The Death of Privacy: The Ongoing Fulfillment of an Orwellian Nightmare

George Orwell is one of my favorite authors. His seminal works include 1984, the iconic novel depicting an insider's view of a totalitarian dystopia in which the individual's very thoughts are policed and controlled by an oppressive regime and Animal Farm, a satirical animal fable modeled on the French Revolution, illustrating the trend from revolution to democracy to terror and totalitarianism. Other important works include Homage to Catalonia, recounting Orwell's experiences in the Spanish Civil War and essays like Politics and the English Language, which examines the use (or, rather, abuse) of “political language” to mislead and confuse the public.

While Orwell's writings address a number of important issues, one of the most striking and significant issues he deals with, particularly in 1984, is the loss of privacy and individuality in the totalitarian society. He recounts, in 1984, a culture that is profoundly resonant with the current state of our society, and one has to wonder how far we have to go before the full extent of the Orwellian nightmare becomes a reality—a technocratic dystopia in which the individual's very thoughts are managed by the state and individuality, as a concept, ceases to exist.

The Bush administration, with it's paranoid reign of terror, has, perhaps, done more to fulfill Orwell's nightmare than any other administration in recent history—unauthorized surveillance of citizens, the incarceration of innocent people based on suspicion alone, the “endless war” against arbitrary enemies—the Orwellian slogan:

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength

seems to be more resonant than ever. However, all that is in the past—the GOP was pretty much wiped out in the recent elections and a new administration is in power. We live in a two-party system, unlike Soviet Russia or Communist China, . . . right? So the question now is, what is the Obama administration doing to remedy the damage that the Bush administration has done? What is the Obama administration doing for the cause of civil liberties? Well, to give credit where credit is due, they have already done a great deal, like officially decreeing the closure of Guantanamo Bay and pledging to return US troops from Iraq—two important steps in reverting the trend towards an Orwellian dystopia.

But what about privacy rights—one of the major constituents of Orwell's nightmare. After all, in the recent past, Obama voted in favor of a federal surveillance law, which raised some eyebrows. One wonders where the Obama administration stands on the issue of government surveillance of its citizenry—I certainly hope for some sort of indication that they stand in favor of civil liberties and against the unwarranted, arbitrary incarceration of innocent civilians based upon suspicion alone. The last thing we need, at this stage, is the reemergence of Orwellian impulses in our society—paranoid witch hunts, warrentless wiretapping and surveillance, endless war, government thought control. If those are the trends that undermined and, ultimately, ruined the Bush legacy, then they cannot do any better for Obama's turn in office.

Horizon Cybermedia remains committed to individualism and independent, artistic self-expression. We continue to produce unique media content to reflect the complexities of the individual soul. Check out our website at http://www.explorationtheseries.com for a new film about the Wine Country coming soon.

Wishing you the very best,

Uday Gunjikar,
Founder and CEO,
Horizon Cybermedia, Inc.