The 9Bs
Noah F:
What is totalitarianism? Totalitarianism is a political system in which the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life whenever necessary. What does living in on feel like? I will show how 1984, Feed, Hitler, Stalin, and documents from WWI through WWII all use similar systems; totalitarianism. I've seen that in these documents and books there is not much self knowledge known, which ill be getting into no freedom, and believing is hopeless. These people don't know what's wrong from right.
Knowledge in a system like this is useless from what I've see. You think you know what's right when you actually don't. During Hitlers and Stalins era, as a child in school they are teaching you what they want. They were teaching how the outer countries hated them and they should hate them back. Also, if you follow them as leaders you will be victorious and happy. They made camps such as the concentration camp which was made to torture, follow the leader, and put you in shape incase they need you for the war. This is the same as 1984 in which they showed propaganda all over the place which was making you wonder if you should follow them. They even tried changing the language. In feed, they gave you the feed when you were little and this was to feed of your feelings since you were young and make you believe that the feed is all you need to rely on.
In a system like this you have no freedom at all, the dictator is very strict on the country. In Hitlers and Stalins time, there were secret police. These secret police invaded your public and private life, and if you didn't listen these were the people to take you in. They were on duty on 24/7 giving you no freedom in here. Conformity allowed no freedom at all. People hated Hitler and Stalin inside but in the outside they showed they loved him. They loved him because they were influenced by the people in their society. If everyone loves him, how are you suppose to act upon? Your not, this would be like at school, if everyone wears the same shoes, are you going to be the one who differs from everyone else? It takes a lot of bravery and courage to do a thing like this. This was like in 1984 also but, 1984 had a different a different twist to theirs. They had a thought police system and tele screens. Tele screens could see what you are doing and see what you feel. In 1984, big brother allowed no feelings in his party which was different from Feed, Hitlers, and Stalins party. This I think took totalitarianism to a whole new level. Having no feelings, your basically an alive zombie in a society like this. In feed they used the feed to take your feelings, which would then allow them to use it to make you buy their products. Buying their products would make you waste your money and with no money your done.
This has come to make me conclude is there a way to rebel in system like this? Is there even a way to start? With no knowledge and no freedom what are you suppose to do? I suppose people try to rebel in Hitlers and Stalins era but the question to ask is did they succeed? I don't think so, that's why they were still dictators at the time. These people were smart to control these people. You teach these people when they are children, the way you want things. As kids we believe anything anyone tells us, which makes us grow up to believe this, and makes us pass our knowledge to the next generation and so on so forth. I'm the middle of this, for top security these dictators added the secret police or spies to make sure no once could start rebelling. If you try to they take you in and your life is done. This has been proven in 1984 by Winston, they were onto him since the beginning of the book. When him and O'Brien exchanged looks. And you could say it has been proven by Hitler and Stalin because they probably caught these rebellious people. This is what it's like living a totalitarian system... An alive zombie.
Bobby:
In a totalitarian society the people suffer, while the totalitarian power puts a false mood on them to still get their support, while those that don’t go along with the mood are shot down.
In the book Feed most people have a chip in their head and are constantly monitored. The corporations can do almost anything they want since they are literally in the people’s heads. In the excerpt from Feed they specifically state how people don’t really care that they give up privacy and a lot of security to be able to use the feeds. People aren’t the only thing suffering though; the environment is ruined, since the ocean is so polluted that it isn’t even water anymore and nothing can live in it, and also the forests are gone entirely. The world is rotting away around them, including whats urban, like how the fake sky where violet lives at is peeling off, or how air is leaking from the hospital on the moon from the broken down room. All of these things are occurring, yet no one seems to notice how wrong it is. Violet and Titus looked at the leaking air and thought it was cool. Titus’ dad went whaling and got whales with plastic coating on them so they don’t die from the pollution, thinking of the whole thing as fun, not at all disturbing at how unnatural it is, but rather showing it to his family. People are even cutting down trees to make air factories, and when the last forests fell people looked back at it as good memories seeing animals in their yard, lost because their natural habitats had been destroyed. Another thing that’s out of place is the global issues, which seem pretty devastating, yet the only people that notice then are violet and her father. No one seems to care that their skin is falling off or why, but they are concerned about the latest trend. Another thing that I’ve noticed is how there’s some sort of dispute going on but you only get little bits, like people whipped out, and covered in some black substance. There’s all of these problems going on, the world and humanity with it rotting away, yet the corporations are able to put a positive spin on it that people get caught up in, like sales, and what’s the latest thing out. The people that don’t believe the corporations lies are looked at as weird and cast out away from other people, like violet, just because she was more intelligent than the average person. It’s not that the people are forced to obey this totalitarian power, its that they want to.
In the book 1984 no one has any freedom. Everything is decided for you and enforced. Any form of resistance, even a word against big brother, and the thought police will make you disappear and every one lives on poverty. In the excerpt from 1984 Winston talks about a man who disappeared after he had done some writing that wasn’t very supportive of big brother. How ever the Victory Party is very good with manipulation, so good that you can never tell what is real, false, or just not yet noticed. The book is from the perspective of a man who despises the totalitarian leader, and it looks like this is just a corrupt government running a country that’s completely destroyed from war. Later you find out that it is so much more, when you find out that the entire time they had been falling for the party’s trap. This proves how totalitarian powers can control everyone mentally, even the ones that think they’re rebelling. The party is even working on stoping people from even thinking of rebellion. They’re modifying the language to new speak, which doesn’t have words that let them express any feelings of anger towards the Party. If they don’t know how to tell others of their anti-totalitarian ideas then forming a revolution would be impossible. They have everyone under their power completely convinced that they are living in paradise and that big brother protects them all, except for a select few, such as Winston and Julia, who despise big brother. People like that are snatched up by the thought police, and tortured into submission until they fit the party’s description of a perfect slave of big brother.
In Hitlers Nazi Germany people worked, and they worked long and hard. There was no exception, because everyone had to work. Some how hitler was able to make work seem like a good thing by using it to drop unemployment, while rebuilding Germany and telling every one to look at what they’ve accomplished at the end of a work day. People were also kept in line with the constant flow of propaganda. It used hitler as an icon to look up to a lot of times. In the one Nazi propaganda document there is a map for kids with Germany’s small military surrounded by other countries and their large militaries telling kids to stand up for Germany. Hitler used the treaty of Versailles as a tool to gain power. The Germans hated how it left them crippled, so Hitler would blame it on the Jews, saying they signed it, and also criticizing it to get people agree with him and support him. Another document about Nazi propaganda would be the one with the woman and her baby, along with a peaceful country in the background telling people to fight for what’s in the picture, without actually telling people. The Gestapo were Hitlers secret police. They were the thought police of Nazi Germany, because just like in 1984, if anyone said anything against the totalitarian power they would disappear. Many went to concentration camps where they would be sent for their crimes, and often die there after living in poor conditions. Jews especially suffered since they were the most of the upper class, so hitler made them into a target to blame and take possessions from. To this day in Germany you are not allowed to deny the holocaust happened because of how gruesome it was, even though some people even today look up to Hitler. He might even be admired openly here in America if he hadn’t gone after the Jews and steeped on so many people. America even has its own Nazi party, but most sites on it are blocked on my iPad by the school, maybe because they don’t want any Nazi influence on us?
In Stalins Soviet Russia people must work and the five year plans set unreasonably high expectations are set. Kulaks were forced to work in poor conditions to their death, after loosing all they own. In the one document of ours we looked at a picture of Stalin with a boy, next to the same picture but without the boy. This document tells the viewer that Stalin gets rid of who ever he doesn’t like, such as the kulaks who because they refused to give up their farms were forced into working to death. Another, but very different, document that we went over was some Russian propaganda. It had Lenin standing heroically in front of a soviet Russian flag and the number 1917 behind him. This was meant to have people remember Lenin and how he helped bring in communism. Stalin used propaganda and enthusiasm towards work to keep people in line, while forcing work and punishment upon people who resisted or became threats, like the kulaks. Today Stalin is making a come back and is even becoming popular in Russia as a hero in history. Despite the massive deaths that he caused, people are looking at him as a role model for their leaders today.
What makes a totalitarian power really lethal isn’t its physical strength and power, but rather its manipulation of the people it rules over.
Noah S:
Individuals within a society have unique life experiences. This is regardless the type of government in existence around them. Furthermore, citizens instinctually fight, flight, or mate in order to survive. Totalitarian regimes are no exception. Those living with in a totalitarian regime experience fear, injustice, humiliation, torture, ridicule, acceptance, and some even find pleasure. History and fiction have shown the effects living under oppressive leaders.
Despite Stalin’s portrayal of himself as an equal to the people of Russia, he ruled over them as an absolute dictator with the power of life and death over his subjects. What is interesting about this is people believed him. The reason, Lenin had all these statues and posters that made him look like the strongest leader and best man for the job, but the fact is he was not as memorable as Stalin. Stalin used Lenin as a god it made it so that people could vie Lenin as their leader even though he has passed on, this make Stalin his legacy it make it look like Stalin was left to fulfill the rest of Lenin’s visions. This is in fact seen in Hitler’s Germany and 1984, and somewhat like in Feed. An individual in Stalin’s Russia was viewed as an equal to everyone around him so no one stood out. This was supposed to make a better society for the people because there was no competition to get in a higher position or stature. However, the reality was that Stalin was above everyone, like Hitler, like Big Brother. If you did show a desire to stand out, then you would be ether be humbled or eliminated, because getting too much power was a threat to Stalin’s. For example a man that was head of the Russian secret police, he even took a picture with Stalin was accused of treason and sentenced to death. Then as death was not enough of a punishment Stalin erased this man from history. He severed all his ties with the world, his friends and family was forced to forget that he existed, all of his work that he did was gone, his name was erased from history, even his image the picture that he took with Stalin was altered to look like he was never there. Later they found that this man was falsely accused and was torched to make it seem like he was guilty. It’s said that Stalin feared that this man would eventually commit treason because this man was in a high place. Stalin gave aid to this man to get where he was but then he ether got tired of him or he felt that this man would become a threat to him so he erased him. You are born into you job, if your dad was a farmer you will be a farmer, if your dad was an industrial laborer, you will be an industrial labor. This makes it so that people don’t have the inclination to get ahead. Only Stalin could change your job or give you a more important position in society. These are some of many experiences you faced as an individual in this society.
Living under totalitarian Rule requires people to keep their innermost thoughts to themselves. Most people do not realize how lucky they are. In this country we have the freedom of speech, we are aloud to say, think, and wright what ever we choose. Most people think nothing of this, but in communism, Nazism, Feed and 1984 this was unheard of. If you spoke out or said something that was not viewed right you would ether be taught a very harsh lesson or you would be killed. The reason that Winston in 1984 would always try to stay out of people’s way and not get noticed was because he knew the background on all the bad things that go on in his society. His job was to set propaganda into every day life. For example he would probably be the editor of the Nazi science texts books that was pumped with propaganda instead of science. There are so many ways that a government can test your loyalty; one is through some thing like this. When a little girl picks up this book and starts to read it she is learning how to survive in this society, she is not learning about biology, plants or animals. All the points in this textbook have nothing to do with a single person it hast to do with a whole. You do not matter the whole does. That is the purpose of propaganda. Winston knew that if he spoke out he would get now where very fast and he would be punished. He knew that he was only a single person; he also knew that a single person does not mater only the group. In the end of the book 1984 Winston gets consumed but the whole and has done nothing but cause suffering in his life.
In all but Feed, people are forced to live life with the fear of constantly having someone looking over their shoulder. However, in Feed, you have someone in your mind. You have no idea who is looking at you. People do not realized that their lives are not private any more. Any thing that you do, say or post on the Internet always will be there. Through out your life time there is a mobile profile that is made up of all the picture, videos, songs, words, or any thing technological that you have ever done or posted. Then that information is sold to marketers that can use that profile to sell you products. For example the poster “Halt the Hunt” was a poster that was directed at the men of America. This poster is a picture of a German soldier that is attempting to steel this poor and help less woman that appears to be holding a child but there is the strong looking American man that looks posed as all robust and he is stepping in to thwart the Germans attempt. This was a propaganda tool that lured men that could not actually fight in the war, make it feel like they were helping out.
The people in the society of Feed live life like there is no one watching, they are content with their lives, and do not have a drive to get ahead. This is the main difference with the other societies, where people suffered in their daily lives. Feed is the image of a successful totalitarian society. This is because they have total control over a person they have a monitor on everything that a person does as well as their population is contend with their lives. People do not need to put on a mask and act like they are happy because they already are. The struggle with Hitler, Stalin, and 1984 was that they did not have as much control over the person as Feed did. Also their was of enforcing control was very different. Feed’s way of control was through the “feed.” 1984, Stalin, and Hitler all used a large military force to enforce laws and make sure that there is no revolt. This is what makes Feed the most successful out of all the societies that were presented.
The mood of a society can have a profound influence on an individual’s view of their life. Also way a society feels about their leader will drive the entire populations’ work and social ethics. Finally, the way individuals feel about their leader determines how they accept or reject their own behavior. All these guidelines make it so that a society like Feed can function. In my mind some people could use ac society like this. They would have a happier life. This type of civilization has no room for people that are ideologist; there are no creative, compassionate or visionary people. The people that live like this are the type of people that stick to a constant routine and never change. Their would not be a lot of new inventions coming out you would probably eventually forget who you are and turn into the opposite of man, you would be a machine that runs on repetition.
IP:
When a person joins a totalitarian society, you are trapped for life. And when you are in a time of trial and tribulation, you need someone or something to turn to; to give you hope. Every society had some leader that gave the community hope; a reason to keep working. This is also displayed in the real world when people turn to a higher being such as God, Buddha, or Allah.
In 1984, the people seem to like living the lifestyle that has been dealt to them but for all we know, they could have been like Winton and be dying on the inside but be just one of the ants in a row, just marching and marching. We never saw the story from anyone elses point of view so for all we know there could have been other people that conspired and wrote down things about the society and the party in their journal but were too scared and intimidated to do anything about it. From the outside looking in, the party and big brother managed to get to the point where nobody resisted and even if they did, they were annihilated. However, they achieved it by fear unlike Feed, Hitler, and Stalin who used terms that were more discrete. In the darkest times, big brother stepped up with the party and became the one constant, the one thing that you could depend on to lead you. Big Brother took advantage because people were weak after all the bombing so they needed a leader to give them hope.
In Feed the feed is portrayed as a smart phone, an ipad, and a computer all in one. Its basically a toy that is a tool for the government. Whenever a person gets close to finding out there is something fishy going on, the feed goes to work. It puts up an ad or asks you to buy something because then you forget what you were thinking and the identity and protection of the government stayed. The society is physically unharmed and for the most part mentally unharmed because they don’t know they are in a totalitarianistic system. In Feed it was different, there was no crisis that made the people run into the leaders arms but they do depend on the Feed like its a critical body part. And in their mind it is a part of them because they can't live without them. The feed symbolizes a leader in any other totalitarian society. The feed controls them and tells them what to do just like a leader such as Hitler or Stalin would because the government was smart enough make a device that seems like a toy, but actually acts like a sort of dictator to the people but in an easier light.
Hitler told people all the good things he would do and he gave his community hope. He gave them hope that his policies would help them and bring them to the top. After the great depression, people were down on their luck and they needed something to root for. Hitler rallied them and he found them a common enemy- the jewish. He had them on lock; they would do anything that he asked because in their eyes he was their hero. They were totally controlled but without hurting them and without instilling fear in them. He just simply tricked them. He used propaganda and fooled them. He used posters such as the ideal german woman- blonde hair, blue eyes, ect. He also trained them without them knowing. HE sent kids to “fun camps” which were actually german bootcamps. He was a genius in the sense that he controlled people without hurting them. I think he could have been the greatest leader and mastermind in the history of the world if he didnt kill all those people. He got elected by the German public because he would be the light. He promised that the poor would become the rich and the Great Depression that they were in because of the war would be no more. He was able to make the people who were down on their luck and who were poor because they needed some hope. He wasn't able to sway the richer people, the people in the government didn't want him in office because they were smarter and weren't in an emotional state like the general public.
Stalin used propaganda to empower himself in the minds of the russian people. He used propaganda, he used statues, he showed that if an average joe works hard; he can become great. He brainwashed children with cartoons that made everyone except russia a bad guy. He changed history similar to the party in 1984. He made people love him in the way that he was great. He was a superman and he was the leader. He displayed that if you work hard, anyone can become great. This made people follow him and believe in him because he seemed so much higher. People looking back on stalin love him in the 21 century but I also personally know a guy from russia that hates stalin and is his own words, “stalin bad”. So he got mixed results but i think the people that loved him outwiegh those who disliked him. I think people looked up to him because he made statues to embody the superman persona and he seemed like a god. Or as high as you can be without being a god and being just a mortal human being. And he gave the people hope because the mining story said that any average joe could become a wealthy man. So the people gave him power because they believed that they would benefit from it in the long run.
