Totalitarianism In 1984

Over the course of history, the world claims one of their biggest fears is their leaders abusing their power to exercise full authoritarian control over their citizens. Yet very few people realize that there are many elements within our current leaders that mirror manipulation techniques present in totalitarian regimes. Despite the term ‘totalitarian’ being frequently used to describe a government in which authorities have full control over its citizens, there are many subtle aspects of a totalitarian system that even the most democratic leaders can implement in order to gain more power. The history of China’s Communist party reveals the many steps a government can take to acquire more power from right under the citizens’ eyes. After the Boxer

Fully aware of the fact that granting people their freedoms would weaken their allegiance to the party, the authorities in both 1984 and in modern China sought to obtain full control over its citizens to ensure their power. Many authoritative governments employ the use of propaganda to influence people, undermining the merit of facts and logical data. By manipulating politics and exerting psychological control over its citizens, peoples’ beliefs and opinions are controlled by strings. Their repressive governance overwhelms the citizens with fear and their attempts to strengthen their power distances people from their personal freedoms. Because of the government’s consistent efforts to isolate its citizens from contrasting foreign influences, citizens lack access to information and a benchmark to compare their governments against (Orwell, 219). Over time, this results in the loss of the people’s ability to think logically to generate doubts against their leaders. The government’s implementation of mass-surveillance techniques makes people vulnerable to their leader’s conditioning. Both regimes draw upon the human nature of conformity to mold its citizens’ behaviors so that they are more subservient to the party. Although these points are important, the premier idea is that people are unaware that they are subjected to conditioning by relying on an authoritarian leader to select rules of conduct that needs to be enforced and make decisions in lieu of