"Book-Film-Idea" Group Project: 1984

For my part in our group project, I decided to guide a discussion on 1984 in the world today. I was drawn to this topic after recalling an article I read a while back. The thrust of the article was that the condition of the average man is roughly the same as back in the European feudal era. Sadly, I was unable to locate the original article. I was, however, able to locate a book by Juliet Schor called The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure which dealt in the same topic and had concrete figures on the subject.

I was drawn to a few similarities between 1984 and the movie Office Space next. The main character, Peter Gibbons, is similar to Winston - he is unhappy with his life. Like Winston, Gibbons is trapped (I am reminded of the scene in which he is stuck in mind-numbing traffic, unable to escape: . Both finally achieve free time: to be happy, to experience life, to think. After thinking, both then plan to take action (which worked out better for Gibbons then for Winston).

What I will guide the class in specifically is a discussion on the effect of all this. Why does it matter how much time we spent at our jobs compared to what we used to spend? In my opinion, it matters because if we believe that things are getting better then we will not demand to work less. And when we work more, we think less and we don't act. Just remember election time - how many people do you know who didn't vote because they were tired, or were busy, or didn't have time to research the issues, or just plain forgot?

Who Watches the Watchmen? According to Foucault, We Do.

When we imagine a society in which we can be watched at any time, we throw a fit. Certainly such a state can only result in the complete loss of individual rights, in total fascism, in tyranny. This is certainly the case in Orwell's 1984 - the members of the party are rarely out of view of a telescreen, the screens are in their homes and at their work. They can be watched at any time without ever knowing if they are being watched or not, and those who doubt the Party at all are terrified of being caught in any tiny way by the screens.

In Foucault's work, though, he proposes that a watched society would be immune to tyranny, which I found to be an interesting concept. His reasoning is that because anyone can be the observer, they can know how things work: "any member of society will have the right to come and see with his own eyes how the schools, hospitals, factories, prisons function". The watched society is completely open and thus no one person or group is capable of controlling everything.

This openess is something that we have never experimented with, and is possibly why we cannot imagine a watched society without tyranny. In 1984, the idea that any member of the party is allowed to see "the big picture" is laughable. I wonder if this is something we SHOULD investigate. We are being watched already - employers install software allowing them to "spy" on employees' computer usage, parents can track their children's movements via cell phone. The idea of letting the reverse occur seems preposterous, but you never know until you try!

As a small end note, Foucault's idea of complete openness brings to mind "Watchmen". There is a question of "who watches the watchmen" - costumed heroes are running around being vigilantes without oversight, which the public throws a fit about. As a result, the government puts a stop to non-government sanctioned costumes and most of them retire rather then become part of an agency. The comic/movie never really resolves the big question that comes to mind, though. In the end, a costume acting unsupervised kills millions, in order to prevent a war. He was NOT being observed, and took it upon himself to decide the fate of the world. In this way, he is a tyrant. And yet he did arguable save the world from destroying itself, so was he really wrong? Should he have been observed, or did an individual acting alone end up doing the greater good? Would a the world of Foucault, where people can be watched at anytime (including the watchers) really work out for the best?