People in trying times need something to look forward to. I read somewhere that people who were affected by hurricane Katrina turned to god because they had nothing; no house, no food, no electricity and they hit rock bottom. They prayed to god because they needed hope or else there was nothing to fight for; nothing to live for. That's what a smart totalitarianistic leader takes advantage of. They take people and make them dependent on someone or something so you are clay in their hands.
Fenton:
One major experience that people have in a totalitarian society is their communication is controlled by the leader and it changes people’s natural disposition and behavior.(4) They do not get to see normal newspapers, news, or television. This concept can be illustrated in 1984 when the characters are monitored so closely it causes them to betray one another. The computer feed also controls the thoughts and actions of the characters in Feed. More importantly, history showed us in Nazi Germany that a totalitarian society can cause people to passively accept a horrible situation and change their behavior and beliefs as a survival tactic.(3)
The books Feed and 1984 illustrate how communication that is controlled by a leader can affect people’s behavior. In the book Feed, the feed constantly bombards the characters thoughts and brains with information. When the characters feed turns off, they don’t remember how to think on their own or plan their days. They feel lost. Also, in 1984 communication is manipulated by the Party. The truth is manipulated by Winston at the Ministry of Truth. People don’t even know what the truth is. Also, the characters are constantly monitored by the tele screen, secret microphones, and mandatory announcements. Even Syme and his Newspeak dictionary are changing the old language to control communication.
Communication has also been used in history to control people and influence how they think. (3) People were poor in Germany and there was food rationing in 1943. Hitler used propaganda to fool the people in Germany into believing that he was a good leader. There were posters showing happy people behind Hitler and the message was clear that he was the leader that would change things for the better. People thought Hitler would take them to “World Domination” and the propaganda kept their morale high even when times were terrible. (3)
The effects on people can be drastic when their thoughts and information are controlled by another person or party. The books 1984 and Feed showed how people that had their communication channels controlled by others became lonely, out for themselves, and not team players. For example, in 1984 Parson’s children turned him into the thought police and did not care what happened to their own father as a result. The children were loyal to their party not their family. They learned what they were taught.
Furthermore, in Feed, Titus knew the feed controlled him but said “There is no good getting angry about it because they’re still going to control everything whether you like it or not.” Also, the characters were suspicious and not accepting of Violet because her thoughts were different than theirs and they were threatened by this.
History has also shown us that peoples’ behavior can by changed by living in a totalitarian society. In the times of Hitler’s rule, nice and normal people betrayed their neighbors to support Hitler. They believed his propaganda. Young men were attracted by Hitler’s power and the bold uniforms with emblems. They wanted to belong to this strong and powerful group. (5) Sadly, even those that did not agree or believe in what Hitler stood for accepted his anti-Jewish policies. They were not able to stop Hitler’s Party from killing over six million Jewish people. (2)
We are at an interesting point in our society. Technology and the way we communicate information are changing quickly. Our country needs to think about how we respond to these changes. For example, remote control robots let people be in two places at one time; drone gliders can float around for weeks at a time and collect information. Technology is exciting but we as a country need to pay attention to history and not let technology get out of control and invade our privacy. The horrible tragedies that happened under Hitler’s control can be avoided and it should be a top priority.
Resources:
1. Bennett, Paul. War The World Reacts. New York: Belitha Press, 2002. Print.
2. Shuter, Jane. Auschwitz. Chicago: Reed Educational, 2001. Print.
3. Adams, Simon. World War II. New York: DK Limited, 2000. Print.
4. Ward, Dan Sewell. Totalitarianism. Web. http: www.halexandria.org/dward885.htm.
5. Anflick, Charles. Resistance Tenn partisians and Resisters Who Fought Nazi Tyranny. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group,1999. Print.
Fansler:
Totalitarianism is a form of government dictated by a group or one person. What are the experiences of living in a totalitarian society? What are the effects on people? Well in this document I am going to talk about four different societies based off of totalitarianism. The first one is the book 1984. The book is about a society controlled by a man named Big Brother. In this novel it reflects around a man named Winston who is against the government and Big Brother. Second, there is the book the feed. In the feed there is a chip implanted in to every humans brain. Giving the people another brain or Internet. Which is controlled by the government of the society. Third, Stalin of the Soviet Union. He is the dictator of Russia through World War II. There to create a strong independent society. The last is Hitler of Germany. He as we all know was considered the most evil man to ever live the past generation. The affect on individuals is that they live a two face life, that outside they follow the rules and like the leader, but on the inside they are hating and crushed.
In 1984, Winston does not agree with Big Brother’s rules. With Winston his feeling toward Big Brother is fear as well which applies to everyone else in the society. He knows of secret police in the society that watch anyone that goes against Big Brother. If found opposing against him the person will be executed. Outside Winston acts normal but hidden he is very secretive. He chooses to look in to the history of the past deaths of lawbreakers. Winston is very curios he shows this by looking up the past of executed so called “Traitors.” He finds out that the people were innocent but the government portrayed them as traitors. They were portrayed as traitors because, they did the number one thing not to do, go against Big Brother. With Violet she hates the feed. She believed it was a way of mind control the government used to influence people to follow what they believed is the right thing to do. The feed had helped you with knowledge and choices. It was like a second brain. But there are some people who relay on the feed to help them. They enjoy it, seeing it as a helper. With Stalin and Hitler they were considered evil dictators through out their countries. The reason for that is what they had done. Their goal was to create the strongest most independent countries the world had ever seen, but with that came choices. They chose to create massacres. With Stalin he was responsible for over 15 million deaths from famine for peasants and workers of Germany. With Hitler he was responsible for the Holocaust. The death of over 11 million Jews. With feeling came lying. But there are some people that think Stalin is a saint. Some people think he is one the greatest leader because, Stalin made Russia a very strong industrial based economy.
If you show your feelings there will be consequences so you must act a certain way, which comes false feelings. In 1984 everyone outside of their home acts happy they obey the rules no hanging out, no sex, and above all obey Big Brother. But on the inside everyone hates him. This is the same with Hitler and Stalin everybody dislikes them on the inside but treats them like gods on the outside. They do this because of the consequences of showing their true feelings toward the dictators. The consequence is death. This had happened to allies of Stalin. He had killed the Russian leader Trotsky. Because, he opposed him. The way Stalin had killed the people were he had them shot in the back of the head. He had done this to all of his allies. This way he had gained full power. In the feed, the fake mood was done by Violet. Her plan was to show interest in a bunch of random products, to prevent the corporations from developing a new profile.
With every citizen having “illegal” feelings they must know how to hide it. In 1984 Winston does not show his feelings, but does not want to lose them. The way he does not lose himself is writing. Winston writes in his private journal reflection on his emotions, thoughts, and anger on Big Brother. With Julia (Winston’s girlfriend) she hides her feelings toward the societies by being secretive. She doesn’t talk, which is very key because no one will ever know what she does. She enjoys to have sex which is illegal. As I said earlier Violet goes against the feed by creating a fake feed but it also hides herself. The government can’t control or know what she does and thinks. With Stalin and Hitler no one really had opposed them. The only people that opposed them were politicians and leaders of Germany and the soviet. People such as: Lenin, Stokovach, Trotsky. They did not think Stalin and Hitler were good leaders(showed their feelings toward them). So they had opposed which had gotten them killed.
With all these emotions that the people live with they have to learn to accept it. Firstly Winston finally learned to accept his false emotions toward Big Brother by joining him. To survive in the society you must be with Big Brother which is what he had closed to do. With Titus he learns to accept his agreement toward the feed. After seeing Violet passing away from denying the feed. He had realized he must accept his life of living with the feed. Although the people of Germany and Russia hated Hitler and Stalin they had learned to accept their emotions and the way it is. With Hitler he had given them jobs. With Stalin he too wanted to create an independent economy but based off of the industrial system. Both of them used propaganda to get to the people. Showing examples of a correct Russian or German citizen. Also they gave the people hope. They With Hitler he had used the Volkswagon as an example that if a citizen gets a job they can one day get it. Also that they had learned by denying the leaders they will end up dead. But, now and back then there were some people that accepted the society, saw Hitler and Stalin as heroes. That they had saved their countries in a time where the Russia and Germany were very weak.
In conclusion the people of totalitarian societies live a two faced life. First they have their true negative feelings towards their leaders. Second they people have their false positive feelings toward their leaders. Third they have to learn how to descent the true emotions from the leaders. Lastly is they have to learn to accept what feelings they have and how they have to live with them. All of these four topics all connect to one a way a totalitarian citizen lives, with a two faced life. I believe that there is no escape from the totalitarian system. Because, if you go against or escape the system you will end up dead.
Malia:
When people live in Totalitarian societies, a lot of people become unaware of whats around them and whats happening to the society. Some people may experience weird feelings, harm,or even death. In Feed the people were getting brainwashed, because they thought that Feed was something you HAD to live with. They also experienced a lot of death from the Feed and even lesions that led to death. In 1984 people were dying from the Oceania. People in Feed were getting tortured and brainwashed too. Hitler and Stalin used propaganda to make people think that they were really good guys, that made people not think that they were actually pretty bad. Stalin and Hitler killed people too. All of these societies were pretty bad to live in.
In these societies there was a lot of physical and mental pain. In all societies the people were at least tortured in one way. In 1984 if you didn’t listen to what the government said or you didn’t listen to Big Brother, or if your you didn’t like him you would be tortured, then killed you. In Feed you had to indure the pain of bad lesions, which are really bad infected, and diseased patches of your skin. In Feed everybody wanted a lesion because they thought it was cool. Other than the lesions, people die from unknown things. In Russia there was a extreme death and poverty situation, that led to death.
Beside the physical pain everybody went through and some struggles the society went through, there was a lot of people being brainwashed. I think that mental pain is worse than physical pain. Physical pain just comes and goes, but mental pain leaves a long lasting memory in your brain. In 1984 almost everybody was brainwashed to think that Big Brother was the mighty powerful God, and everybody HAD to listen to him. iN 1984 there was something called hate which, and there would be posters that were in support of Big Brother. They had a thought police which controlled your thoughts in the chips that were implanted in your brain. There was a ministry of love which helped with your love life and there was telescreens. If you didn’t like Big Brother they would torture you and brainwash you until you were dead. In Feed no one was forced to like one person. In Feed they would show off the feed as much as they could, they wanted it to be something cool. Almost everyone in the society had a Feed, once you got it you could not get rid of it. The Government would put ads in the Feed based on your feelings and emotions. I think that everybody wanted one because you would have everything you need on your fingertips. In Russia Stalin used propaganda to make people like him, he would also use kids cartoons so little kids would grow up to love Stalin. In Germany Hitler also used propaganda to love him, and he made people dislike jews and communists.
In these societies they have a lot of things in common, besides that they were horrible societies to live in pretty much everybody who lived there grew up to have everybody’s back and take care of them. In all of the societies most people had died, or experienced bad things such as brainwash and really bad lesions. Some people were even tortured, and that led to death. Another thing they have in common is that they all had a leader, and they all had to love the leader, if not you were dead. In 1984 Big Brother gained ultimate power. In Feed they they people gained a lot of money from people buying things from there ads. In Russia and Germany they gained peoples trust and money. All everybody wanted was power, in the end they all got that. They just needed to hold on to it.
In conclusion I would not want to live in neither of these societies because of what I have been reading and researching about. Even though I might have wanted Feed implanted in my brain, that was not even cool either, because you would get brain washed to think that everything was so cool, or to buy things from ads. But in the end none of it wad cool.
Bradley:
The nature of how a totalitarianism regime can be run, can only waver so much, but there are different ways of running a totalitarianism regime. Unlike Hanna Arendt’s idea which was that the point of a totalitarianism regime was to control every aspect of a persons life. There is one thing that is wrong, and that is that she was basing her ideas off real world experiences of attempted totalitarian ruled government. There is one problem with this, and that is there has never been any real totalitarian attempts, just bad leaders of differing government. This is why I disagree with Hanna Arendt because there is another ways of ruling a totalitarianism regime.
Broke was the term that Titus used to describe what happened to violet when she fainted. This was used to stop her from speaking out against the feed and this worked in more then just stoping her. When this happened this also stopped Titus and freaked out the rest of the people at the party. This is called a scare tactic and this was also used in 1984 and in Stalin’s Russia. Stalin used this tactic during the purges where he locked and worked people before they killed them and this was a scare tactic because they would kill people for almost nothing like, throwing bread at an officer. This would of course ensure full conformity to the party because no body wants this happening to them. This is a main part of totalitarianism because it is torture and that is how most totalitarianisms keep there power. In feed there is not so much torture because they are so good at keeping their people blind but if they still do not torture as heavily as 1984 where they kill people in public because they can do it more efficiently.
Leaders in most totalitarianisms are terrible people that torture to keep there power. leaders of totalitarianisms are labeled as terrible,maniacal people that for some reason people relate to communism, like Kim Jong Un and Stalin. That is one thing about totalitarianism is that it can spawn from any type of government like in feed where it came from the US style capitalism or hitters government that absolutely hated communism. All these leaders had different ideology’s and that does change how you run your totalitarianism like with feed they were a capitalism so the big businesses were the people controlling the feed and making a profit off it. but with russia they were a communism so they came up wit the five year plan which every body loved because they were very industrious. The leaders them selves were very similar they were all power hunger even in feed because big business is alway trying to get bigger and they will do it in any way possible. Hitler and Stalin also were like each other even if they did not agree with each others ideology like in the comic about how long the honey moon would last.
Propaganda played a big role in the success of these leaders and there parties because they were not the most likable people. Most of the propaganda that the leaders used was to promote them and to get people to think of them as a hero. This idea was captured perfectly in Stalin’s poster where he is depicted in a heroic stance. Propaganda is a powerful tool and can be used for more then just make your self look good it can be used to control thought like in feed where they sent you propaganda all the time. In feed it was not the traditional propaganda they sent you, they sent you ads. Now this may not seem like propaganda but, the people running the party is big business so by making them by stuff they are helping them selves by tricking you, which is the definition of propaganda. Propaganda is a vital role in totalitarianism because of it’s violent nature. It has been used to get people to go to war, like german poster where every body is pointing there guns at them. This was used to show that they are alone and surrounded and that brings every one together. This method is so effective that none totalitarianism regimes use this, like the US and the halt the huns poster. propaganda the simplest thing and the most necessary thing can even be done differently.
Hanna Arendt had the right idea for her time and for her experiences, but she drew too big of a conclusion. Not all totalitarianisms have to kill every body and torture them to still have complete control. They don’t even need full control to remain in power. Hanna Arendt simply did not think about how a totalitarianism could be run she just based it off real world experiences.
Coltrane:
“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.” -Cornelius Tacitus (55 -117 A.D.)
Fear is the glue that annexes a totalitarian society; be it communist or fascist, the synonymous president reigns true that the implicit nature of the society is, “a boot stamping on a human face-forever.” From birth, you are immersed in an endless sea of nationalism, praise for the regime, praise, for the leader, praise for the whip. The surrounding propaganda would change your thoughts and mold u into the twisted image of the party. Life as the citizens of such a society would be unimaginable and unbearable by our standards, but really, would it really seem evil if you were confronted by it on a daily basis?
1984 contained a message which exhorted a totalitarian society by giving us ironically, an example of the epitome of control. With constant themes like big brother and trust no one, it gives us a very acute snapshot into what life in a totalitarian regime would be similar to. The citizens of 1984 seem to be completely brainwashed and numb to the evils around them, and fervently worship the party. They are also lied to and made to believe that their quality of life is far superior to what they currently have so that their morale and love for the totalitarianism is only let to grow. Could it be, that the comfort that these lies bring, could eventually persuade someone that their life, a life like that, is paradise?
Because of the Newspeak in 1984, and people being idiots, obsessed with the feed in Feed, it seems that an underlying factor in any totalitarian society is language. Newspeak essentially tried to debase the language to such an extent that eventually any thoughts of rebellion would be impossible because there would be no words to express that and without the words for it, it didn’t exist. Feed also preys of this moral by making humans seemingly regress in their ability to utilize words and giving them the opportunity to just search it in the Feed and avoid actually learning new words. This, though seemingly innocuous, has to power to plunge the basic intelligence of humans to a near primal state and be kept on the top by the feeds, now only serving as a crutch.
