in the novel, ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’, believed by some to be prophetic, was the as called ‘Ministry of Love’. Propaganda being that the state is always working in everyones’ best interests.