Amber Lanham
Period 1
10-31-12
Beast #1
Politics Really Are Screwed Up! Politics… One of the major things people focus on for months every four years. As Orwell states there’s “lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia,” which is true even in this day and age. Politicians are constantly lying just to get elected. Nowadays you can’t tell where lies end and truth begins. The confusion and haziness keep you from seeing the truth YOU want, but it makes you see the truth THEY want you to see. In Orwell’s second part of his statement “when the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer,” what he means by general atmosphere he is talking about the political atmosphere and is basically saying that the worse government and the politicians involved get the more our language is being misused and misunderstood. For example, in the 2012 Presidential election Romney and Obama are constantly going back and forth with each other saying he said this or he said that, but there is a very thin line of truth between either of them. Also when it comes to Obama in the 2008 election he clearly stated that he was against gay marriage and that it should be between a man and women and now for this election he is saying that he supports it. Personally I’m unsure about where he stands and I bet others are also confused and don’t know what to think or who to vote for. Orwell’s book 1984 supports his claim “the deterioration of political language contributes to the growingly hostile and untrustworthy political atmosphere,” in a major way. In the book it depicts language as the method of control. By the government controlling everything from the words you say to how population is created supports Orwell saying that “politics are lies and evasions.” For instance in the Ministry of Truth will take all previous records of existence and get rid of them and pretend they never existed. If there was a war no one ever knew about it and to the government and population it never happened. It’s like the government wanted to create a perfect world with perfect people. Nothing bad ever happened and if it did it was covered up. Two of the main character’s Winston and Julia in a way rebelled against Big Brother. In that world relations between a man and women weren’t called “love” it was a way to greater the population, but Julia and Winston fall in love and make love for their own pleasure and not for population. Eventually they confess their mutual hatred for Big Brother to O’Brien who they believe is on their side and he welcomes them into this so called secret society that is supposed to be against Big Brother. Soon Winston and Julia are discovered and taken to the Ministry of Love. O’Brien then begins to torture Winston in believing everything he says is the truth, for instance 2+2=5. Winston believes that a person’s mind should be free to do its own thinking. In our society that is also what most people believe, but nowadays our government is trying to, I wouldn’t necessarily say force, but they are trying to persuade the mind to think how they think and believe what they believe is necessary and proper for the common good of humanity. Thoreau, a slavery advocate who also wrote “Civil Disobedience” after spending the night in jail, spoke about how one person can change how other people think just by standing up for what they believe. People in our society nowadays are afraid to stand against the government because they make themselves out to be this big bad “monster” (1984). As stated in Thoreau’s essay “A government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice,” means that not all things government does are based on what the majority of people think is best or what most people want. He also questions if what government is doing is in good nature, such as voting cannot determine what is wrong or right that only a person’s conscience can. This ties into Orwell’s claim because the government trying to