Brainwashing and Psychological Manipulation in 1984

In Book Two, Winston has a flashback about his previous life through a dream: he lived a difficult life in a war-torn Britain with his mother after his father left the family. Subconsciously, he believed that he had murdered her. However, up until this point, Winston had very little memory of who has family was, and who he was as an individual before the revolution took place in his early childhood. Essentially, the people of Oceania are groomed to become loyal members of the party, and even though some people were born before the party took power, they were still brainwashed into becoming its servants.

I found some similarities between the psychological manipulation of the party and the brainwashing of children by terrorist groups like ISIS. In this article, a Syrian refugee tells journalists about how his son was forced to attend an Islamic school run by ISIS, and quickly developed a destructive and volatile personality. According to a different parent, child recruits for ISIS would only talk about cars, bombs, and guns all day long. The boy's parents were afraid of their son because he now had loyalty to the Islamic State instead of them, and would likely rat them out without batting an eye if he suspected them of seditious activity. Only when the parents saw the boy's textbooks did they realize how he was being brainwashed.

A math lesson from an textbook in an ISIS-run school in Syria

Honestly, this is very concerning to hear about it happening in the real world, because it shows that truly anybody can be made to believe anything even if they oppose it at first, and that their conscious can be molded to the ideals of a higher power. Why do humans have a tendency to give in to agree with others around them and let go of their ideas when constantly beset by a competing ideology? Write your thoughts in the comments below.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

About that Ending

The ending of 1984 is quiet, with Winston living his life as a loyal party member who realizes that he can no longer love Julia. It sees the triumph of repression and totalitarianism over rebellion, and it sums up Orwell's message about the dangers of authoritarian rule because of how anybody can be broken into believing anything that they are told. In many ways, this is similar to the ending of Brave New World, where John's rebellion against the state withers away as he is exiled, then succumbs to the temptation to join the orgy and tragically takes his own life.  However, I felt that the books kind of took opposite paths in how they got to that sort of ending. In Brave New World, we are introduced to a society that seems almost perfect and where everybody is happy. Rebellion or brewing sedition in the society is impossible because everybody is conditioned to be happy with their place in life, and John is virtually all alone as the only person from the Savage Reservation who c...
Read more

The Future for Earthseeed?

So far, we have seen Lauren's new community endure numerous hardships on their way to Bankole's farm (or what remains of it), culminating in the end of the story where they settle and start a new life. But will they be able to survive and thrive in this new environment?  Their new home doesn't seem to be safe from danger, as Bankole's house is burned down and his family murdered shortly before the group arrives in Chapter 24. It doesn't seem like this property is remote enough to truly keep them safe, and even though Lauren and the others are used to constant violence around them, they will likely struggle to keep the land safe in the early days of the community because the resources and shelter would attract criminals who might try to steal the land. In addition, how are they going to find new people to build the numbers of the community? Mendocino is a small town in a sparsely populated area, so they might have to go further south to the Bay Area and pick up some ...
Read more

1984 and North Korea

The first six chapters of 1984 deal pack an enormous amount of detail about the world in which Winston Smith lives, from its global foreign relations to its extensive repression and cult of personality around its leader figure, Big Brother. For me, the most obvious parallel to a real world nation was with North Korea. In the second chapter, we find out that Winston has a neighbor with two children, both of whom are a part of the party's youth wing. They accuse Winston of committing seditious acts, which would get him tortured or killed. North Korea has a similar youth wing of its totalitarian political party, where children are ingrained with the party's principles of repression from a young age.  Another similarity was the cult of personality around Big Brother compared to the cult of personality around Kim Il Sung and his descendants. Big Brother is likely not even a real person, and Winston notes that while he doesn't remember Big Brother existing before the 1960s, new r...
Read more