NSA and 1984

After reading 1984, I acquired a taste for dystopian literature. I got my hands on a copy of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley from the local library to satisfy my appetite. Once I finished both of these classics, I started to think about other dystopian novels I have read,  including Fahrenheit 451, The Giver, and The Hunger Games.  I would recommend all of these titles to those of you who dream of  danger, experimental science, government conspiracies, and, of course, frighteningly possible futuristic societies. 

Lately, the media has been creating a lot of buzz about the monitoring of phone calls by the NSA. When the story was first developing, reports claimed that only the times when calls were being placed and the duration of calls was being monitored, and if the NSA wanted content, they needed a court order. But now, rumor is that the NSA does not need authorization to listen to the content of calls. It has also surfaced that the NSA monitors emails, texts, and instant messages as well as phone calls.

Politics aside, this news has really interested me. A few weeks ago, I finally got around to reading George Orwell’s classic, 1984. The term “Big Brother” has certainly been thrown around a lot regarding the NSA. I couldn't help but laugh when I heard a reporter say that Big Brother and the government is watching us…I think she needs to reread Orwell’s dystopian novel to understand the redundancy of her statement.

But this brings me to my point. Like the reporter who didn't have a grasp on Orwell's novel, I also did not understand what 1984 was all about before reading it. I always thought it was a sci-fi novel about a futuristic society with a government that kept too close of a watch on its citizens. Now that I have read it, I’m not sure if this novel is science fiction after all. 

Forgive me for my lack of intellectual integrity, but Wikipedia defines science fiction as “a genre of fiction with imaginative but more or less plausible content such as settings in the future, futuristic science and technology, space travel, parallel universes, aliens, and paranormal abilities.”

The latter of this definition certainly does not describe 1984. There are no purple googly-eyed space aliens invading from Eurasia and Eastasia. Winston hasn't been bitten by a radioactive spider, and he doesn't have the ability to fly or make himself invisible. But the former part of this definition describes 1984. The world George Orwell created was imaginative, and for his time, futuristic. (1984 was published in 1949.) Although there isn't an abundance of cool tech gadgets that you would expect from a standard sci-fi novel, Orwell imagined a device called a telescreen. It is similar to a television, except there is always the potential that people are watching you from the other side.  

Although my argument is limited, I believe that 1984 is a science fiction as well as dystopian novel. If you look online, you can find compelling arguments for both sides. There are certainly people out there who don't believe that 1984 should be classified as sci-fi. This brings me to my closing thought.The fact that we have the ability to share different opinions online, whether if it’s about the genre of a book, our thoughts about presidential candidates, or how we feel about gun laws- makes me realize that we are still living in a society with the freedom to say just about whatever we want. Yes, maybe the government will look at it, but the difference between our society and the world of 1984 is that when we say something that the government doesn't like, we aren't punished for it. (Unless, of course, we threaten to kill the president). Winston and Julia did not have this freedom in the world that George Orwell imagined for them. So today, let’s be thankful for our freedom of speech, knowing that we can say almost whatever we want and not be punished for heretical opinions…at least, not yet.