I love Big Brother

Theory/Praxis: Discuss a theory or concept (eg., ideology, hegemony, media literacy) and apply it to your own everyday media practices.

Ahh, good ol' 1984 by George Orwell. I remember having to read this book in my Grade 11 English class how much I hated it. Nothing in the book made much sense because of how abstract all of the ideas were to me at the time. I dreaded reading this book and just prayed that someone on the internet would have a synopsis for it so I could put band-aids on all of the cuts and scratches that this book made on my brain. When I look back at it now, it makes more sense to me, the whole ideology of Big Brother. Before I get to far in with my recollection of the ideas in the book, let me outline the basic story of the book.

1984 was about a man named Winston who was living in a world that is led by a society referred to as Big Brother which sensors everything including people's thoughts and actions. Fed up with this lifestyle, Winston takes action to join a secret rebel group who's intentions are to overthrow the government. He meets up with a woman name Julia and has a secret love affair with her, which in this book is a crime. He also comes in contact with a man named O'Brien who works with Big Brother and had set out a very elaborate trap to 'fix' them. Winston and Julia are both sent off to the Ministry of Love where they are separated from each other and Winston is tortured until denounces everything he believes in, including his love for Julia.

“WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”("George Orwell")

This message was burned in my head for quite sometime while reading 1984. This message was the ideology that was set up by Big Brother for everyone to abide by. If you think about it, your mind will open up and accept the meaning of this quote. If you don't want to think about it, let me explain.

"WAR IS PEACE" To have peace, you must always be at war. When countries go to war, alliances that are formed between countries create peace between them.

"FREEDOM IS SLAVERY" To be free is to submit to a larger group. When you think about all of the things that are possible to achieve, you start to consider all of the things that you need to do to achieve it. Building a large building is impossible without architects, construction workers, urban planners, etc. These people all have their own ideas and personal freedoms. To be free to build this building, you have to become a slave to everyone else's ideas.

"IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH" To be ignorant to your surroundings, you have given power to higher orders to justify the things around you. If believe that the sky is actually green, high figures can now justify why it's green by saying anything. By fully accepting your higher orders dogma you allow those higher orders to efficiently  protect and serve you.

After revisiting this book, I realize that this book was kind of twisted. This society had been brainwashing people to think they way that they did so there was no conflict in their actions among people. Any sort of free thought or thought that was different then that of Big Brother was punishable and deemed unacceptable. When you really think about it, that kind of a society still exists today but on a much smaller scale. Look at any painting or photography for example. You are almost certain to have a guess as to what the underlaying meaning is behind this piece of art. The artist has the right answer to the question and when he explains it, he changes the way that people think about the piece of art work.

Even I find that I do the same thing with my photos that I take. I was talking to a friend of mine that always tried to find the deep poetic meaning behind all of my photographs. He was always afraid of misinterpreting the picture and would find himself saying sorry too often. I had to open his mind to viewing photos, not every picture has a deep meaning behind it. Sometimes, photographers take a picture because they like what they see. As a photographer, I have to be the Shepherd to the lost sheep. I have to guide their minds to the right place so they can truly understand the work I've created.

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Sources Cited

"George Orwell - 1984 - Part 1 Chapter 8." George Orwell - Complete works, Biography, Quotes, Essays. 2003. Web. 11 Oct 2009. (http://www.george-orwell.org/1984/7.html).