Adolf Hitler led one of the most successful totalitarian regimes in history, oppressive and absolute, individual liberties were abolished and only propaganda supporting the Nazi power remained. Some of the citizens of Nazi Germany were considered “Arians” or the master race; others were smashed into the ground and persecuted. As Adolf Hitler did this, he was perhaps unwittingly, creating an essential precedent essential in all totalitarian societies-classes. In 1984, the classes were inner party, outer party and proles. Each class tended to keep apart from each other and in doing so, created a sort of tension between them, making it impossible for them to band together and revolt. In Feed, people had varying incomes, therefore making varying social classes; in a society where having the “new” meant everything, more money meant more social cred- and that, in a hedonistic society, is all that matters. Because of the social structure, citizens living in a totalitarian state are virtually alone; friends aren’t real, family can’t be trusted, the only love you can have is with the party. Everything, including your humanity, is secondary.
The regime lead by Stalin was perpetuated not only by his ruthless decisions, but also by his propaganda which he used to sugarcoat and avert the transgressions of his choices. Many hymns were written for Stalin singing of his bravery and dedication to his shared country; about his love for all citizens and his belief in communism. Shows targeting children were produced, preaching of the goodness of Stalin as well as the evils of the rest of the world. These children would later grow into the next devoted generation to Stalin and Russia. The youth were easily cajoled and Stalin was perpetuated eternally.
Feed presented a culture adsorbed in their need to buy. Created by the corporations and used to make people want to buy, the Feeds had an internal mode of control which tended to be much more intimate as well as subconscious. This was used to bombard the inhabitants with advertising and shade their eyes from the harsh environment they existed in. After a while, people were indifferent to global problems and steadily becoming more inarticulate. This is an example of how a society with problems can sometimes blind people so they can’t see the truth, even when it lies right beneath their noses.
In the eternal struggle for control, societies will rise and fall, people will perish and humanity will learn; the only way to avert a crisis would be to not allow any societies of a totalitarian or oppressive nature. To exist in these aforementioned coalitions, would be inhuman and would oppress an individual’s humanity. On the flip side, joy is in the mind, happiness is arbitrary without variation-should it be that in a society that accentuates fulfillment, you would be believed to be unhappy? In conclusion, I present this quote: “You can never truly appreciate the sunshine if it never rains”
Bryson:
Lets take a moment. Close your eyes and picture this; picture a society that is on the brink of whipping out its’ entire population, just because they allow themselves to be taken over by the worst people/peoples that are leading them to the path of failure. Imagine a society where millions of people are dying from hunger and famine. Imagine a society that allows their leader to do this to them because if not they are killed or even more- erased. Imagine a society where the Rulers are so selfish they allow all these things to happen. Imagine a society where people know these things are happening, but they just allow it to because they are to scared to look at the big picture. Are you ready for this? This has already happened. It has happened in Hitler and Stalin’s regimes, while also occurring in two stories that were written to warn us about the dangers of a totalitarian regime; Feed and 1984.
With newspeak, the secret police, brainwashing, and the constant fear people have in 1984, it gives us a prime example of what life would be like in a totalitarian society. 1984’s government was so oppressive; they wanted to change the language so that there was no rebellious words left and there could be no rebels. Syme was one of the people working on Newspeak. Winston knew that his intelligence exceeded the normal 1984’s citizens, so he would be eventually erased. That’s how hectic it got in that Totalitarian society. You can’t be smarter than the government or you get killed, but if you’re to dumb to know how to follow the rules you’re dead. The only thing you can do without getting killed would be allowing them to control you and you have to abide by it. Everyday people have to live off Gin and “food.” They don’t have enough food to support their population, so citizens are starving. Even when people are starving they don’t see what’s going on in the obviously corrupted society. To top all of this off people aren’t even allowed any privacy. They are always being watched and that leads to the feeling of never being safe. 1984 was not a place I would like to life in and I can honestly say I will do whatever it takes to not be like this place.
Feed was based off 1984 so the message was the same about warning us about a Totalitarian society. However, that is not the goal of this paper. The goal is to explain the experiences they had in the society. For Feed it was a lot harder to understand how life was with the Feed because with the Feed, people really couldn’t think for themselves. They had most of their decisions chose for them because the Feed takes over all parts of the brain. This was probably one of the worse Totalitarian societies out of the four. The reason I say that is because people are willing to give their kids the Feed and they see the environment deteriorating, but they think of it as beautiful. The lesions were the biggest thing. The environment itself was rotting away and it was causing people to grow lesions. Since all the celebrities were getting them, it was the pop-culture and everyone wanted them. They thought they were “Cool” and “Hip” when it was just another sign life in the Totalitarian society was terrible. The fact that people see the problems as beautiful or awesome scares me. When I read this story I can’t help, but think “WHY CAN”T YOU SEE WHATS WRONG!?” but that’s the entire point to this story. It was to make us open our eyes that if we continue on the path we are on today we will end up in a helpless society like feed. Something I DO NOT want.
In Feed and 1984, someone was running the operations, that someone would be a man named Stalin. Stalin was the communist ruler of Russia shortly after Lenin’s passing. In my opinion I think Stalin started off making good changes to Russia. He managed to give everybody jobs, fix the starvation period, and improve their military. Eventually things got to good, and a middle class emerged. Stalin didn’t like this, so he killed a lot of them. Stalin was a man of great genius, but got selfish and made a lot of people hate him. Just because he got mad, it led him to kill millions. Imagine living in that constant fear of being shot in the back of the head. Stalin’s fascist approach on a communist society made it a little more bearable to live in, but after he went crazy it was like any other Totalitarian society. That’s the message I get from Stalin’s regime; every Totalitarian society ends the same-failure.
Hitler, a man of great success, probably one of the most well known dictators in the world. He; like stalin, managed to change a very messed up economy and change it for the better. Hitler did not like the Fascist approach Stalin did, but he did admire how he came into power. Life in Germany was a lot similar to feed. Everyone seemed happy, but everything around them was getting more corrupted by the second. If they didn’t go along with what everyone else was doing, they would know, and they would take care of them. Life was okay until Hitler turned corrupted and wanted everything to be how he wanted. Just like all the leaders in all four documents, they all end in disaster, and there is no way it could get any better.
Kris K:
All totalitarian regimes degrade the society they rule but also the people themselves. Totalitarian regimes come into existence because the leader wants total power over the country and its people. Because the leader doesn’t care about the people except for purposes of resourcing it is obvious why the living conditions of the societies are horrible or not as good as they should be, while mentally taking a toll on the citizens themselves.
In all of the totalitarian regimes I have studied I have found one thing in common,
that is malnourishment. In 1984, Russia, and Germany the great majority of the resources produced were used to manufacture war entities and industrialize the country or move industrialization along. Because the resources were used for industrialization there was little left for the poor people (majority) to have. In Germany food might have been scarcer but most everyone ate, in 1984 it seemed to be there was a lot less food because winston and everyone was skinny and kind of bony. in 1984 there were more substances like gin and tobacco handed out to numb everyone. Russia had the biggest toll on its population which was caused 15 million people to die from famine while being worked to death on a farm or in a factory. In Feed the people were malnourished in a very different way, by the actual feed itself. The feed was responsible for the glowing lesions that appeared on people bodies at random.
All totalitarian leaders got into power by purging the opposition, and they continued to reign superior power by purging any sort of threats whatsoever to the parties power. Because totalitarian regimes operate by oppression of the people, regularly asserting their power in the form of purges kept citizens scared and cooperative which was crucial to the continued rule of the party. Purges were supposed to only be used on traitors and criminals and enemies of the party, but because the party had to stay paranoid to be completely safe, many, or most of the purges carried out where on innocent people. The regime had total power so they did not have to present a verified cause to purge you, they just did it if they thought you were a threat to them somehow. Purges in Germany, Russia, and 1984 were conducted by the parties secret police. At night the secret police would come and grab you from your home or wherever your residence was and they would take you to your imminent death of either a bullet to the head, years of slave labor for the regime, or imprisonment. In feed though, purges were conducted in a totally different manner. In Feed the corporations poisoned violet by poisoning the feed chip in her brain. Her body would start to malfunction with only minor malfunctions but after a few weeks it got extremely bad, they she became paralyzed, then she died.
Propaganda was one of the main things all totalitarian regimes used to promote their power and motivate the citizens. Propaganda was generally in poster or movie form, containing a very simple but obvious message that the normal citizen could understand, even if they were just an illiterate farmer. Propaganda was also posted everywhere to constantly drive people toward the parties cause. Some types of propaganda is propaganda promotes the regime, propaganda that makes the average person look heroic, propaganda that encourages donations to the regime, propaganda that tells you work harder. In all situations propaganda was everywhere. In 1984, Germany, and Russia propaganda was displayed mostly in poster and cinemas or said by speakers, but it was also incorporated more slyly into things list 5th graders textbooks. It wasn’t obvious propaganda, but it was definitely there. In feed the advertisements was the propaganda and it was more effective I think because you could not turn it off so you are forced to listen to it.
All of the totalitarian regimes I studied used the same techniques to keep control and those techniques made living day to day life miserable for the citizens in its power. Totalitarian regimes care only about the well-being of the leaders and heads of power, and the citizens are merely the way to produce and make profit , while controling them with their power, so it makes sense why people who live in a totalitarian society are miserable.
Josh N:
What are the experiences of living in a totalitarian society and what are the affects on them? I think that it is very harsh to live in a totalitarian society and that people die easier.
Some examples of that are that no individual has will or any sort of individuality. The reason I say this is because if you look at any example from any totalitarian society every one thinks alike and every one is he same, just like the person next to them. For one if you look at the excerpt from 1984 when Winston is writing that is against the law because he had a will and had some individuality so what they do with people like that is they torture and brain wash them and after that they do not have their own will, their will is Big Brother's will.
Another thing is that they remove and make people disappear if they can not do anything to them and they brain wash them. What this means is that they will be eliminated if they are a drag or not doing enough and they believe that it is true. If you look at ants and bees they all work for the whole, which is the queen bee. Then below here there are different types off bees and they all do different things. Although the point of this is that this is a true example of what I stated above because with either insect species they will both sacrifice themselves if they are not doing everything that they are supposed to.
What you always see in a totalitarian society is a lot of surveillance and they use a lot of propaganda. One really good example is feed. The reason that I picked feed is because in one piece of machinery it represents both. What the feed is, a super high tech computer chip that is implanted into head. What is does is sells people things, and it puts adds through their heads. People also use it to chat with others. So what that allows the corporations in charge is to watch everything that people are doing and it creates a profile for you depending on what you purchase and those are the types of adds that they play for people. There are also a lot of propaganda posters that go around, for example two that relate are the poster with Stalin and Russian flag in the back and the one that is trying to sell U.S government bonds. The way that they relate is because they both show people with a lot of power. In the one with Stalin what I think it means is that he is above everything the reason for that is because the flag is n behind him and his stance. In the poster for the U.S I think it is showing hat the U.S government is very powerful and they will protect women and children but the enemy will attack them and the soldiers need money for that.
What will also happen to people in a society is that they die very easily and also the government will kill them. One example is in feed, when violet was on her deaths bed the feed crippled her. Then she was trapped inside her body and couldn't move at all. Another example is the video about when Stalin purges. How I relate this to Violet is that what Stalin did to those people was torture by making hem work then killing them. In my. Mind I think that what happened to Violet might not have been torture like some other tortures but it pretty much killed her except that she is still alive and she can't move for the rest of her life.
One other thing is with Hitler, when he humiliated the Jewish communities in Germany, so much that it made people hate them and hate their ways of doing thing and living. Then he committed a mass genocide of them all and took all of their belongings and money. How this relates to totalitarian areas is like in 1984, how they took Winston and tortured him after he rebelled and after that he filmed a bit and it talked about how much he loved big brother.
So in conclusion after looking at all of this information I think that I still agree with my thesis statement in the first paragraph. I agree with it because if you look at 1984, feed, and documents that we read you will see that in some of the totalitarian societies people are basicity slaves. Like in 1984 everyone where pretty much slaves for big brother because they had their day planned out for them and they only have a certain ration of food and every thing else, that they are allowed. In Stalin's Russia everyone where slaves and did what they needed to do. In all of the places there where at least some people who where slaves. With that I think it just proves my point of that is really harsh and it is really tenable to live in a totalitarian society and that they are willing to kill people to get what they want or need.
What is totalitarianism? Totalitarianism is a political system in which the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life whenever necessary. What does living in on feel like? I will show how 1984, Feed, Hitler, Stalin, and documents from WWI through WWII all use similar systems; totalitarianism. I've seen that in these documents and books there is not much self knowledge known, which ill be getting into no freedom, and believing is hopeless. These people don't know what's wrong from right.
Knowledge in a system like this is useless from what I've see. You think you know what's right when you actually don't. During Hitlers and Stalins era, as a child in school they are teaching you what they want. They were teaching how the outer countries hated them and they should hate them back. Also, if you follow them as leaders you will be victorious and happy. They made camps such as the concentration camp which was made to torture, follow the leader, and put you in shape incase they need you for the war. This is the same as 1984 in which they showed propaganda all over the place which was making you wonder if you should follow them. They even tried changing the language. In feed, they gave you the feed when you were little and this was to feed of your feelings since you were young and make you believe that the feed is all you need to rely on.
In a system like this you have no freedom at all, the dictator is very strict on the country. In Hitlers and Stalins time, there were secret police. These secret police invaded your public and private life, and if you didn't listen these were the people to take you in. They were on duty on 24/7 giving you no freedom in here. Conformity allowed no freedom at all. People hated Hitler and Stalin inside but in the outside they showed they loved him. They loved him because they were influenced by the people in their society. If everyone loves him, how are you suppose to act upon? Your not, this would be like at school, if everyone wears the same shoes, are you going to be the one who differs from everyone else? It takes a lot of bravery and courage to do a thing like this. This was like in 1984 also but, 1984 had a different a different twist to theirs. They had a thought police system and tele screens. Tele screens could see what you are doing and see what you feel. In 1984, big brother allowed no feelings in his party which was different from Feed, Hitlers, and Stalins party. This I think took totalitarianism to a whole new level. Having no feelings, your basically an alive zombie in a society like this. In feed they used the feed to take your feelings, which would then allow them to use it to make you buy their products. Buying their products would make you waste your money and with no money your done.
This has come to make me conclude is there a way to rebel in system like this? Is there even a way to start? With no knowledge and no freedom what are you suppose to do? I suppose people try to rebel in Hitlers and Stalins era but the question to ask is did they succeed? I don't think so, that's why they were still dictators at the time. These people were smart to control these people. You teach these people when they are children, the way you want things. As kids we believe anything anyone tells us, which makes us grow up to believe this, and makes us pass our knowledge to the next generation and so on so forth. I'm the middle of this, for top security these dictators added the secret police or spies to make sure no once could start rebelling. If you try to they take you in and your life is done. This has been proven in 1984 by Winston, they were onto him since the beginning of the book. When him and O'Brien exchanged looks. And you could say it has been proven by Hitler and Stalin because they probably caught these rebellious people. This is what it's like living a totalitarian system... An alive zombie.
Bobby:
In a totalitarian society the people suffer, while the totalitarian power puts a false mood on them to still get their support, while those that don’t go along with the mood are shot down.
In the book Feed most people have a chip in their head and are constantly monitored. The corporations can do almost anything they want since they are literally in the people’s heads. In the excerpt from Feed they specifically state how people don’t really care that they give up privacy and a lot of security to be able to use the feeds. People aren’t the only thing suffering though; the environment is ruined, since the ocean is so polluted that it isn’t even water anymore and nothing can live in it, and also the forests are gone entirely. The world is rotting away around them, including whats urban, like how the fake sky where violet lives at is peeling off, or how air is leaking from the hospital on the moon from the broken down room. All of these things are occurring, yet no one seems to notice how wrong it is. Violet and Titus looked at the leaking air and thought it was cool. Titus’ dad went whaling and got whales with plastic coating on them so they don’t die from the pollution, thinking of the whole thing as fun, not at all disturbing at how unnatural it is, but rather showing it to his family. People are even cutting down trees to make air factories, and when the last forests fell people looked back at it as good memories seeing animals in their yard, lost because their natural habitats had been destroyed. Another thing that’s out of place is the global issues, which seem pretty devastating, yet the only people that notice then are violet and her father. No one seems to care that their skin is falling off or why, but they are concerned about the latest trend. Another thing that I’ve noticed is how there’s some sort of dispute going on but you only get little bits, like people whipped out, and covered in some black substance. There’s all of these problems going on, the world and humanity with it rotting away, yet the corporations are able to put a positive spin on it that people get caught up in, like sales, and what’s the latest thing out. The people that don’t believe the corporations lies are looked at as weird and cast out away from other people, like violet, just because she was more intelligent than the average person. It’s not that the people are forced to obey this totalitarian power, its that they want to.
