Crimethink In 1984

Although America will hopefully never become anything like the society of Oceania, it’s interesting when a White House staffer calls a flat-out lie, “alternative facts.” In the history of the United States a few laws/programs have been quite similar to some of the laws passed in Oceania. The first parallel between the two societies is policies that punish citizens for criticizing the government. In the US the Alien and Sedition Act was passed in 1798, but the Sedition Act in particular, criminalized the act of making false statements about the government. In Oceania, Crimethink is the newspeak word for any action or thought that is against the strict government agenda. Included in Crimethink is the action of criticizing the party. Telescreens

In the US during WW1, the Committee on Public Information was formed, which strived to garner support for the war. In Oceania, the Ministry of Truth is responsible for producing all propaganda according to party doctrine. The purpose of propaganda is to essentially aid in the development of a specific, uniform opinion on any subject. The opinion could be one of Pro-War like the US for example or anti-Goldstein in Oceania. This leads to the next point that, a similarity between the two propaganda programs is the vilification of a common enemy that symbolizes the cause of the country’s suffering. For Oceania, Goldstein served this purpose; Germany in the US. Propaganda can be delivered in many ways but to be effective, it has to be omnipresent. The party accomplishes this with the use of telescreens. Unable to be turned off, telescreens provide the party with a medium in which to deliver media continuously and special programming such as the two minutes hate. In the US during WW1, the government lacked a true mass media outlet in which to disseminate propaganda, as radio was not yet mainstream. Instead, the CPI sought the help of volunteers called the “Four minute men” to give speeches on authorized topics. In less than three years over 7.5 million speeches were given across the country. Even though the method of disseminating the propaganda was vastly different between the two