Essay 1984 2

The novel nineteen eighty four written by George Orwell, depicts a world of dystopian
nature, in which we are able to observe the consequences of an authoritarianism ruled

society that lives in perfect dictatorship. It shows us how this political system strips people
of their most basic human rights, taking away their freedom.
1. The novel presents a context in which most of the human rights we know we have, and
exercise, are by themselves a crime under the scrutinizing eye of the government. When a
character belonging to this society tries to exercise any sign of individualism they are
tortured and brainwashed by the Thought Police, who will break and mold the person into a
machine-like member of society “He was already dead, he reflected. It seemed to him that
it was only now, when he had begun to be able to formulate his thoughts, that he had taken
the decisive step. The consequences of every act are included in the act itself. He wrote:
Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death.” (I,2) They do not have any of
the first-generation rights; they are prohibited from speaking against anything the
government has established or they will be heavily prosecuted; feeling any way the
government doesn’t approve (any emotion that is not hate); they cannot be any different
from people from the same social class, which is to say the right to free thought or religion
is illegal. They are slaves of the government, if they don’t comply to what is being constantly
demanded from them, socially, politically and personality wise, they will be punished; they
will not get the right to defend themselves against a tribunal, what the government says, it
goes; they do not have any right to privacy, while living on a society heavily reliant on mass
surveillance. There is also violations to the third generation rights such as the right to peace
“WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH“ (I,2).
2. Scholastic democracy stands for the right of the people to vote for a representative
democracy, in which everyone is able to select the leader of their nation as Saint Thomas
Aquinas stated “The best constitution in a city or nation is one in which one is not the
depositary of power and has the presidency over all, but in such a way that some
participate in that power and that power belongs to all, insofar as everyone can be elected
and everyone takes part in the election." (Politics,4.2.) This sets an extreme contrast to the
politic system of the book, which is totalitarianism, an extremist form of governmental
control and the total control of the actions, lives, desires and events in citizen’s lives.
This democratic theory states “By nature, all men are equal; no one has jurisdiction over
others” (Politics,4.2.) this is backed by a reasoning that alludes to the fact that all men are
created of God’s image and can only submit to him, therefore no man can be recognized as
more than an equal, for the only true authority above man is God. This theory recognizes
the nation as the one responsible to rule itself, which means the people may choose
someone to govern temporarily in agreement to the law and only to the extent the nation
decides, therefore the individual that governs has limits. In 1984, the key element of
totalitarianism is Big Brother, which represents the government and has control over what
you do, think, eat and even feel. His control extends to a manipulation of information and
history, and is, in itself the very thing scholastic democracy argues against, for the figure of
Big Brother is practically as powerful as a God and has no limits but those he decides to give
himself.
This type of democracy also defends the power the nation should have to force their chosen
ruler to renounce if they see it fit to preserve God’s will and public utility. Big Brother’s
government shows us the complete opposite, as his power is absolute and anyone who
even dares to think about doubting this government system is deemed to be tortured.
3. The title The Last man in Europe can be extrapolated to the history of rights and politics
in Europe at the time the book was written (1949). “The Party seeks power entirely for its
own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power.
Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power
means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in
that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were
cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to
us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They
pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a
limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would
be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the
intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a
dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to
establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is
torture. The object of power is power.” (III, 2) Kant argues that humanity owes itself the
respect to never use others as tools, meanings to an end, for one should always be an end;
in this matter the political system of the book can’t even be considered humanist.
Winston, the protagonist of the novel, can be seen in this context as the one to defy this
system, by giving himself value, as an individual, and therefore a man; a representation of
the remaining voice of reason in what was back in the day, a political mess that oppressed
the very first generation rights of people. The “Declaration of Human Rights” of 1948 was
the consequence of war, but it could have become the outcome of the book if the
humanistic movement supporters had won in WWII, in which those human rights
established in as a rule that was written, could’ve only become the hope of a man that
dared to defy a totalitarian system.

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The novel nineteen eighty four written by George Orwell, depicts a world of dystopian

nature, in which we are able to observe the consequences of an authoritarianism ruled

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