In the book 1984 no one has any freedom. Everything is decided for you and enforced. Any form of resistance, even a word against big brother, and the thought police will make you disappear and every one lives on poverty. In the excerpt from 1984 Winston talks about a man who disappeared after he had done some writing that wasn’t very supportive of big brother. How ever the Victory Party is very good with manipulation, so good that you can never tell what is real, false, or just not yet noticed. The book is from the perspective of a man who despises the totalitarian leader, and it looks like this is just a corrupt government running a country that’s completely destroyed from war. Later you find out that it is so much more, when you find out that the entire time they had been falling for the party’s trap. This proves how totalitarian powers can control everyone mentally, even the ones that think they’re rebelling. The party is even working on stoping people from even thinking of rebellion. They’re modifying the language to new speak, which doesn’t have words that let them express any feelings of anger towards the Party. If they don’t know how to tell others of their anti-totalitarian ideas then forming a revolution would be impossible. They have everyone under their power completely convinced that they are living in paradise and that big brother protects them all, except for a select few, such as Winston and Julia, who despise big brother. People like that are snatched up by the thought police, and tortured into submission until they fit the party’s description of a perfect slave of big brother.
In Hitlers Nazi Germany people worked, and they worked long and hard. There was no exception, because everyone had to work. Some how hitler was able to make work seem like a good thing by using it to drop unemployment, while rebuilding Germany and telling every one to look at what they’ve accomplished at the end of a work day. People were also kept in line with the constant flow of propaganda. It used hitler as an icon to look up to a lot of times. In the one Nazi propaganda document there is a map for kids with Germany’s small military surrounded by other countries and their large militaries telling kids to stand up for Germany. Hitler used the treaty of Versailles as a tool to gain power. The Germans hated how it left them crippled, so Hitler would blame it on the Jews, saying they signed it, and also criticizing it to get people agree with him and support him. Another document about Nazi propaganda would be the one with the woman and her baby, along with a peaceful country in the background telling people to fight for what’s in the picture, without actually telling people. The Gestapo were Hitlers secret police. They were the thought police of Nazi Germany, because just like in 1984, if anyone said anything against the totalitarian power they would disappear. Many went to concentration camps where they would be sent for their crimes, and often die there after living in poor conditions. Jews especially suffered since they were the most of the upper class, so hitler made them into a target to blame and take possessions from. To this day in Germany you are not allowed to deny the holocaust happened because of how gruesome it was, even though some people even today look up to Hitler. He might even be admired openly here in America if he hadn’t gone after the Jews and steeped on so many people. America even has its own Nazi party, but most sites on it are blocked on my iPad by the school, maybe because they don’t want any Nazi influence on us?
In Stalins Soviet Russia people must work and the five year plans set unreasonably high expectations are set. Kulaks were forced to work in poor conditions to their death, after loosing all they own. In the one document of ours we looked at a picture of Stalin with a boy, next to the same picture but without the boy. This document tells the viewer that Stalin gets rid of who ever he doesn’t like, such as the kulaks who because they refused to give up their farms were forced into working to death. Another, but very different, document that we went over was some Russian propaganda. It had Lenin standing heroically in front of a soviet Russian flag and the number 1917 behind him. This was meant to have people remember Lenin and how he helped bring in communism. Stalin used propaganda and enthusiasm towards work to keep people in line, while forcing work and punishment upon people who resisted or became threats, like the kulaks. Today Stalin is making a come back and is even becoming popular in Russia as a hero in history. Despite the massive deaths that he caused, people are looking at him as a role model for their leaders today.
What makes a totalitarian power really lethal isn’t its physical strength and power, but rather its manipulation of the people it rules over.
Noah S:
Individuals within a society have unique life experiences. This is regardless the type of government in existence around them. Furthermore, citizens instinctually fight, flight, or mate in order to survive. Totalitarian regimes are no exception. Those living with in a totalitarian regime experience fear, injustice, humiliation, torture, ridicule, acceptance, and some even find pleasure. History and fiction have shown the effects living under oppressive leaders.
Despite Stalin’s portrayal of himself as an equal to the people of Russia, he ruled over them as an absolute dictator with the power of life and death over his subjects. What is interesting about this is people believed him. The reason, Lenin had all these statues and posters that made him look like the strongest leader and best man for the job, but the fact is he was not as memorable as Stalin. Stalin used Lenin as a god it made it so that people could vie Lenin as their leader even though he has passed on, this make Stalin his legacy it make it look like Stalin was left to fulfill the rest of Lenin’s visions. This is in fact seen in Hitler’s Germany and 1984, and somewhat like in Feed. An individual in Stalin’s Russia was viewed as an equal to everyone around him so no one stood out. This was supposed to make a better society for the people because there was no competition to get in a higher position or stature. However, the reality was that Stalin was above everyone, like Hitler, like Big Brother. If you did show a desire to stand out, then you would be ether be humbled or eliminated, because getting too much power was a threat to Stalin’s. For example a man that was head of the Russian secret police, he even took a picture with Stalin was accused of treason and sentenced to death. Then as death was not enough of a punishment Stalin erased this man from history. He severed all his ties with the world, his friends and family was forced to forget that he existed, all of his work that he did was gone, his name was erased from history, even his image the picture that he took with Stalin was altered to look like he was never there. Later they found that this man was falsely accused and was torched to make it seem like he was guilty. It’s said that Stalin feared that this man would eventually commit treason because this man was in a high place. Stalin gave aid to this man to get where he was but then he ether got tired of him or he felt that this man would become a threat to him so he erased him. You are born into you job, if your dad was a farmer you will be a farmer, if your dad was an industrial laborer, you will be an industrial labor. This makes it so that people don’t have the inclination to get ahead. Only Stalin could change your job or give you a more important position in society. These are some of many experiences you faced as an individual in this society.
Living under totalitarian Rule requires people to keep their innermost thoughts to themselves. Most people do not realize how lucky they are. In this country we have the freedom of speech, we are aloud to say, think, and wright what ever we choose. Most people think nothing of this, but in communism, Nazism, Feed and 1984 this was unheard of. If you spoke out or said something that was not viewed right you would ether be taught a very harsh lesson or you would be killed. The reason that Winston in 1984 would always try to stay out of people’s way and not get noticed was because he knew the background on all the bad things that go on in his society. His job was to set propaganda into every day life. For example he would probably be the editor of the Nazi science texts books that was pumped with propaganda instead of science. There are so many ways that a government can test your loyalty; one is through some thing like this. When a little girl picks up this book and starts to read it she is learning how to survive in this society, she is not learning about biology, plants or animals. All the points in this textbook have nothing to do with a single person it hast to do with a whole. You do not matter the whole does. That is the purpose of propaganda. Winston knew that if he spoke out he would get now where very fast and he would be punished. He knew that he was only a single person; he also knew that a single person does not mater only the group. In the end of the book 1984 Winston gets consumed but the whole and has done nothing but cause suffering in his life.
In all but Feed, people are forced to live life with the fear of constantly having someone looking over their shoulder. However, in Feed, you have someone in your mind. You have no idea who is looking at you. People do not realized that their lives are not private any more. Any thing that you do, say or post on the Internet always will be there. Through out your life time there is a mobile profile that is made up of all the picture, videos, songs, words, or any thing technological that you have ever done or posted. Then that information is sold to marketers that can use that profile to sell you products. For example the poster “Halt the Hunt” was a poster that was directed at the men of America. This poster is a picture of a German soldier that is attempting to steel this poor and help less woman that appears to be holding a child but there is the strong looking American man that looks posed as all robust and he is stepping in to thwart the Germans attempt. This was a propaganda tool that lured men that could not actually fight in the war, make it feel like they were helping out.
The people in the society of Feed live life like there is no one watching, they are content with their lives, and do not have a drive to get ahead. This is the main difference with the other societies, where people suffered in their daily lives. Feed is the image of a successful totalitarian society. This is because they have total control over a person they have a monitor on everything that a person does as well as their population is contend with their lives. People do not need to put on a mask and act like they are happy because they already are. The struggle with Hitler, Stalin, and 1984 was that they did not have as much control over the person as Feed did. Also their was of enforcing control was very different. Feed’s way of control was through the “feed.” 1984, Stalin, and Hitler all used a large military force to enforce laws and make sure that there is no revolt. This is what makes Feed the most successful out of all the societies that were presented.
The mood of a society can have a profound influence on an individual’s view of their life. Also way a society feels about their leader will drive the entire populations’ work and social ethics. Finally, the way individuals feel about their leader determines how they accept or reject their own behavior. All these guidelines make it so that a society like Feed can function. In my mind some people could use ac society like this. They would have a happier life. This type of civilization has no room for people that are ideologist; there are no creative, compassionate or visionary people. The people that live like this are the type of people that stick to a constant routine and never change. Their would not be a lot of new inventions coming out you would probably eventually forget who you are and turn into the opposite of man, you would be a machine that runs on repetition.
IP:
When a person joins a totalitarian society, you are trapped for life. And when you are in a time of trial and tribulation, you need someone or something to turn to; to give you hope. Every society had some leader that gave the community hope; a reason to keep working. This is also displayed in the real world when people turn to a higher being such as God, Buddha, or Allah.
In 1984, the people seem to like living the lifestyle that has been dealt to them but for all we know, they could have been like Winton and be dying on the inside but be just one of the ants in a row, just marching and marching. We never saw the story from anyone elses point of view so for all we know there could have been other people that conspired and wrote down things about the society and the party in their journal but were too scared and intimidated to do anything about it. From the outside looking in, the party and big brother managed to get to the point where nobody resisted and even if they did, they were annihilated. However, they achieved it by fear unlike Feed, Hitler, and Stalin who used terms that were more discrete. In the darkest times, big brother stepped up with the party and became the one constant, the one thing that you could depend on to lead you. Big Brother took advantage because people were weak after all the bombing so they needed a leader to give them hope.
In Feed the feed is portrayed as a smart phone, an ipad, and a computer all in one. Its basically a toy that is a tool for the government. Whenever a person gets close to finding out there is something fishy going on, the feed goes to work. It puts up an ad or asks you to buy something because then you forget what you were thinking and the identity and protection of the government stayed. The society is physically unharmed and for the most part mentally unharmed because they don’t know they are in a totalitarianistic system. In Feed it was different, there was no crisis that made the people run into the leaders arms but they do depend on the Feed like its a critical body part. And in their mind it is a part of them because they can't live without them. The feed symbolizes a leader in any other totalitarian society. The feed controls them and tells them what to do just like a leader such as Hitler or Stalin would because the government was smart enough make a device that seems like a toy, but actually acts like a sort of dictator to the people but in an easier light.
Hitler told people all the good things he would do and he gave his community hope. He gave them hope that his policies would help them and bring them to the top. After the great depression, people were down on their luck and they needed something to root for. Hitler rallied them and he found them a common enemy- the jewish. He had them on lock; they would do anything that he asked because in their eyes he was their hero. They were totally controlled but without hurting them and without instilling fear in them. He just simply tricked them. He used propaganda and fooled them. He used posters such as the ideal german woman- blonde hair, blue eyes, ect. He also trained them without them knowing. HE sent kids to “fun camps” which were actually german bootcamps. He was a genius in the sense that he controlled people without hurting them. I think he could have been the greatest leader and mastermind in the history of the world if he didnt kill all those people. He got elected by the German public because he would be the light. He promised that the poor would become the rich and the Great Depression that they were in because of the war would be no more. He was able to make the people who were down on their luck and who were poor because they needed some hope. He wasn't able to sway the richer people, the people in the government didn't want him in office because they were smarter and weren't in an emotional state like the general public.
Stalin used propaganda to empower himself in the minds of the russian people. He used propaganda, he used statues, he showed that if an average joe works hard; he can become great. He brainwashed children with cartoons that made everyone except russia a bad guy. He changed history similar to the party in 1984. He made people love him in the way that he was great. He was a superman and he was the leader. He displayed that if you work hard, anyone can become great. This made people follow him and believe in him because he seemed so much higher. People looking back on stalin love him in the 21 century but I also personally know a guy from russia that hates stalin and is his own words, “stalin bad”. So he got mixed results but i think the people that loved him outwiegh those who disliked him. I think people looked up to him because he made statues to embody the superman persona and he seemed like a god. Or as high as you can be without being a god and being just a mortal human being. And he gave the people hope because the mining story said that any average joe could become a wealthy man. So the people gave him power because they believed that they would benefit from it in the long run.
People in trying times need something to look forward to. I read somewhere that people who were affected by hurricane Katrina turned to god because they had nothing; no house, no food, no electricity and they hit rock bottom. They prayed to god because they needed hope or else there was nothing to fight for; nothing to live for. That's what a smart totalitarianistic leader takes advantage of. They take people and make them dependent on someone or something so you are clay in their hands.
Fenton:
One major experience that people have in a totalitarian society is their communication is controlled by the leader and it changes people’s natural disposition and behavior.(4) They do not get to see normal newspapers, news, or television. This concept can be illustrated in 1984 when the characters are monitored so closely it causes them to betray one another. The computer feed also controls the thoughts and actions of the characters in Feed. More importantly, history showed us in Nazi Germany that a totalitarian society can cause people to passively accept a horrible situation and change their behavior and beliefs as a survival tactic.(3)
The books Feed and 1984 illustrate how communication that is controlled by a leader can affect people’s behavior. In the book Feed, the feed constantly bombards the characters thoughts and brains with information. When the characters feed turns off, they don’t remember how to think on their own or plan their days. They feel lost. Also, in 1984 communication is manipulated by the Party. The truth is manipulated by Winston at the Ministry of Truth. People don’t even know what the truth is. Also, the characters are constantly monitored by the tele screen, secret microphones, and mandatory announcements. Even Syme and his Newspeak dictionary are changing the old language to control communication.
Communication has also been used in history to control people and influence how they think. (3) People were poor in Germany and there was food rationing in 1943. Hitler used propaganda to fool the people in Germany into believing that he was a good leader. There were posters showing happy people behind Hitler and the message was clear that he was the leader that would change things for the better. People thought Hitler would take them to “World Domination” and the propaganda kept their morale high even when times were terrible. (3)
The effects on people can be drastic when their thoughts and information are controlled by another person or party. The books 1984 and Feed showed how people that had their communication channels controlled by others became lonely, out for themselves, and not team players. For example, in 1984 Parson’s children turned him into the thought police and did not care what happened to their own father as a result. The children were loyal to their party not their family. They learned what they were taught.
Furthermore, in Feed, Titus knew the feed controlled him but said “There is no good getting angry about it because they’re still going to control everything whether you like it or not.” Also, the characters were suspicious and not accepting of Violet because her thoughts were different than theirs and they were threatened by this.
History has also shown us that peoples’ behavior can by changed by living in a totalitarian society. In the times of Hitler’s rule, nice and normal people betrayed their neighbors to support Hitler. They believed his propaganda. Young men were attracted by Hitler’s power and the bold uniforms with emblems. They wanted to belong to this strong and powerful group. (5) Sadly, even those that did not agree or believe in what Hitler stood for accepted his anti-Jewish policies. They were not able to stop Hitler’s Party from killing over six million Jewish people. (2)
We are at an interesting point in our society. Technology and the way we communicate information are changing quickly. Our country needs to think about how we respond to these changes. For example, remote control robots let people be in two places at one time; drone gliders can float around for weeks at a time and collect information. Technology is exciting but we as a country need to pay attention to history and not let technology get out of control and invade our privacy. The horrible tragedies that happened under Hitler’s control can be avoided and it should be a top priority.
Resources:
1. Bennett, Paul. War The World Reacts. New York: Belitha Press, 2002. Print.
2. Shuter, Jane. Auschwitz. Chicago: Reed Educational, 2001. Print.
3. Adams, Simon. World War II. New York: DK Limited, 2000. Print.
4. Ward, Dan Sewell. Totalitarianism. Web. http: www.halexandria.org/dward885.htm.
5. Anflick, Charles. Resistance Tenn partisians and Resisters Who Fought Nazi Tyranny. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group,1999. Print.
