StudyMoose App
24/7 writing help on your phone
Save to my list
Remove from my list
Power, a meaningful word, but what does it actually mean? We hear all the time word „power” in different contexts in every day situations. At work we have the boss who is in charge of the company, the workplace - he has a power of controlling employees. Different example such as a vow in church during wedding ceremony priest says „by the power of God I pronounce you husband and wife”. It means that he is eligible to marry the bride and the bridegroom.
The major representative of romanticist writers Percy Bysshe Shelley sees the power in a totally negative way. He compares power to pestilence, power of government for is always tyrannical. He believes that power has bad influence on people. He blames power for corruption. All the good thing about society are damaged as a result of using power. Using ,,to pollute” he emphasizes the bad impact of power. In that context it means that power destroys, infects society like disease.
Verified writer
4.7 (657)
“ Really polite, and a great writer! Task done as described and better, responded to all my questions promptly too! ”
“Like desolating pestilence” describes how easy it is to break the rules, to misuse the power, but also how dangerous it can be. In Shelley’s opinion authorities are connected with bad aspects.
Why I use authority instead of power? Power is one of the tools in the hands of the authorities. Actually we can call power as the first thing which comes to our minds when we think about authority. The definition in the context of further part of the article, that is in the social, political sense.
According to encyclopedia Brittanica authority in a broader sense describes the social relationship between specific types of social groups, consisting in the fact that one of the sides can legally enforce the other side to a specific proceeding and has methods to ensure the control of some actions. Authority is usually based on voluntary acceptance that is rooted in the recognition of its authority and legitimacy or social coercion, and even physical violence. Society consists of specific institutions related to different aspects of life such as family, school or church which are eligible to use power. Parents can legally use not only persuasion against their children, teachers against students in the other way. In general government is the major authority in society and it has the power of controlling people.
Orwell “1984” presents an unusual view of power, authority and society. Being precisely in the novel, power is the Party and the Big Brother. The party has absolute power, decides about everything, even the smallest details of citizens lives. Big Brother is a mysterious feature, everyone knows his image, but no one has ever seen him. Smith’s interrogator does not answer the question whether Big Brother exists. The authorities use a repressive device - the police of Thought and propaganda. The ideology of power, based on faith in the omnipotence of the Party and the infallibility of the Big Brother, a two-mindedness, a rapid change of views and fast forgetting about the previous beliefs. People who do not follow these rules disappear without any trace. The ministries—Truth Ministry dealing with propaganda, Peace, dealing with war, Plenty responsible for the distribution of still missing food, supervising prisons and dealing with torture – support the maintenance of power.
The main character - Winston Smith deals with rewriting archives articles. If we are familiar with the reality of the novel we are aware that based on the political situation, the Party creates past. If the old ally now becomes an enemy, they must convert all publications about him, so that they would present him in unfavorable light. Smith devotedly fulfills his duties, but he realizes he hates the Party, because he writes diary against it. On the one hand he does not agree with the ideology of Big Brother, he does not share universal love to him, but on the other hand, he leads the life of an obedient official, completing his thankless duties. Winston is at odds with with himself, trying to rebel, breaking small bans, venturing into the priory district, trying to inquire about the past. Obedience to the system is a sin against each other. Together with Julia, they pretend to be someone else. Their mutual meeting releases in them the courage and desire for a concrete action. They want something more than just breaking the rules by secret meetings. Moreover, lovers are ready to commit crimes and sacrifice their lives in the name of being opposed to the system. In that complicated situation they are able to find the values such as love, freedom and trust. These moments of common happiness are their reward for courage in the inhuman reality. Unfortunately, theirs freedom lasts very short and turns out to have at a very high price. Everything that was about their happiness disappeared in one moment. It turned out that the authorities knew from the beginning about their attempt joining the Brotherhood, because they were constantly monitored.
