It’s about total control from the perfect totalitarian state. Mass surveillance is a small part, and control of language is also a part. But it’s also about control of truth and history, and eventually even control of the inner mind.
Surveillance isn’t done by cameras in the book, it’s done by the citizens. One of the side characters joins the main character in jail in the final act cause his kids told on him… and he was proud of them for it.
True, there are microphones, because I specifically remember the main character taking a walk through a new forest, because the thin trees couldn’t possibly hide a microphone.
Which is part of the propaganda, that you should be wary of everyone watching you at all times.
The only one they specifically are targeting that we know of is the main character, and it’s because of something he had done years and years before. It was targeted surveillance, not mass surveillance.
1984 is not about mass surveillance. It’s about lowering the langage and culture so that you don’t even have word to criticize the system.
It’s about total control from the perfect totalitarian state. Mass surveillance is a small part, and control of language is also a part. But it’s also about control of truth and history, and eventually even control of the inner mind.
The cameras are only a tiny part.
Surveillance isn’t done by cameras in the book, it’s done by the citizens. One of the side characters joins the main character in jail in the final act cause his kids told on him… and he was proud of them for it.
True, there are microphones, because I specifically remember the main character taking a walk through a new forest, because the thin trees couldn’t possibly hide a microphone.
Which is part of the propaganda, that you should be wary of everyone watching you at all times.
The only one they specifically are targeting that we know of is the main character, and it’s because of something he had done years and years before. It was targeted surveillance, not mass surveillance.