In 1848, George Orwell wrote the book "1984", which was published as a science fiction allegory at the time. I didn't expect this seemingly alien story to happen decades later. "1984" is the most influential dystopian work in China. Wang Xiaobo once said: "For me, "1984" is no longer utopia, but history." It is precisely because of the centralized society depicted in "1984" It has been staged bloodily on the land of China, so it can always make people feel the same.
In the 1984 portrayed by the author George Orwell, the people of Oceania were in constant panic under the surveillance of television screens. Everyone around could be a thought policeman, and every day could disappear. Every job was a Correcting history. They pay attention to "double thinking", they believe in "war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is power". The hero Winston was doomed to doom when he had doubts about Big Brother from the beginning. He thought his love for Julia could overcome all physical and mental torture, but he was brainwashed and died after saying that only Big Brother was in love.
It can be said that Utopia is Tao Yuanming's Peach Blossom Land in Liangtianmeichi, and the dystopia "1984" on the back of the mirror is the mighty Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. During the period of agitating students to become Red Guards, they acted as elusive ideological police to defeat "capitalist roaders" like Goldstein's conception, and actively organized public denunciation meetings. But it was in 1984 that Deng Xiaoping publicly proposed the concept of "reform and opening up" for the first time. In this sense, 1984 was the beginning of China's reform and opening up, and such a coincidence makes one have to be amazed.
But in fact the capitalist countries have not escaped the parable of "1984". The US "Prism Gate" incident disclosed by Snowden in 2013 let the world know that the US "Big Brother is watching you". Project Prism is a top-secret electronic surveillance program implemented by the National Security Agency since the Bush era in 2007. The National Security Agency and the FBI directly access the central servers of American Internet companies to mine data and collect intelligence, including Microsoft. , Yahoo, Google, Apple, etc., and several Internet giants are involved. Through Project Prism, the NSA can even monitor what a person is doing online searches in real time. It can be said that the fantasy TV screen in "1984" actually appeared in the real society.
In fact, cameras are widely used all over the world to maintain urban security, but it is undeniable that this approach can easily monitor everyone's privacy. With the real-time monitoring of cameras and electronic products all over the city, who can escape the fate of being monitored nowadays.
Some time ago, I watched a variety show "Sneak Tracking". This show is to let ordinary people live as fugitives for 28 days without being caught as a victory. In the program, the current situation that modern people kidnapped by electronic products can easily be monitored in real time is fully demonstrated.
Going back to the "Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism" in "1984", I think the author tells us three things from my shallow understanding: War is peace - the main purpose of modern warfare is to consume as much machine-made finished products as possible rather than raising the standard of living of the people. Freedom is Slavery - Slavery is freedom. As a free individual that exists independently, a person will eventually be defeated. But if the individual can completely obey the collective, if he can give up his own existence and fully identify with the party, then he is the party, and he has boundless rights. Ignorance is power - to keep people ignorant is to keep people isolated and incomparable, unaware that they are being oppressed.
If "1984" can give us a little reminder, then it may be what Xi Jinping said: lock power in a cage. If no one checks public power, there can be no fair realization of private rights. We say that socialism is not totalitarian, and we cannot deny that capitalism is not totalitarian. As a commoner, it may be far away from politics, but it's not too far... Politics, we can still talk about it...
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