Fansler:
Totalitarianism is a form of government dictated by a group or one person. What are the experiences of living in a totalitarian society? What are the effects on people? Well in this document I am going to talk about four different societies based off of totalitarianism. The first one is the book 1984. The book is about a society controlled by a man named Big Brother. In this novel it reflects around a man named Winston who is against the government and Big Brother. Second, there is the book the feed. In the feed there is a chip implanted in to every humans brain. Giving the people another brain or Internet. Which is controlled by the government of the society. Third, Stalin of the Soviet Union. He is the dictator of Russia through World War II. There to create a strong independent society. The last is Hitler of Germany. He as we all know was considered the most evil man to ever live the past generation. The affect on individuals is that they live a two face life, that outside they follow the rules and like the leader, but on the inside they are hating and crushed.
In 1984, Winston does not agree with Big Brother’s rules. With Winston his feeling toward Big Brother is fear as well which applies to everyone else in the society. He knows of secret police in the society that watch anyone that goes against Big Brother. If found opposing against him the person will be executed. Outside Winston acts normal but hidden he is very secretive. He chooses to look in to the history of the past deaths of lawbreakers. Winston is very curios he shows this by looking up the past of executed so called “Traitors.” He finds out that the people were innocent but the government portrayed them as traitors. They were portrayed as traitors because, they did the number one thing not to do, go against Big Brother. With Violet she hates the feed. She believed it was a way of mind control the government used to influence people to follow what they believed is the right thing to do. The feed had helped you with knowledge and choices. It was like a second brain. But there are some people who relay on the feed to help them. They enjoy it, seeing it as a helper. With Stalin and Hitler they were considered evil dictators through out their countries. The reason for that is what they had done. Their goal was to create the strongest most independent countries the world had ever seen, but with that came choices. They chose to create massacres. With Stalin he was responsible for over 15 million deaths from famine for peasants and workers of Germany. With Hitler he was responsible for the Holocaust. The death of over 11 million Jews. With feeling came lying. But there are some people that think Stalin is a saint. Some people think he is one the greatest leader because, Stalin made Russia a very strong industrial based economy.
If you show your feelings there will be consequences so you must act a certain way, which comes false feelings. In 1984 everyone outside of their home acts happy they obey the rules no hanging out, no sex, and above all obey Big Brother. But on the inside everyone hates him. This is the same with Hitler and Stalin everybody dislikes them on the inside but treats them like gods on the outside. They do this because of the consequences of showing their true feelings toward the dictators. The consequence is death. This had happened to allies of Stalin. He had killed the Russian leader Trotsky. Because, he opposed him. The way Stalin had killed the people were he had them shot in the back of the head. He had done this to all of his allies. This way he had gained full power. In the feed, the fake mood was done by Violet. Her plan was to show interest in a bunch of random products, to prevent the corporations from developing a new profile.
With every citizen having “illegal” feelings they must know how to hide it. In 1984 Winston does not show his feelings, but does not want to lose them. The way he does not lose himself is writing. Winston writes in his private journal reflection on his emotions, thoughts, and anger on Big Brother. With Julia (Winston’s girlfriend) she hides her feelings toward the societies by being secretive. She doesn’t talk, which is very key because no one will ever know what she does. She enjoys to have sex which is illegal. As I said earlier Violet goes against the feed by creating a fake feed but it also hides herself. The government can’t control or know what she does and thinks. With Stalin and Hitler no one really had opposed them. The only people that opposed them were politicians and leaders of Germany and the soviet. People such as: Lenin, Stokovach, Trotsky. They did not think Stalin and Hitler were good leaders(showed their feelings toward them). So they had opposed which had gotten them killed.
With all these emotions that the people live with they have to learn to accept it. Firstly Winston finally learned to accept his false emotions toward Big Brother by joining him. To survive in the society you must be with Big Brother which is what he had closed to do. With Titus he learns to accept his agreement toward the feed. After seeing Violet passing away from denying the feed. He had realized he must accept his life of living with the feed. Although the people of Germany and Russia hated Hitler and Stalin they had learned to accept their emotions and the way it is. With Hitler he had given them jobs. With Stalin he too wanted to create an independent economy but based off of the industrial system. Both of them used propaganda to get to the people. Showing examples of a correct Russian or German citizen. Also they gave the people hope. They With Hitler he had used the Volkswagon as an example that if a citizen gets a job they can one day get it. Also that they had learned by denying the leaders they will end up dead. But, now and back then there were some people that accepted the society, saw Hitler and Stalin as heroes. That they had saved their countries in a time where the Russia and Germany were very weak.
In conclusion the people of totalitarian societies live a two faced life. First they have their true negative feelings towards their leaders. Second they people have their false positive feelings toward their leaders. Third they have to learn how to descent the true emotions from the leaders. Lastly is they have to learn to accept what feelings they have and how they have to live with them. All of these four topics all connect to one a way a totalitarian citizen lives, with a two faced life. I believe that there is no escape from the totalitarian system. Because, if you go against or escape the system you will end up dead.
Malia:
When people live in Totalitarian societies, a lot of people become unaware of whats around them and whats happening to the society. Some people may experience weird feelings, harm,or even death. In Feed the people were getting brainwashed, because they thought that Feed was something you HAD to live with. They also experienced a lot of death from the Feed and even lesions that led to death. In 1984 people were dying from the Oceania. People in Feed were getting tortured and brainwashed too. Hitler and Stalin used propaganda to make people think that they were really good guys, that made people not think that they were actually pretty bad. Stalin and Hitler killed people too. All of these societies were pretty bad to live in.
In these societies there was a lot of physical and mental pain. In all societies the people were at least tortured in one way. In 1984 if you didn’t listen to what the government said or you didn’t listen to Big Brother, or if your you didn’t like him you would be tortured, then killed you. In Feed you had to indure the pain of bad lesions, which are really bad infected, and diseased patches of your skin. In Feed everybody wanted a lesion because they thought it was cool. Other than the lesions, people die from unknown things. In Russia there was a extreme death and poverty situation, that led to death.
Beside the physical pain everybody went through and some struggles the society went through, there was a lot of people being brainwashed. I think that mental pain is worse than physical pain. Physical pain just comes and goes, but mental pain leaves a long lasting memory in your brain. In 1984 almost everybody was brainwashed to think that Big Brother was the mighty powerful God, and everybody HAD to listen to him. iN 1984 there was something called hate which, and there would be posters that were in support of Big Brother. They had a thought police which controlled your thoughts in the chips that were implanted in your brain. There was a ministry of love which helped with your love life and there was telescreens. If you didn’t like Big Brother they would torture you and brainwash you until you were dead. In Feed no one was forced to like one person. In Feed they would show off the feed as much as they could, they wanted it to be something cool. Almost everyone in the society had a Feed, once you got it you could not get rid of it. The Government would put ads in the Feed based on your feelings and emotions. I think that everybody wanted one because you would have everything you need on your fingertips. In Russia Stalin used propaganda to make people like him, he would also use kids cartoons so little kids would grow up to love Stalin. In Germany Hitler also used propaganda to love him, and he made people dislike jews and communists.
In these societies they have a lot of things in common, besides that they were horrible societies to live in pretty much everybody who lived there grew up to have everybody’s back and take care of them. In all of the societies most people had died, or experienced bad things such as brainwash and really bad lesions. Some people were even tortured, and that led to death. Another thing they have in common is that they all had a leader, and they all had to love the leader, if not you were dead. In 1984 Big Brother gained ultimate power. In Feed they they people gained a lot of money from people buying things from there ads. In Russia and Germany they gained peoples trust and money. All everybody wanted was power, in the end they all got that. They just needed to hold on to it.
In conclusion I would not want to live in neither of these societies because of what I have been reading and researching about. Even though I might have wanted Feed implanted in my brain, that was not even cool either, because you would get brain washed to think that everything was so cool, or to buy things from ads. But in the end none of it wad cool.
Bradley:
The nature of how a totalitarianism regime can be run, can only waver so much, but there are different ways of running a totalitarianism regime. Unlike Hanna Arendt’s idea which was that the point of a totalitarianism regime was to control every aspect of a persons life. There is one thing that is wrong, and that is that she was basing her ideas off real world experiences of attempted totalitarian ruled government. There is one problem with this, and that is there has never been any real totalitarian attempts, just bad leaders of differing government. This is why I disagree with Hanna Arendt because there is another ways of ruling a totalitarianism regime.
Broke was the term that Titus used to describe what happened to violet when she fainted. This was used to stop her from speaking out against the feed and this worked in more then just stoping her. When this happened this also stopped Titus and freaked out the rest of the people at the party. This is called a scare tactic and this was also used in 1984 and in Stalin’s Russia. Stalin used this tactic during the purges where he locked and worked people before they killed them and this was a scare tactic because they would kill people for almost nothing like, throwing bread at an officer. This would of course ensure full conformity to the party because no body wants this happening to them. This is a main part of totalitarianism because it is torture and that is how most totalitarianisms keep there power. In feed there is not so much torture because they are so good at keeping their people blind but if they still do not torture as heavily as 1984 where they kill people in public because they can do it more efficiently.
Leaders in most totalitarianisms are terrible people that torture to keep there power. leaders of totalitarianisms are labeled as terrible,maniacal people that for some reason people relate to communism, like Kim Jong Un and Stalin. That is one thing about totalitarianism is that it can spawn from any type of government like in feed where it came from the US style capitalism or hitters government that absolutely hated communism. All these leaders had different ideology’s and that does change how you run your totalitarianism like with feed they were a capitalism so the big businesses were the people controlling the feed and making a profit off it. but with russia they were a communism so they came up wit the five year plan which every body loved because they were very industrious. The leaders them selves were very similar they were all power hunger even in feed because big business is alway trying to get bigger and they will do it in any way possible. Hitler and Stalin also were like each other even if they did not agree with each others ideology like in the comic about how long the honey moon would last.
Propaganda played a big role in the success of these leaders and there parties because they were not the most likable people. Most of the propaganda that the leaders used was to promote them and to get people to think of them as a hero. This idea was captured perfectly in Stalin’s poster where he is depicted in a heroic stance. Propaganda is a powerful tool and can be used for more then just make your self look good it can be used to control thought like in feed where they sent you propaganda all the time. In feed it was not the traditional propaganda they sent you, they sent you ads. Now this may not seem like propaganda but, the people running the party is big business so by making them by stuff they are helping them selves by tricking you, which is the definition of propaganda. Propaganda is a vital role in totalitarianism because of it’s violent nature. It has been used to get people to go to war, like german poster where every body is pointing there guns at them. This was used to show that they are alone and surrounded and that brings every one together. This method is so effective that none totalitarianism regimes use this, like the US and the halt the huns poster. propaganda the simplest thing and the most necessary thing can even be done differently.
Hanna Arendt had the right idea for her time and for her experiences, but she drew too big of a conclusion. Not all totalitarianisms have to kill every body and torture them to still have complete control. They don’t even need full control to remain in power. Hanna Arendt simply did not think about how a totalitarianism could be run she just based it off real world experiences.
Coltrane:
“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.” -Cornelius Tacitus (55 -117 A.D.)
Fear is the glue that annexes a totalitarian society; be it communist or fascist, the synonymous president reigns true that the implicit nature of the society is, “a boot stamping on a human face-forever.” From birth, you are immersed in an endless sea of nationalism, praise for the regime, praise, for the leader, praise for the whip. The surrounding propaganda would change your thoughts and mold u into the twisted image of the party. Life as the citizens of such a society would be unimaginable and unbearable by our standards, but really, would it really seem evil if you were confronted by it on a daily basis?
1984 contained a message which exhorted a totalitarian society by giving us ironically, an example of the epitome of control. With constant themes like big brother and trust no one, it gives us a very acute snapshot into what life in a totalitarian regime would be similar to. The citizens of 1984 seem to be completely brainwashed and numb to the evils around them, and fervently worship the party. They are also lied to and made to believe that their quality of life is far superior to what they currently have so that their morale and love for the totalitarianism is only let to grow. Could it be, that the comfort that these lies bring, could eventually persuade someone that their life, a life like that, is paradise?
Because of the Newspeak in 1984, and people being idiots, obsessed with the feed in Feed, it seems that an underlying factor in any totalitarian society is language. Newspeak essentially tried to debase the language to such an extent that eventually any thoughts of rebellion would be impossible because there would be no words to express that and without the words for it, it didn’t exist. Feed also preys of this moral by making humans seemingly regress in their ability to utilize words and giving them the opportunity to just search it in the Feed and avoid actually learning new words. This, though seemingly innocuous, has to power to plunge the basic intelligence of humans to a near primal state and be kept on the top by the feeds, now only serving as a crutch.
Adolf Hitler led one of the most successful totalitarian regimes in history, oppressive and absolute, individual liberties were abolished and only propaganda supporting the Nazi power remained. Some of the citizens of Nazi Germany were considered “Arians” or the master race; others were smashed into the ground and persecuted. As Adolf Hitler did this, he was perhaps unwittingly, creating an essential precedent essential in all totalitarian societies-classes. In 1984, the classes were inner party, outer party and proles. Each class tended to keep apart from each other and in doing so, created a sort of tension between them, making it impossible for them to band together and revolt. In Feed, people had varying incomes, therefore making varying social classes; in a society where having the “new” meant everything, more money meant more social cred- and that, in a hedonistic society, is all that matters. Because of the social structure, citizens living in a totalitarian state are virtually alone; friends aren’t real, family can’t be trusted, the only love you can have is with the party. Everything, including your humanity, is secondary.
The regime lead by Stalin was perpetuated not only by his ruthless decisions, but also by his propaganda which he used to sugarcoat and avert the transgressions of his choices. Many hymns were written for Stalin singing of his bravery and dedication to his shared country; about his love for all citizens and his belief in communism. Shows targeting children were produced, preaching of the goodness of Stalin as well as the evils of the rest of the world. These children would later grow into the next devoted generation to Stalin and Russia. The youth were easily cajoled and Stalin was perpetuated eternally.
Feed presented a culture adsorbed in their need to buy. Created by the corporations and used to make people want to buy, the Feeds had an internal mode of control which tended to be much more intimate as well as subconscious. This was used to bombard the inhabitants with advertising and shade their eyes from the harsh environment they existed in. After a while, people were indifferent to global problems and steadily becoming more inarticulate. This is an example of how a society with problems can sometimes blind people so they can’t see the truth, even when it lies right beneath their noses.
In the eternal struggle for control, societies will rise and fall, people will perish and humanity will learn; the only way to avert a crisis would be to not allow any societies of a totalitarian or oppressive nature. To exist in these aforementioned coalitions, would be inhuman and would oppress an individual’s humanity. On the flip side, joy is in the mind, happiness is arbitrary without variation-should it be that in a society that accentuates fulfillment, you would be believed to be unhappy? In conclusion, I present this quote: “You can never truly appreciate the sunshine if it never rains”
Bryson:
Lets take a moment. Close your eyes and picture this; picture a society that is on the brink of whipping out its’ entire population, just because they allow themselves to be taken over by the worst people/peoples that are leading them to the path of failure. Imagine a society where millions of people are dying from hunger and famine. Imagine a society that allows their leader to do this to them because if not they are killed or even more- erased. Imagine a society where the Rulers are so selfish they allow all these things to happen. Imagine a society where people know these things are happening, but they just allow it to because they are to scared to look at the big picture. Are you ready for this? This has already happened. It has happened in Hitler and Stalin’s regimes, while also occurring in two stories that were written to warn us about the dangers of a totalitarian regime; Feed and 1984.
With newspeak, the secret police, brainwashing, and the constant fear people have in 1984, it gives us a prime example of what life would be like in a totalitarian society. 1984’s government was so oppressive; they wanted to change the language so that there was no rebellious words left and there could be no rebels. Syme was one of the people working on Newspeak. Winston knew that his intelligence exceeded the normal 1984’s citizens, so he would be eventually erased. That’s how hectic it got in that Totalitarian society. You can’t be smarter than the government or you get killed, but if you’re to dumb to know how to follow the rules you’re dead. The only thing you can do without getting killed would be allowing them to control you and you have to abide by it. Everyday people have to live off Gin and “food.” They don’t have enough food to support their population, so citizens are starving. Even when people are starving they don’t see what’s going on in the obviously corrupted society. To top all of this off people aren’t even allowed any privacy. They are always being watched and that leads to the feeling of never being safe. 1984 was not a place I would like to life in and I can honestly say I will do whatever it takes to not be like this place.