That is the vision how power influences human life in Orwell book “1984” , but there were many experiments based on human behavior, which present shocking results. Most common are Stanford Prison Experiment and Milgram experiment. Stanford Prison Experiment it is a research project that examined the psychological effects of prison life simulation. It was conducted by a group of psychologists at Stanford University under the leadership of Philip Zimbardo in 1971. During the selection of candidates, they were guided by their good heath both mental and physical and lack of a criminal past. It was chosen 24 students, 18 of whom eventually took part in the experiment (the remaining six were a reserve) in an experimental prison in the basement of the psychology department at Stanford. The American psychologist observed that mentally healthy people under specific conditions can successfully assume the roles of perpetrators and victims. Zimbardo explained that such kind of behavior is not in the disturbances of the human mind, but in the impact of the environment on the human being. The units selected for the experiment were fully mentally healthy, and the experiment took place in one place, thanks to which the respondents left their roles after they finished, took off their uniforms and returned to their normal life. Experimental efforts made them feel no guilt or shame. The participants themselves admitted that despite a week spent in inhumane conditions, they learned a lot about themselves and their own nature, which for most of them was very informative. In addition, the effects were limited only to the duration of the experiment, and finally everyone admitted that what they survived was only the effect of the realities in which they found themselves, not the characteristics of their own personality. The phenomenon called “the Lucifer Effect” defines the transformation of the human character from good to bad, only because of the environment. The term is also referred to as the transformation from an angel into a devil. It is confirmed that each person in appropriate conditions can turn into a tormentor or an involuntary victim use power and even torture as I mentioned. As an illustration of the change in the otherwise favorable conditions of normal people, in cruelty of the perpetrators, with the silent approval of their superiors at all levels, Zimbardo reports in his book “Luciffer Effect” the actions of American soldiers abusing the Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison.
Another experiment called Milgram’s experiment investigated obedience to authorities. Stanley Milgram asked himself the reasons for blind obedience to criminal orders that led ordinary people to genocide, for example in concentration camps during World War II. In the experiment described in this way, the strongest shock was applied to the student by 65% of the respondents. No one withdrew when the victim specifically asked for it, or when she started to call for help, even when she shouted with pain. 80% of participants continued their shocks despite the fact that the student mentioned that he has problems with his heart and shouted ‘Let me get out of here!’, he was shocked with 300 V. Those who reached the end of the scale were ready to continue the experiment when the researcher decided to finish it. The results did not change due to the age of the participants, gender did not play either (women and men yielded in the same way) or nationality. The experiment has shocking results. We are not aware how quickly we adjust to the reality, even though we know that the action are harmful for other people.
“The Person of Interest”, is a TV show which is a modern example of power, authority and obedience. It is worth seeing series where Harold Finch (Michael Emerson) is responsible for creating an all-seeing machine that keeps track of all people (record phone calls, captures records from monitoring and cameras on laptops or telephones) to enable agencies to track down terrorists before any coup. However, he ignores all minor offenses - a jealous husband shooting at his wife or a gang blasting a cafe. Finch is dealing with such cases, strictly in secret from the government. For obvious reasons, he needs a helper - and here comes John Reese (Jim Caviezel). He was a special forces agent and CIA, then considered dead. Finch recruits him, not without difficulty, and together bravely fight crime in New York. The story is not as simple and banal as it might seem. If you are not convinced look at the name of the creator of the series. This is Jonathan Nolan, the one of those Nolan brothers from the Dark Knight’s trilogy and a few other films. The show is a classic example of dystopia. First of all, because it starts quite realistically, but later the creators, wanting to explore the possibilities of true intelligence of artificial intelligence, turned towards a gentle science fiction. The assumption itself is utopian, antyutopian from the scratch. It would be wonderful if it was possible to monitor everything , non-invasively and discreetly shed law-abiding people and hunt down terrorists in time. We know, however, that this is not possible - apart from the fact that surveillance is not allowed inconsistent to the basic human rights. The series, moreover, repeatedly tries to show that anyone can trust artificial intelligence. Finch, even though he created a powerful surveillance system - argues that supervision, common sense and caution are necessary. That is why Orwellian inspirations are probably so obvious. Antyutopia would assume, however, that the government uses surveillance to control society and limit its freedom. Such constant observation violates the basic human rights, but in the world of the show, the authorities deal with terrorists and serious threats, ignoring the minor ones - ordinary man can actually sleep well. When it comes to dystopia, it is probably the genre to which it is closest here. This is not a vision of the future, because the action happens in the present tense - that is, present for the episode broadcast when it was broadcast - and raises many issues important to our times. One simple but loud example: On May 10, 2012, “No Good Deed” episode was broadcast, in which a whistle-blower discovers that his agency is illegally watching people, and when information reaches his government about his planned meeting with a journalist, they begin trouble. This is a science fiction that I mentioned, but it mainly concerns the machine created by Finch. One of the characters in the series treats her as a living, thinking organism that sometimes behaves like a capricious child. Screenwriters have decided to develop this theme and it continues to this day - the machine can think, develop and learn on its own mistakes. It can be tedious, biased and caring. Observing her relationship with heroes is a really interesting experience, especially since she often refuses to provide information or to translate her demands, claiming that they are not yet needed. It is not only an Orwellian inspiration, it is also postmodern reality. Is it something become clearer? Do you start thinking that cameras are everywhere and we are being watched?
