Blog #36- Enoch Chan-Period 2-5/13/20

Aim: How and why does Winston manage to resist the manipulative power of language and mob mentality?

Do Now: 

“Comrades” you have been selected for re-education by the Party. To begin, I want you to observe 3 citizens and write everything they do. Do not let them know you’re watching them! You have 5 minutes!

• observed our classmates observing others and looking at their screens as they write about each other
• People stared at their screens the entire time
• This was how Big Brother observed and manipulated others

Big Brother

• Biased and Unfair
• Influences and manipulates people’s responses with the rewards/punishments system.
• The use of Fabrication; manipulates people into saying what he wants to hear (places words into someone else’s mouth through false assumptions.
• Use of FEAR to force people to think a certain way.
• Manipulation of people to flatter/praise Big Brother

Imagine you’re the Mayor for NYC. Create “3” slogans/mottos for NYC, which you believe exemplify doublethink (contradictory/opposing statements). 5 minutes. 

• A rich city with rich people
• Poverty is wealth
• Stay at home and go to work

Class Discussion

• Winston fears the children because most of them snitch on their parents
• Society feels unsafe due to the security forced upon them by the government
• Their every action is monitored
• Most of the time authority is fabricating information and people are manipulated to believe it 

In today’s lesson we spied on our classmates to understand how people during this time were monitored and seen. Big Brother uses fear to keep society in place and controlled. In 1984, Big Brother was able to use manipulation to fabricate information and make his people believe what he wants them to believe. In this lesson I learned more about the environment and intensity that Winston faces in Oceania. 

During this quarantine, all students have been using remote learning to interact with their teachers and classmates. This is a very unfortunate situation we’re all experiencing, but we all have to adapt to stay safe. It is crazy to me how people are denying facts and disobey orders from the government. I believe that they are being reckless and inconsiderate by putting not just themselves in danger, but others too.