Feed was based off 1984 so the message was the same about warning us about a Totalitarian society. However, that is not the goal of this paper. The goal is to explain the experiences they had in the society. For Feed it was a lot harder to understand how life was with the Feed because with the Feed, people really couldn’t think for themselves. They had most of their decisions chose for them because the Feed takes over all parts of the brain. This was probably one of the worse Totalitarian societies out of the four. The reason I say that is because people are willing to give their kids the Feed and they see the environment deteriorating, but they think of it as beautiful. The lesions were the biggest thing. The environment itself was rotting away and it was causing people to grow lesions. Since all the celebrities were getting them, it was the pop-culture and everyone wanted them. They thought they were “Cool” and “Hip” when it was just another sign life in the Totalitarian society was terrible. The fact that people see the problems as beautiful or awesome scares me. When I read this story I can’t help, but think “WHY CAN”T YOU SEE WHATS WRONG!?” but that’s the entire point to this story. It was to make us open our eyes that if we continue on the path we are on today we will end up in a helpless society like feed. Something I DO NOT want.
In Feed and 1984, someone was running the operations, that someone would be a man named Stalin. Stalin was the communist ruler of Russia shortly after Lenin’s passing. In my opinion I think Stalin started off making good changes to Russia. He managed to give everybody jobs, fix the starvation period, and improve their military. Eventually things got to good, and a middle class emerged. Stalin didn’t like this, so he killed a lot of them. Stalin was a man of great genius, but got selfish and made a lot of people hate him. Just because he got mad, it led him to kill millions. Imagine living in that constant fear of being shot in the back of the head. Stalin’s fascist approach on a communist society made it a little more bearable to live in, but after he went crazy it was like any other Totalitarian society. That’s the message I get from Stalin’s regime; every Totalitarian society ends the same-failure.
Hitler, a man of great success, probably one of the most well known dictators in the world. He; like stalin, managed to change a very messed up economy and change it for the better. Hitler did not like the Fascist approach Stalin did, but he did admire how he came into power. Life in Germany was a lot similar to feed. Everyone seemed happy, but everything around them was getting more corrupted by the second. If they didn’t go along with what everyone else was doing, they would know, and they would take care of them. Life was okay until Hitler turned corrupted and wanted everything to be how he wanted. Just like all the leaders in all four documents, they all end in disaster, and there is no way it could get any better.
Kris K:
All totalitarian regimes degrade the society they rule but also the people themselves. Totalitarian regimes come into existence because the leader wants total power over the country and its people. Because the leader doesn’t care about the people except for purposes of resourcing it is obvious why the living conditions of the societies are horrible or not as good as they should be, while mentally taking a toll on the citizens themselves.
In all of the totalitarian regimes I have studied I have found one thing in common,
that is malnourishment. In 1984, Russia, and Germany the great majority of the resources produced were used to manufacture war entities and industrialize the country or move industrialization along. Because the resources were used for industrialization there was little left for the poor people (majority) to have. In Germany food might have been scarcer but most everyone ate, in 1984 it seemed to be there was a lot less food because winston and everyone was skinny and kind of bony. in 1984 there were more substances like gin and tobacco handed out to numb everyone. Russia had the biggest toll on its population which was caused 15 million people to die from famine while being worked to death on a farm or in a factory. In Feed the people were malnourished in a very different way, by the actual feed itself. The feed was responsible for the glowing lesions that appeared on people bodies at random.
All totalitarian leaders got into power by purging the opposition, and they continued to reign superior power by purging any sort of threats whatsoever to the parties power. Because totalitarian regimes operate by oppression of the people, regularly asserting their power in the form of purges kept citizens scared and cooperative which was crucial to the continued rule of the party. Purges were supposed to only be used on traitors and criminals and enemies of the party, but because the party had to stay paranoid to be completely safe, many, or most of the purges carried out where on innocent people. The regime had total power so they did not have to present a verified cause to purge you, they just did it if they thought you were a threat to them somehow. Purges in Germany, Russia, and 1984 were conducted by the parties secret police. At night the secret police would come and grab you from your home or wherever your residence was and they would take you to your imminent death of either a bullet to the head, years of slave labor for the regime, or imprisonment. In feed though, purges were conducted in a totally different manner. In Feed the corporations poisoned violet by poisoning the feed chip in her brain. Her body would start to malfunction with only minor malfunctions but after a few weeks it got extremely bad, they she became paralyzed, then she died.
Propaganda was one of the main things all totalitarian regimes used to promote their power and motivate the citizens. Propaganda was generally in poster or movie form, containing a very simple but obvious message that the normal citizen could understand, even if they were just an illiterate farmer. Propaganda was also posted everywhere to constantly drive people toward the parties cause. Some types of propaganda is propaganda promotes the regime, propaganda that makes the average person look heroic, propaganda that encourages donations to the regime, propaganda that tells you work harder. In all situations propaganda was everywhere. In 1984, Germany, and Russia propaganda was displayed mostly in poster and cinemas or said by speakers, but it was also incorporated more slyly into things list 5th graders textbooks. It wasn’t obvious propaganda, but it was definitely there. In feed the advertisements was the propaganda and it was more effective I think because you could not turn it off so you are forced to listen to it.
All of the totalitarian regimes I studied used the same techniques to keep control and those techniques made living day to day life miserable for the citizens in its power. Totalitarian regimes care only about the well-being of the leaders and heads of power, and the citizens are merely the way to produce and make profit , while controling them with their power, so it makes sense why people who live in a totalitarian society are miserable.
Josh N:
What are the experiences of living in a totalitarian society and what are the affects on them? I think that it is very harsh to live in a totalitarian society and that people die easier.
Some examples of that are that no individual has will or any sort of individuality. The reason I say this is because if you look at any example from any totalitarian society every one thinks alike and every one is he same, just like the person next to them. For one if you look at the excerpt from 1984 when Winston is writing that is against the law because he had a will and had some individuality so what they do with people like that is they torture and brain wash them and after that they do not have their own will, their will is Big Brother's will.
Another thing is that they remove and make people disappear if they can not do anything to them and they brain wash them. What this means is that they will be eliminated if they are a drag or not doing enough and they believe that it is true. If you look at ants and bees they all work for the whole, which is the queen bee. Then below here there are different types off bees and they all do different things. Although the point of this is that this is a true example of what I stated above because with either insect species they will both sacrifice themselves if they are not doing everything that they are supposed to.
What you always see in a totalitarian society is a lot of surveillance and they use a lot of propaganda. One really good example is feed. The reason that I picked feed is because in one piece of machinery it represents both. What the feed is, a super high tech computer chip that is implanted into head. What is does is sells people things, and it puts adds through their heads. People also use it to chat with others. So what that allows the corporations in charge is to watch everything that people are doing and it creates a profile for you depending on what you purchase and those are the types of adds that they play for people. There are also a lot of propaganda posters that go around, for example two that relate are the poster with Stalin and Russian flag in the back and the one that is trying to sell U.S government bonds. The way that they relate is because they both show people with a lot of power. In the one with Stalin what I think it means is that he is above everything the reason for that is because the flag is n behind him and his stance. In the poster for the U.S I think it is showing hat the U.S government is very powerful and they will protect women and children but the enemy will attack them and the soldiers need money for that.
What will also happen to people in a society is that they die very easily and also the government will kill them. One example is in feed, when violet was on her deaths bed the feed crippled her. Then she was trapped inside her body and couldn't move at all. Another example is the video about when Stalin purges. How I relate this to Violet is that what Stalin did to those people was torture by making hem work then killing them. In my. Mind I think that what happened to Violet might not have been torture like some other tortures but it pretty much killed her except that she is still alive and she can't move for the rest of her life.
One other thing is with Hitler, when he humiliated the Jewish communities in Germany, so much that it made people hate them and hate their ways of doing thing and living. Then he committed a mass genocide of them all and took all of their belongings and money. How this relates to totalitarian areas is like in 1984, how they took Winston and tortured him after he rebelled and after that he filmed a bit and it talked about how much he loved big brother.
So in conclusion after looking at all of this information I think that I still agree with my thesis statement in the first paragraph. I agree with it because if you look at 1984, feed, and documents that we read you will see that in some of the totalitarian societies people are basicity slaves. Like in 1984 everyone where pretty much slaves for big brother because they had their day planned out for them and they only have a certain ration of food and every thing else, that they are allowed. In Stalin's Russia everyone where slaves and did what they needed to do. In all of the places there where at least some people who where slaves. With that I think it just proves my point of that is really harsh and it is really tenable to live in a totalitarian society and that they are willing to kill people to get what they want or need.
The 9As
Austin:
Totalitarian governments rise into power through only one way: democratic processes. For whatever reason, these governments are only coming not power when they are put into power by the people. When they do this, the governments last for an extremely long time, until the people in power either die, someone new is put into powers or outside forces knock out the people in the power. Then you have how these governments will sustain themselves. They exploit people, resources and anything else to make sure they stay in power. Yet people will still love the rulers of these societies. The people is what will keep these oppressive people in power, no one else. The way that these powers make the people love them is the entire reason that they stay in power. Their rise to power is just a set up. A set up for them to hold power for years to come.
To rise into power, the governments will generally use two methods: propaganda and physical power. Propaganda is an extremely useful tool. When it's plastered everywhere, you're bombarded by it constantly. It's always in your head and will convince you things that you maybe didn't believe before. Two good example of this would be documents B and F. Document B is a poster of Lenin, looking like a superhero. Although I cannot read the words, it is obvious that it is promoting the communist revolution and making people think of Lenin as larger than life. From this picture you get ideas that Lenin is the person who is going to save you. He looks awesome and you get this feeling of overwhelming prowess from him. The imagery they've used is powerful and will influence your emotions over time. Document F is a poster from Nazi Germany. It translates to "mother and child". It was trying to tell people that they thought that the most important thing was the mother and child. The farmland in the background also shows that they were trying to promote the hard labor that they wanted people to do. Just by looking at this, you get a sense of serenity. Propaganda is masterful in the use of imagery and the message it communicates. Definitely a powerful tool in the box of tricks that dictators have. Within 1984, propaganda is something that is used extensively. They have Big Brother as the person for them to love, and then the other two countries for them to hate. Big Brother was a constant factor in their life as the protector. In turn, all that the Party asked for was their complete and utter devotion. Within Feed, it isn't as obvious, however it is the main form of control. The propaganda that they used was, and was delivered by, the Feed. The Feed was a tool that everyone loved and enjoyed. Everyone wanted one, and felt empty without one. Then, the Feed was used to deliver ads. the ads made people want to buy things, and this was their form of control. Propaganda is definitely a powerful thing for rising to power, but as we know, there are many other things that they did to unsure their rise to power held.
Another form of control that was used was the physical punishment and death sentences. The main examples of this would be the torture, prison and concentration camps and death squads. In all of the societies, you'd only get these punishments if the government decided that you were a threat, or a potential threat. The torture was evident within 1984. They'd bring you into the Ministry of Love and then torture you until you loved Big Brother. Afterwards, maybe a year, a day, a week or any amount of time, they would kill you. The reason that they did this was expressed as "because we can". I believe that the real reason this was done was in order to influence people even more. No one wants to go into the Ministry of Love. And when the people come out of there looking like death, that reinforces it even more. Stalin had something similar going on within Russia. He'd take people and send them to labor camps. There, most people would die of starvation, and the few that survived would work there for years before they were allowed back into society. Stalin and the Party and the most torture within their societies, while Nazi Germany held more of "Kill them all!" approach. If someone was guilty of plotting against the state, or being "rebellious" then they'd either be killed by a death squad, or sent off to concentration camps and would die there slowly, or quickly depending on the wardens. Oddly enough, Feed didn't have any physical punishments. The only example would be Violet, and the damage to her Feed was caused by the hacker on the moon. When she started to rebel and they couldn't get a reading on what things she liked, then they simply refused to fund her for research and medical expenses. Granted, it killed her, but the root of her punishment was caused by someone outside of the government. All of these governments generally had a way of killing off the people that were a threat to them, but generally wanted to have the population be more stable. They contradicted themselves, however their methods ensured that they would rise and stay in power.
Once these governments were in power, they had ways of ensuring that they'd be able to stay there. There are two main methods of doing this: changing history and mass brainwashing. Oddly enough, this was split between societies. The two societies that we looked at that would manipulate history are the U.S.S.R. and 1984, while Feed and the Third Reich would brainwash the societies. Evidence of Stalin changing history is evident in many of the documents people would simply disappear from the government and population. One such example is Document E, showing one of Stalin's party members being edited out of a picture. Presumably, Stalin was convinced that this man was plotting against him, and had him killed and then erased him from textbooks, newspapers, pictures, everything. 1984 would do this, quite obviously. Winston had a job in manipulating history, evident in the excerpt from 1984. This excerpt is talking about how Winston would get orders to edit newspaper articles, and he'd comply by creating a new article. They'd do this masterfully, making sure that they would replace all newspapers and other things by having people edit them, and then replace them. The complex manipulation of these things morphed the societies into ones which were ideal for the dictators. This changing of history, made people forget that certain things have ever happened. And when the only history you can trust is your memory, than who can you trust?
As I've said, Feed and Nazi Germany had a different idea. Feed managed to brainwash everyone by using the Feed as a powerful tool. People would simply become addicted to the Feed, and would base their entire lives around it. They'd slowly dive themselves deeper and deeper into them until they didn't know how to function without them. The excerpt from Feed shows this. The excerpt is them in the hospital, after they turn off their Feeds. Titus is talking about how utterly bored he is, saying that everything sucks without the Feed. No one is quite clear on what is happening in the outside world because all other technology has simply been combined into the Feed. No one can live without the Feed and bases their entire life on the Feed. They feel empty without it, and don't know how to live their lives without being dependent on the Feed. Hitler pulled this off in a different way. He was gifted with the power of speech. He knew how to whip people up into a frenzy and have them love him and agree with him simply by talking. By using this powerful gift, he got people to agree with him, and in turn work for him, practically free of charge. The other way he did this was through influencing the young. He would do this in schools, such as in the biology textbook. The book talked about how people should be able and willing to sacrifice themselves for the government. He convinced people like this at an early age so they would grow up believing these things. Once a child believes something, they will convince themselves that for the rest of their lives until they have very convincing evidence that it is untrue. This method of control was just as effective as modifying history, and all other forms of control that were used. The governments were powerful and effective with their use of propaganda, punishment and control, to the point that it is undisputed that these were powerful nations and governments.
The totalitarian society is one that is quite simple: the person or thing in power is loved, and the people are a just a gray mass. These societies are only given power one way: the people. They convince the people that they are what they need, and thus enter into power. When they control that power, they are unstoppable. It takes years and years for any one of these governments to be knocked out of power. These governments control and manage their resources and people extensively. Not one detail slips past them. Their prowess of control is well managed and disciplined. The governments are powerful and rise for good, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Kris MLiving in a totalitarian society brings down the hope and life of a citizen. Totalitarian means that the government has complete power over its country. Totalitarianism is founded by a man named Karl Marx. A totalitarian society controls not only the rules you follow, but also how you think. A large continent living by this is Europe. Europe has been ruled by many people that follow out this type of control. Stalin and Hitler were two of the main men to cause many deaths and was good at changing someones personal view of everything. Two similar examples of ruling come from recent books that I have read; 1984 and Feed. The book 1984 by George Orwell, is powered as well by a government. In Feed people are being controlled through their mind.
Hitler was a man that made use of his resources. He used posters, children, speeches, metaphors, etc to get him up to power. For example, when Hitler used a little girl as his advertisement, he ended up killing bother of her parents. In 1934 it was called the "Night of the Long Knives," when Hitler had used two men named Himmler and Heydrich to help get rid of any threats towards him. Hitler brainwashed children and taught them ways in order for them to worship him. In articles written it said how families or parents favored him and how they wanted their children to do the same. When Hitler had goals, you would be part of the scheme. One of Hitlers big goals was to make Germany independent. His solution was to start invading other countries using his army. As others started to find out what he was doing they let him have some slack and get away with it again and again. Sometimes Hitler pushed things too far. For example, if Hitler were to go beyond his boundaries, countries in Europe would start another war. (Doc C) When Hitler invaded other countries that spoke German in some areas, he wanted to protect the German race. To protect his people he came up with a law called the "Nuremberg Law." This law prevented Jews from having any opportunities. Jews were not allowed to marry Germans or own a business, and if they disobeyed this law they would be shot in the head.
