What Is 1984 Ignorance Is Strength

Ignorance is Strength As Americans, one of the best things we have is our freedom. Imagine your freedom of speech, thought, and actions were stripped away and forced into the belief of a totalitarian government. One may have the capability to alter another's beliefs; however, one cannot diminish knowledge. Corrupt authority figures utilize tactics to manipulate their society’s beliefs, yet still fear the knowledge of the people. In the novel 1984, written by George Orwell, an English novelist, a society in which people are taken advantage of is displayed. The story tracks Winston, a thin, frail, contemplative, and intellectual thirty-nine-year-old, who lives in a society where the government constantly watches the people, limits thoughts,

Members of the party were manipulated by the higher party members to cease all independent thoughts. In the novel, the Party participates in the Two Minutes Hate every day. The Two Minutes Hate is where members of the society meet and watch clips of the enemy. They unite and scream at the screen creating a common enemy among them. Among the crowd, this creates a “ hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledgehammer” (Orwell 14). During the Two Minutes Hate, intense emotion unites the crowd distracting them from their own corrupt government. Big Brother practices this tactic because it makes the society focus on something other than the inhumane and manipulative government they are living in. It shifts their hatred toward the enemy rather than Big Brother. Throughout the novel, an irrational authority is portrayed through Big Brother. Because of the propaganda and constant surveillance, the society members are being taken advantage of. Since there is no benefit for society, the authority benefits through stripping rights from the people, and

In the story, Big Brother limits the thoughts of the people by creating Newspeak, erasing or altering records and people of the past, and belittles the people causing them to be desensitized to terrifying events. Through the various tactics used by Big Brother and the Party they are able to manipulate society’s beliefs, yet certain individuals, like Winston, overcome the manipulation by using their own knowledge to oppose the government. Because knowledge is dangerous and difficult to suppress, it is almost impossible for one to corruptly maintain authority over a group of people as portrayed in the