Be careful with your thoughts! Thought Police is watching you

What most caught my attention when Reading 1984 is the power that the Ministries had to control people’s thinking through the media and the control of information. We can see the consequences of thought control depicted in the very first pages of the book when they broadcast the “Two Minutes Hate", a daily moment of the day which purpose was to remind the people of Oceania who was the enemy and to express their hatred to him: Emmanuel Goldstein:

Goldstein was delivering his usual venomous attack upon the doctrines of the Party-an attack so exaggerated and perverse that a child should have been able to see through it, and yet just plausible enough to fill one with an alarmed feeling that other people, less level-headed than oneself, might be taken in by it. He was abusing Big Brother, he was denouncing the dictatorship of the Party, he was demanding the immediate conclusion of Peace with Eurasia, he was advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, he was crying hysterically that the revolution had been betrayed. (Orwell, 16)

It was shocking to read the people's reaction to Goldstein's speech. They were shown the key to their freedom, yet the system was so perfectly created and controled that even though they watched everyday the video of Goldstein asking for a change in society, they would not pay attention to it, even worse, they would be against him. And that is all because of media manipulation the totalitarian system gets benefited by the idea of havinf an enemy that attempts to break with the comfortability they have been induced to feel. The power of media is also addressed in "The Role of Media in Society in 1984":

"The media have an incredible degree of influence with respect to shaping thought. While the responsability of journalism, whether in print or electronic format, is to inform the citizend of the facts, the fact of the matter is that the media are by no means neutral." (Smith)

The novel shows a society who had lost the capacity of thinking and at the same time had lost their individuality and identity.  To my mind, our thoughts are deepest manifestation of ourselves, in our minds we can freely think, imagine or question whatever we want. Therefore, brainwashing, brain control, ideological modeling, thought shaping, whatever the name you choose to call it is a highly dangerous weapon against human mind and it's ability to control over their thinking, behaviour, emotions and decision making. (Schein, 4) In plain words, you become an empty-minded zombie which is useful for the totalitarian government.

I know that the novel shows an exaggerated image of the totalitarian governments but It does not mean that it is not true in its essence. The conclusion I draw after reading Orwell’s 1984 is that if we as a society lose our capacity to think, to express ourselves, to be true to ourselves, we are doomed. If there exists a point in time in which we stop filtering what the media shows, if we stop reading between the lines, if we accept everything we are told as true: a future like the one shown in the novel would be inexorable.

Finally, here I pot some quotes I found on the internet that can make you reflect upon the issue I addressed in this post.

References:

Schein. 1960. Brainwashing.

Smith, 2012. The Role of Media in Society in 1984.