Before Stalin was the leader of the USSR, Lenin was in charge. Lenin was the one known to be the man with the power, (Vladimir Illyich Lenin, Doc B) while Stalin was just your average human being. After Lenin's death, Stalin stepped up the plate and decided that he would be in control. He as well used posters with him and children to advertise himself as a likable ruler. This quote shows how Stalin had hypnotized people into loving him, "And when the woman I love presents me with a child the first word it shall utter will be : Stalin." (Hymn to Stalin) Stalin wanted everyone contribute one way or another to the whole. (Biology for the Middle School) When Germany was invading parts of Europe, Stalin needed allies in order for him to maintain his country. Until 1939, the signing of Molotov. It had said that Germany and the USSR will not go to war for ten years. There was a twist to this though, a secret that not many knew of; if the USSR invades Poland no one shall stand in their way. On September 1 Poland was invaded. Stalin killed many Jews, including teachers, doctors and the wealthy. He had anyone killed, if he thought that they were a threat to him. For example, Stalin had a friend that had helped him all throughout his journey. This comrade's life was taken because Stalin had feared that he was interfering with his ideas and Stalin disagreed to whatever he had said. This situation is represented through a picture, with his comrade smiling and standing right next to Stalin. Then, in the next picture Stalin is still there, but the man next to him is no more. (Doc E)
A totalitarian society has not only occurred in the past, but as well as in books. In 1984 life in Oceania is the same type of society in Germany. People of Oceania are not only band from having thought, but at the same time their ruler, Big Brother is watching everything that they do. Telescreens are placed everywhere trying to catch every mistake you make, to have a reason to turn you in. Children are trained to spy on their own parents and turn them in as well if they see anything suspicious. There is only a few ways to rebel and that is to love one another or have thoughts. Winston and Julia have been seeing each other constantly and soon had to pay for their actions. Winston and Julia were sent to the ministry of love, where they were beaten until the government received the answer they wanted. (George Orwell) In the book Feed it is a different way of controlling your life. In this case people are able to feel love, party, etc. They are being watched over by a device implanted into their heads. The feed manages what you purchase, your interests, and gives you the answer to all your questions right at you finger tips. People in this society learn to love the feed, they depend on the feed, they cannot live without it. (Excerpt from Feed)
In my opinion I find Hitler and Stalin to be very similar. Both of these rulers have invaded other countries to increase in numbers. They both, got rid of anyone who was a threat to them. Hitler and Stalin hated people who disobeyed their laws and made them suffer the consequences. Many Jews had suffered because they were not allowed to marry a German, their property was destroyed and many had lost loved one. All that Hitler and Stalin wanted was to protect their people and stay in power. One thing that everyone knew was even though they both signed the Molotov and agreed there will be no war for 10 years, the relationship between them will not last forever. Feed and 1984 keep both of their societies under control, just in different ways. In 1984 they are being watched by Big Brother through the telescreen and suffering due to not having freedom. Feed has people watching everything you purchase, everything you chat and everything that you are using it for. In a totalitarian society, there are many ways citizens can be controlled. No matter what happens, there is no way out to have freedom.
Marshall:
A life in a totalitarian society involves being in total control over the people by the government or party. Citizens are being constantly watched by the government knowing that any negative emotion or threat to the party can result in deadly consequences. The government controls the people with physical and mental methods that lead to physical and mental effects. Hitler and Stalin’s regime and also 1984 and Feed all have similar characteristics of those methods and effects of totalitarianism. The documents that I observed contain information about individual citizen’s experience under the control of the government. The effects of being in this type of environment can change their mentality into loving the government or intentions to rebel against the government.
All governments in a totalitarian society have the same goal of absolute control. The government use physical punishment control to the people. In 1984, Winston was controlled by tele screens and propaganda. The tele screens are a type of surveillance that were used to observe the actions that the people did to see if they break any of the rules such as thought crime. Propaganda was posted everywhere around the society to influence fear and paranoia into the people. “The great purges involving thousands of people, with public trials of traitors and thought-criminals who made abject confessions of their crimes and were afterwards executed, were special show- pieces not occurring oftener than once in a couple of years.” – Excerpt from 1984, by George Orwell. Torture impacted the people physically and mentally. As seen in 1984, physical pain can change their mental attitude towards the government into loving the party or to never commit a crime again. After they were tortured in 1984 or sent to work camps in Hitler and Stalin regime, they were killed or forced to live a life of fear and regret. The government’s methods of physical control resulted in physical effects on the people.
The constant fear and torture of control leads physical effects that impact the whole society of people. In all regimes, control was the number one priority. They never cared about the health of the people because they only focus on control. In 1984, Winston developed some type of skin problem because the government didn’t care that he had health issues because as long as he doesn’t commit a crime they won’t bother him. In Feed, some people developed skin lesions because of the environment that they live in. Stalin’s and Hitler’s regime basically didn’t really care at all for the people. A regular person in Germany or Russia would get a minimum amount of food which wasn’t enough to survive. Around 4.5 million people died in Russia because of starvation. Because of the physical health fatalities the population in all of the regimes decreased tremendously.
Mental problems are one of the key effects of control. The experience of being a citizen of a totalitarian society can lead to deep depression or paranoia. People like Winston are always blank and show no emotion because they have no motivation to do something with their life. He has no motivation because he has barely any freedom to do what he wants. That’s the main reason why he wanted to rebel against the party because without freedom he would carry on with his boring usual life. In Feed, the people always want to use their feed. They can’t stop using it because it’s implanted into their brain. Without the feed they won’t be able to mentally do things because they are used to relying on the Feed. Because they are constantly under control, it can affect how they interact with other people. The people mainly just care for themselves. Titus only cared for himself and didn’t care about Violet or his other friends because all he wanted to do was use his feed. “And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that I was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn’t really mean it. But that isn’t true. At the time, when it happened you do mean it. You think there’s no other way of saving yourself and you’re quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself.”-1984. In Winston’s situation, he gave up to the party and betrayed Julia to save himself from more physical pain. He wasn’t mentally strong to withstand the physical control of torture given by O’Brien. The mental effects of being under total control can affect your actions and decisions.
Propaganda is the main method of mental control. The government influenced the people’s minds to potentially prevent the people from breaking the rules. Hitler and Stalin used a variety of posters, cartoons and many other types of propaganda. The propaganda would bring fear or convince the people to do certain things. “In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would half to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy.” -1984. The governments would change what reality is and the people would go along with it or else they face consequences. They would have to believe in something that is wrong or be punished by the government. “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.” – George Orwell. They know the answer to something that is logically true but they have to say what the government wants you to say even if it doesn’t make sense to you at all. That is the experience of what an average person has to go through each day under the control of a totalitarian government. In conclusion, the system of control mentally and physically affects the people in a totalitarian society.
Emma:
Totalitarian governments have a huge impact on people’s lives and the experiences they have throughout that time. Life in a totalitarian government is not easy for mostly anyone. This is because a totalitarian government is when one single person rules the state and they have complete control. Which is clearly described in the analysis of totalitarian governments written by Hannah Arendt. That document clearly states “What emerges is a portrait of an entity that seeks to establish total control within the state, absolute control not only of the government but also of every aspect of the lives of those who reside within it.” Truly explaining that a totalitarian truly affects the society that is being ruled by this type of government because the people must follow everything that is being done, changed, etc. by the ruler.
A key fact that effects the peoples lives in a totalitarian government would be the fact the government feeds them lies and is brainwashing the society. In the case of the Nazis the army would hang around the children and they would be taught about the war etc. They had it where at a point there had been a 5th grade textbook for children that would talk about animals and how they survive in their habitats etc, etc. But then It would somehow relate it to one of Hitler’s famous quotes from his book Mein Kampf. The children being taught that what Hitler is doing is for the best and is going to better their community. There is also an area in the novel 1984, where the children are in love with Big Brother, who is the leader in this society, and will do anything to help serve him. For example, if they believe their parents have committed a crime against him, they will gladly turn them into the police and feel proud of themselves. There is also a completely different take on how brainwashing in a way would look in a totalitarian government, which is shown in the book Feed. In the story the greater amount of the population has a feed, which is like having a computer in your brain. But if you are a part of percentage that doesn’t have the feed then gets it later in life there are great chances that you will die because of the malfunctions it will go through. So this point is that in this situation if you didn’t follow the changes the government makes, you will face consequences later because you chose not to. As well as when you have had your feed for a long period of time and then suddenly lose it you feel lost in life. Shown in the excerpt of feed called “missing the feed”, the characters did not know what to do. The main character himself, Titus, was having flashbacks and memories of when the feed had came out and everyones reactions. Then simply stated how much he missed the feed. This shows how what the government has changed for the society in their everyday life’s had truly affected them.
A major action that occurs in a totalitarian government would be consequences for rebelling against the government, since there are so many rules and guidelines for the societies to follow in a totalitarian government. Many examples of this are shown throughout the Nazis and Soviets, as well as the two novels, Feed and 1984. This is shown from the Soviets because of their poor camps and working camps that they had throughout their time. People would be sent there and have to work 24/7 until eventually they would die. This caused many deaths as a consequence to being sent to the camps. As well as the fact of what happened to the people that came as a threat to Stalin or Stalin did not like. These people were shot in the back of the head and all history of them were to be erased. The document the black and white photo of Stalin and a few men shown on the top, then one person disappearing on the bottom portion of the same photo is an example of this. The example being that the man who disappears was someone who Stalin had not liked and was erased from all history. Another example of how consequences were given to people who attempted to rebel would be from George Orwell’s book 1984. The two main characters rebelled against the government by loving each other and having a passionate relationship. They had success hiding it from the government, until one day they were caught and imprisoned. They were then tortured very crucially until they gave in and did what the government had wanted them to do.
One last important effect that a totalitarian government has on the society it is ruling is that it kills the happiness from that community. In all of the situations (except for the book feed) everyone’s lives are miserable. The Nazis, Soviets, and people of 1984 are all sad and don’t enjoy life as much as they possible truly could. But instead they lived in a life of fear, not wanting to screw up because of the consequences that they could possibly face if they did. The leaders used signs and posters around their societies to show how powerful they were etc.. Lenin had his own poster of him and in the background there was this communist flag that he had created himself. His pose that Lenin was in looked very strong, but also made him look fierce and in charge. These societies all had different types of propaganda which made their totalitarian governments look like they were doing great things. One example would be a poster of a women holding her child, showing how women are in charge of creating new life. Trying to put the message across that the even though the government doesn’t treat men and women equally, it is for the best and is creating the best possible results. In thought of these three societies they all 3 had a type of secret organization that would creep around the corners and always be watching over you. These organizations were just waiting for you to make a mistake and screw up so that they could turn you in eventually. This example of fear and lack of happiness from 1984 would be how everyone was always only doing their job and the streets were dirty and run down. There was a time when the main character, Winston, was walking in the street and a building had just exploded and he found a mans hand just lying in the middle of the street.
In conclusion, totalitarian governments have a huge impact on people’s lives and the experiences they have throughout that time. It is shown throughout history as well as novels that were based off of it. All showing many different situations and experiences that are possible to happen in these types of societies.
Caelin:
What does totalitarianism mean? Well according to Britannica Encyclopedia, totalitarianism is defined as: a form of government that subordinates all aspects of its citizens’ lives to the authority of the state, with a single charismatic leader as the ultimate authority. An example of this is when Stalin, Hitler and many other leaders in communist and totalitarian societies were in power. They were abusive, controlling and manipulative. With their charismatic personalities they were able to sway millions of people into believing anything they said. They tortured or killed anyone disagreeing with them and were able to control an entire country using this method.
When, and how does a totalitarian regime rise? Totalitarian regimes come to power when a country is in bad condition, weak, poor, and desperate. An example of a communistic totalitarian regime is Russia, when Stalin came into power. Russia was in need of a great leader and the promise of a better life. The government of Russia was at a low, it lost its reputation and lost a war. People were starving, and easy to manipulate. When Stalin came and promised a better life and seeming like the leader they needed they supported him willingly. They were brainwashed by the government into believing almost everything they said and never questioned it. They wanted life to be easier, and having a government make all these incredible promises for wealth, warmth and happiness was too good to turn down. They quickly supported their leader and became afraid to question it. They witnessed mass death and starvation amongst rebels and realized going along with the government was easier than fighting it.
An example of a fascism totalitarian regime is Hitler in Germany. Germany had just lost a major war and the government was failing. Hitler was apparently good looking, charming, an amazing speaker/ persuader, and seemed like a good option at the time. He spoke of a better future and the country quickly followed him. Soon after he had gained the people’s trust he began to control and eventually take over Germany for his own, kill millions of people, and start a war. His goal was to take over other countries, which may have been part of his demise. Both communistic and fascistic totalitarian regimes rise and come to power the same way.... out of complete and utter desperation for a change.
What is the difference between the nature of the two totalitarian regimes?Fascism is a type of political government in which the state is being governed by a single political party. On the other hand Totalitarianism is a political system in which the power to make all decision of the state is in the control of an individual. Fascism employs the mass communication and media which is controlled by state to spread propaganda that works to provide favor to the ruling people of the state which allows rulers to avoid opposition from the general public. Totalitarianism political system oppresses the rights of an individual from general public through the use of power. An example of a communistic totalitarian regime is seen in Feed. In Feed the government is in control, but it has wiggled it self into power without the knowledge of the citizens. Also when Titus started to notice that the Feed is actually taking control, he didn’t care, he liked the Feed. Communistic totalitarian regimes seem to be kinder in their approach. The regime tries to get the approval of the citizens so that the regime can take over easily and with the approval of the country. Where as a fascistic totalitarian regimes are more cruel.
Fascism also refers to creation of a single party that has all power of the state. People who support such political system are of the view that a state can improve and stay strong as long as the leadership is strong and a single person is governing all the issues of the state. Such political system also has a violent approach as such political system thinks that people should be able to become violent at time and indulge in war when needed to make the nation strong enough. Fascist political system also opposes people or a group of people who oppose the decisions of state. Violence is promoted through fascists governments for the purpose of creating a powerful nation.
There is an example of the regime in 1984. The citizens aren’t aware of the fascistic government because thats all they know, but when Winston starts to notice he really hates it and starts to rebel. Fascistic regimes rule with control and, makes everyone in the country a mindless robot.
How do totalitarian regimes sustain themselves? They are able to sustain themselves and stay in political power through an all-encompassing propaganda campaign. This is controlled through the state controlled mass media. There is control over the economy and regulation and forbidden freedom of speech. Due to all the surveillance and use of terror they are able to maintain power over the people. They brain wash the people and country into believing what they are doing is the best for them. If anyone disagrees or protests in the slightest, then they are usually killed immediately and made an example of so no one else rebels. It is all about control and keeping the country from wanting to think for themselves. If they can rule with an iron fist and not allow you to hear or see anyone doing better for themselves, then the regimes will continue to sustain itself. For instance, N Korea does not allow any outside news or information including GOOGLE, to penetrate their walls. They only want their citizens to hear what THEY put out.
The fascistic regimes just use control to sustain themselves. As seen in Germany with Hitler. Millions of civilians have died at the hands of these governments, but only a small amount of brutality was necessary to retain their power. The main function of the totalitarian regimes was to change human behavior. To transform normal human beings into willing servants of their rulers. People do not normally want to change their behavior in a drastic fashion, so they have to be convinced. To make them change requires credible threats of brutal punishment, and the main way to make such threats credible is to carry them out on a massive scale. Even if people believe your threats, some will resist anyway or seem likely to resist later on. This is why so many people were killed or tortured if they did not give in, and go along with the ideas of the government. It is necessary for the state to make the citizens dependent on them for their livelihood. This will help them maintain control and keep them in power.
There are only four ways in which a ruling group can fall from power. Either it is conquered from without, or it governs so inefficiently that the masses are stirred to revolt, or it allows a strong and discontented middle group to come into being, or it loses its own self confidence and willingness to govern... a ruling class which could guard against all of them would remain in power permanently. Ultimately the determining factor is the mental attitude of the ruling class itself.
George Orwell, 1984
The problem with most of the regimes in the past was that the highest officials saw the outside world first hand and saw people were richer and happier in other countries. They lost faith in their own system. The best way to sustain a totalitarian society is to cut off contact with the non totalitarian world. The problem with cutting off contact with the outside world is they have trouble growing and their economics and military dominance eventually fails.
Totalitarianism would also be more stable than it was in the 20th century if the world were divided between a small number of totalitarian states. Orwell’s idea in 1984; Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia control the earth’s surface and wage perpetual war against one another. In a world like this, every country would be poor and miserable in a typical totalitarian society, and no one would make anyone look bad.
Experiencing a totalitarian or communistic way of life can sometimes be described or felt by children with over bearing parents. If you visit 158 Aikahi loop you can witness a lighter version of a totalitarian society. The leader of this land is known to many as the “Crusher”. He rules with an iron fist, and though we have some freedom, there is slave labor which he calls “chores”. There is a no voting policy in the Lathrop country, his word is law, not to be questioned or debated. To disobey the “laws” vary in punishments including more slave labor and having the outside world (television, phone, and internet) taken away. Sometimes solitary confinement is implemented and if you slam a door you not only lose that door for a week, you also lose any possibility of privacy. I completely understand how some people just go with it and give in. Unfortunately for me, I tend to rebel and am often found without a door, cut off from the outside world, and in my room in confinement. I think I understand how so many people just follow the leader and don’t fight for their rights. It may be the easier route, but not always the right one. And this, is how these governments sustain themselves.