All of mentioned information are not easy to process. I am not surprised by that, but probably everyone has a reflection, indeed, are we really controlled nowadays? What elements of Orwell’s fiction became real? It is also worth mentioning that Orwell’s fiction became real equally with social and technological progress, we are allegedly democracy, part of European Union. Nevertheless, today we should perceive “1984” world, the authority and the power as a postmodern society and environment. Being precisely mentioned TV show “Person of interest ” is a present-day example, there are studies on Polytechnics called Robotics or Artificial Intelligence . However, “Person of Interest ” is still only a TV show.
The British The Guardian recently published the data that last year China’s authorities declined 23 million Chinese citizens to travel - 17.5 million by plane and 5.5 million by train. Why? The Chinese system works on the principle of ‘social points’. More than one billion citizens it is worth picking out those who are the best and have already been famous for obeying the system. If you go to the May Day parade, you will hold images of party dignitaries, and at the end you will make a social act - someone from the party will give an instruction to give you positive points. However, if you go against the procession and comment on it negatively using an incorrect language, you will receive a punishment. Unbelievable? The image of Oceania from ‘1984’ has become real. In reality, however, this system affects every sphere of Chinese life, you will not pay tax or fines - minus points, you will go through a red light - points down, you use drugs - ‘rating’ down. The Guardian cites even smaller vices affecting the rating system, such as smoking on a train or going for a walk with a dog without a leash. As punishment, citizens are deprived of the opportunity to travel, after a huge country after all, as well as a ban on leaving it.
It is not everything. We don’t need to focus on China system, there is a few examples in Poland.
On September 12, 2018, the directive on the law on copyright was voted in the European Parliament. The European Union plans to introduce a few changes that can have a serious influence on our functioning on the Internet. For some, the directive is called ACTA 2.0. The project is aimed to help journalists, artists and creators whose copyright laws are often violated. Automatic algorithms that will look for copyrighted content that has been used illegally should be launched. Their use will be limited also on sites such as Facebook or Twitter. The re are ecords of two articles of the directive, i.e. art. 11 and art. 13. which refer to known as ‘link tax’ and platform filtering, they add not only new responsibilities to the websites owners. In practice, it means that memes and remixes of films will be deleted from the internet. The access to information will be hugely limited. Internet information’s services will not be able to use quotes and rely on other websites and websites as sources of information, unless they pay a fee. The bad news is that The ACTA 2 Directive should therefore apply in Poland no later than at the end of March 2021.
To sum up, ‘1984’ is a book outlines the enslavement of man by a totalitarian system. Orwell created a world ruled by ideologies in which there is no place for human rights. In the name of utopia, which consists in making people happy, they are dispossessed of the right to make decision about themselves. The Party has taken over human life completely. Orwell shows how language can manage propaganda and convey the content wanted by the authorities. Sadly, the book will dependably be a present danger. It is an instance of a sad vision, luckily undiscovered, and risky. What is more, for the vast majority today, “ Big Brother” will never again remain a picture of extremist control, but an effective personality stifling TV show for those whom Orwell's Big Brother intended to keep the majority's minds off the present day and even worse purpose – to earn plenty of money.
Today the power, the authority it is not only human being, even much less of human being, it is more like tools authorities use – a surveillance, a video surveillance, a mass media control, EI system devices. Unfortunately, when something happen often it is programmed or commissioned by higher authorities and some actions are not even connected to specific person, because no one is caught. Moreover, as it was experimented many times by valued psychologists that people are prone to adjust to situation, so when we are in power we are programmed to do required things or to use devices like a video surveillance. Are we aware enough of the paradox of the situation? Or maybe we live in modern Oceania and our world is a Big Brother?
Power And Authority In Orwell’s “1984”. (2021, Feb 18). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/power-and-authority-in-orwell-s-1984-essay
👋 Hi! I’m your smart assistant Amy!
Don’t know where to start? Type your requirements and I’ll connect you to an academic expert within 3 minutes.
get help with your assignment
