JOURNAL QUESTION 6

Journal question 6: "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." --George Orwell

The quotation above indicates a way of how dictators utilize the political means of manipulating history to control people's mind. In the novel, George Orwell presents a logic chain: when things happen in the current reality, people may view the past to see if there is any precedent in the history, which helps them to construct their own opinion and judgment of what is happening currently. In other words, the past can be treated essentially as a set of conditions that justify or encourage future goals. The Party, however, exploits this principle, distorting the real history and prohibiting people from knowing the truth, which compels people to work for the Party's goals.

In the real world, things like that actually happen. The China government, for example, erased some historical truth from certain aspects; any trace of historical events in which the government does not want its people to know was deleted completely. In this way, the government was able to diminish the backlash and reduce opposition, performing better in encouraging people to fight for its own goals.

As to another part of this quotation "Who controls the present controls the past", the meaning it wants to express is obvious. Any government of dictatorship can be considered as possessing absolute power in the nation, which represents the entity "who controls the present". Hence, the government of dictatorship can readily manipulate history and therefore controls people's mind and thoughts.

Comments

  1. mRs. BeRZinSkASAugust 23, 2019 at 3:05 PM

    Isn't it scary that it is so easy to control someone's mind? I would like to believe that it isn't, but it seems to happen so easily -- as seen in past totalitarian societies.

    ReplyDelete

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