Nikki:
The experiences of living in a totalitarian society are detrimental to the mind, body, and personality which forms all people to become victims of the regimes. Physical harm and death is one dreadful experience that citizens in the society face everyday. In the futuristic society of Feed, humanity is dying. The Feed community is technology based which is why humanity is dying. People are constantly becoming sick and ill but no one seems to notice. They are slowly dying. Are they blind to see that the Feed and technology are killing them? Not only is the Feed ruining the world, it also can kill people. The Feed killed Violet because she was not adapted to it at a young age. She died because the Feed took over her control after she was hacked. In this society, people also have lesions or cuts in their body because they think that it is cool. The Feed tricks them into thinking it is a trend, so they don’t mind the pain that comes with fitting in. In 1984, everyday you watch people being hung, enemies of the state, or prisoners. You see the same people everyday until one day they disappear and you know what happened. You know they were taken, tortured, and most likely dead by now. It is sad for Winston to see people and know that they will one day be taken and killed. Most people in 1984 commit suicide before they are tortured because they cant stand the pain. When Winston was caught, he was was hoping that someone would sneak a razor in so that he could kill himself. It could be in the middle of the night when they grab you and take you away. In Russia, there is extreme poverty, people dying from starvation. Children had inflamed and swollen stomachs caused by starving. Teachers, politics, anyone with a connection to Stalins ruling, all died. People would work at camps and freeze to death or starve to death after working for hours in the cold then only receiving a small piece of bread. In Germany people were also tortured and killed. They were brought into concentration camps in which many did not survive much like Stalin’s camp. Any enemy to Hitler was killed. Anyone who was suspicious or spoke something hateful to the Nazis would disappear and be gone the next day. Hitler hated Communist which meant that those who were Communist must die. Most Communist were Jewish which caused a hate for the Jewish in Germany. He started to kill one jewish after another. Physical harm and death is sadly only one component to living in a totalitarian society.
What gets people the most is the mental struggle and harm that these societies have. In Feed, nobody knows that the Feed is harming them but yet they see people in riots for reasons that no one knows. As the excerpt from Feed shows, people need the Feed because it becomes apart of them. You are mentally adapted to seeing ads and products. When you are without the Feed like Titus after getting hacked, you realize how strange your life is when you get it back. Violet helped Titus realize that the Feed is harming them. If you wish to escape the Feed, you can’t. In 1984, you are mentally always under pressure. You know that you are constantly being watched and studied. You can’t make any emotion or noise without being worried that you will be caught. Imagine living in a world pretending to be someone who you are not for the rest of your life. You also see that history is changing but yet you can’t do anything about. Everything that you had once believed in is gone. The excerpt from 1984, shows that everyone must love Big Brother. To the people in Oceania, it is better to love Big Brother than to see reality. The more you know, the more dangerous you are to those in control. People in Russia either trust Stalin or don’t. In the Hymn to Stalin, the author loves Stalin, most likely because he does not see what he is doing behind the scenes. Some people don’t know that Stalin is killing people because he covers up his traces. Such as the picture of Stalin and a man who was shot. Stalin would edit pictures of people to change the past and to coverup deaths. People would often ask for help from Stalin and did not know that Stalin was the one who was ruining their lives. In Germany, you must not be an enemy, you must do everything because you love Hitler and the Nazis. Living in this society you are constantly scared and careful about every little thing that you say. The citizens are also brainwashed by propaganda in who they must think is the enemy. The posters tell a story and what the story tells, is who the enemy is which directs someones mind with hatred towards the enemy.
Most of the people in these regimes lose their individuality. In Feed, trends are always changing and people always want to fit in. People are afraid to talk and show emotions, instead they use the Feed to communicate. For example, Violet would try to talk to Titus many times but Titus was scared to show his emotion. He would send messages to her instead. They all have a general vocabulary that they use such as meg or unit. They don’t have much emotion or feeling. Titus would delete all of Violets memories because he didn’t really care. He only realized at the very end what he had done, but it was to late. In 1984, Newspeak allows only certain words to show less emotion much like in Feed. Instead of using words such as bad you would use words like ungood. Everyday is a rerun and you must not do anything but to hate the enemy and love Big Brother. Sadly, you must not have any love either. To love is to rebel in Oceania and that it one thing that is hard to control. In Russia, there is Capitalism. Everyone must work to help with Stalin’s five-year plans. Stalin did not take complaints, he did not care about what he did. You must love Stalin. Those who try to help or stand out will die because they are “not trustworthy”.This is very similar to Hitler as Hannah Arendts theory pointed out. Everyone in the state loses their identities and become one. The Nazis also killed many people like Stalin. Women were used to reproduce for new generations of Nazi soldiers. Mutter and Kind showed a picture of a women breastfeeding a baby. This poster was used in propaganda for the women. Everyone was a German Nazi and did their part to help Hitler. In the end, you must also love Hitler and no one else. All these societies have similarities. They all show that those who understand what is happening will die. Those who are blinded will survive. Totalitarian societies create suffering for all who see reality.
Josh:
In a totalitarian society people are being brainwashed, how people got physical punishment, and how even normal people who live none rebellious lives still lose freedom, choice and opinion. All these will be compared from Stalin Russia, Nazi Germany, 1984 and Feed all of those topics have totalitarian regimes in them. The questions I will have to answer are what are the experiences of living in a totalitarian society? What are the effects on people? Include material from our fiction as well as history studies. People who live in totalitarian societies have their freedom, choice and opinion taken through brainwashing, physical control and torture.
In totalitarian regime you have to have control of people and you do this by brain washing people. In Nazi Germany they brainwash kids from a young age by putting Nazi officer's into the school system so that they can control what they think. They put it in there text book to control what they read and learn as well from Biology for the Middle School For 5th Grade Girls, Germany, 1942 (excerpt). In Stalin Russia and Nazi Germany they have camps for kids its so that young kids learn good health habits at a young age, and it is to control their thoughts and make sure they worship Hitler and Stalin. In Feed they had the Feed to control what people did and the different trends. They were unknowingly being controlled by the Feed. In 1984 you had to love Big Brother if you didn't you were turned in. In 1984, Nazi Germany and Stalin Russia there was secret police watching you every move. (Refers to 1984) In these societies since the kids were raised and brainwashed they would turn in family and people that they knew. In all of these societies they used propaganda to plant ideas into the citizens head. In Nazi Germany Stalin and Russia they used kids on the poster to make it look like they were better people and that there first need were making sure the families were flourishing. (Mutter and kind). In these societies they were being controlled to love the surrounding and the people in charge. People couldn't say anything about what they actually thought about the because if you said something someone might turn you in. This is where people lose there opinion. The people made it so they were wanted by the people so the people praised them, so people wanted them in there presence(hymn to stalin). In both Nazi Germany and Stalin Russia they made look like there were a group of people in charge put actually there was just an overall leader like Stalin and HItler. ( Picture of stalin standing)
In these societies to make sure that you were task and obeyed the rules at all times they had camps and room 101 these were a constant lingering thought that would make you second guess your acts, because you know if you got caught you would be so miserable and the conditions were so terrible. In the camps you had to work with such rigorous conditions. In Russia the weather was extremely bad, and in Germany and Russia they would hardly feed you and the work load was so much. In 1984 they had room 101 this was a room that terrified the citizens no one knew what went on in it but when you came out of the room you were never the same again. In room 101 they tortured you to get information out of you, after they got what they wanted you were so emotionally broken down that you were just a walking body so out of it just walking around soulless and worshiping big brother. In Feed they didn't have a torture place were you went to. I feel like the everyday torture of the lesions were so bad and unbearable even though the people in Feed didn't know what was really up behind closed doors. (Refers to Feed) The feed was actually deteriorating there body. The companies were smart and they told people on the feed that they were cool, they look sexy on people and to look at the lesion as a positive day to day thing. In these societies they used physical torture as a controlling aspect so people do what they are told and they listen and are scared to rebel.
In totalitarian regimes there are people who live a quiet rebellious life who do what they are told and stay down low. In a totalitarian society you can't stay away from losing your opinion, choice and freedom. In 1984 you had your same routine that you had everyday no variety. In all societies they were so used to getting hammered by one idea, and having that same idea implanted into there head. The idea is you must follow orders you must love the one leader and if you didn't something bad would happen. In all of these societies you couldn't speak up for yourself and you couldn't have an opinion of something because the government wanted you so under control. In 1984 they had newspeak it limited your vocabulary so you couldn't express yourself the way you wanted to. This also happened in Feed where they couldn't really express themselves with the words they had like meg and unit. The vocabulary that you had was made by the government and they used it so people had no ways of expressing their real thoughts. No one knew about this because it was planted in the brains of the people that this language was correct, and by using this language they were able to express themselves even less and less. What the government did was to control everyone so they could have total control and they didn't just aim for the rebellious people.
We can come away with that they were three main vocal points of a totalitarian regime. They were brainwashed you so that you so they could have total control and they could plant ideas into your head when ever and they would stick. They used propaganda to help brainwash people it was an easy way to plant idea into your head about people with out you even knowing. Another vocal point was they used physical harm to make you scared and to have that lingering idea in your head that if you do something against a powerful person you will be tortured or sent to a camp which in my view is just as worse. The last vocal point is that the ideas and controlling aspects of this society go to everyone even the people that follow the rule and don't do anything bad. Through these aspect people are having a miserable life a life controlled by the government. People in these societies lose their opinion, freedom and choice from the constant control of the government.
Sean:
Living in a totalitarian society means that the high power has total control over you. You have to follow strict rules made by the government or else you will be punished. The government is constantly watching you so you have to watch what you do and say. If you do anything wrong you will be severely punished and even killed. The government controls you by making you follow strict rules or else be severely punished, changing basic information, and constantly watching the community. 1984, Feed, Hitler, and Stalin all have similar methods to controlling the community. This will only end in one of two ways: loving the high power, or hating it. There are many good and bad outcomes of living in this society.
There are different ways to gaining total control over the society, but they all are similar one way or another. In 1984, they constantly change basic information like who they're at war with. They are constantly watching them using telescreens and always listening to them. In feed they control their thoughts using the feed. In Germany, everyone who didn't know about what hitler did to people who spoke badly about him and Germany loved hitler. If you said something bad about Germany then you would be heard or told on and your punishment would be chosen depending on how bad the crime was that you committed. In Russia, Stalin would kill anyone who he thought could beat him. If he felt threatened by you, you'd be killed. If you commit a crime you will be sent to a camp and work until you die. In all of these societies, you are being watched or listened to, and if you are caught saying bad things about the government or high power, you will be punished severely and might even get killed. In all of these society's children get brainwashed. Each generation is more brain washed then the last. In 1984, the children believe the lies that the government is telling them so they become more willing to do what the government says. In Germany and Russia, they gave 5th graders textbooks that tell them how they should live. It tells them how other animals live and indirectly tells them that that's how they are suppose to live. In feed they always get their feeds early in their lives. They get it so early that their body relays on it to live. Everyone's brain can't function on its own without its feed because they get it so early. But there are some good things that come with totalitarianism. In Germany, Hitler brought unemployment to zero. There was no unemployment in Germany. Even though some of the jobs were really bad and had bad pay, they were still getting paid. It's better than not getting paid at all. All of these ways to control the society works but have a few problems. Some people will hate it and want to rebel. They could succeed.
Totalitarianism really affects the people who live in a society that uses that type of government. The citizens will either love the government, or hate it and want to rebel. In Germany, hitler has made everyone love him. He got all of Germany's land back that they lost, eliminated all unemployment, and improved the economy. Little did anyone know, he had people always listening on what you say or do. If you made one little bad remark about hitler or Germany's government, you will be punished. In a video about Germany, a couple were working in a shop and the wife teases Germany's economy in a playful way and she ends up having to go back to school for four years. In feed, everyone loved the feed. They relied on it and they could live life with it. They had fun, they went to parties, they had all the information they need in the feed. They didn't know that they were being controlled and watched constantly. They're being controlled to buy things to help make the economy better. They're thought are being recorded and they're dreams are being watched. Nothing that they know or think is private. They don't know the truth about the feed. They don't know the full story. In 1984, everyone knows that they are being watched and listened to. Everyone knew that they had to watch what they say, do, and think. They are under strict rules made by the government like all the other societies, but the difference is that they know that they are constantly being watched. Everyone in that society is paranoid and/or going crazy. They are also being lied to. The government tells them that they are at war with Oceania and allies with Eurasia, but the truth is, they're not at war with anyone. They are forced to exercise every morning to stay fit. The government tells them that it's to be ready if they have to go in the war, but it's just to control them more. They are always changing information. Four years before, they were allies with Oceania and at war with Eurasia. The citizens knew that the information was switched but they're not 100% sure. All these things are causing them to stress and they're brains won't be able to handle all that information and thinking. Winston wanted to rebel. He did and got caught. He barely rebelled. All Winston did was have sex with Julia. Julia is a girl he met and they are rebelling together. He was committing a thought crime. He use to feel miserable. He use to hate his life. When he met Julia, he started rebelling and he became happy. He he feels good. His stress is gone. He should've taken more risks. He didn't make much of a difference in the government, he just made himself happy. If he affected the government he would get killed if he got caught, but more people would start rebelling. He ended up loving the government because he finally understood what they were doing.
You are always being controlled by the government. You will either be affected really well or really bad because of the government. You either love it or rebel against it. You can get good benefits from the government but you can get hurt badly by it. Totalitarianism controls you too much, you should be able to be free, in a set of rules.
Blaine:
A totalarlism government is not a good government for the people under the government. It affects the people physically and mentally. Most of the people don't no what there doing themselves and they don't no what's going on outside of the government. People under the totalarlism government are really hurt and really have no idea what is going on. They are hurt physically and mentally.
In a totalitarian government, people have no idea what is going on. People read papers full of lies. They have no idea what is going on in the outside world. In Germany hitler would made up his own education. He changed facts in the books to what he wants and what he wants the kids in Germany to learn. He changed it because they are the future and he needs them. Hitler didn't care so much for the older people because he knew that the younger people were gonna be the people who would lead him to take over the whole world. At the time, hitler was on the top so he basically could do anything. If you went against hitler, your a dead man so every just had to listen. Some people didn't even no what was going on. In feed, they have a feed. It controls how they think. People no about the feed but they don't no what it is doing to them. The excerpt from feed showed that you need the feed. You need it to survive because everyone else has it. In 1984, they have 1 leader named big brother. He controls the people. He wants everyone in the society to love big brother. He has rules and he has police to make sure people follow the rules. Stalin used propaganda to make himself use good. He also made friends with the government. Once Lenin went down, he stepped in. Once he was in power, everyone listened to him. People didn't really no Stalin was hurting people because he used to cover up his tracks. People loved stalin and trusted him. For example, in the picture, it had Stalin walking with a guy on his right. I didn't no the guys name but he was later killed and Stalin covered his tracks and erased him from the picture.
They also hurt people physically. Although in feed they didn't really hurt anyone accept the feed killed violet. In 1984, they would torture people who rebelled against the government. The government didn't want anyone to rebel and find out the truth of everything. In 1984, they were basically hiding everything. they were hiding who they were having war with. The people thought they were at peace but in reality they weren't. They didn't want anyone to no because they new people were going to rebel against them. Thats why when someone had some idea whats really going on, they torture them. Thats what winston had to go through. In germany, they would send people to camps and most of the people wouldn't survive. They would either die from starvation or they would just kill them Hitler also killed all the Jews. Anyone that hitler didn't like he would kill. If you are anti Nazi, than he would kill you. You must love nazi and for it no matter what or else you won't live. In Russia, they send people to camps and make them work in really cold weather. They keep working until they eventually die. They didn't really get fed any food so a lot of people died from starvation.
From all 4 examples, people were not normal. In a toltaliatarian government, the rulers make the people not normal. In 1984, people must love big brother. If you ever tried to rebel, you will end up getting tortured and killed. They had the thought police so a lot of people didn't rebel. Most of the people has no idea what was going on. In feed, they were controlled by a feed so really no one was normal. They new about the feed but they didn't no what it was doing to them. Hitler made everyone believe in the nazi government. You basically had no choice. It's really sad because none of these people had no choice but to listen to the leaders. It changed people's whole personalities. People are scared of saying anything because if they do, they will get tortured and killed. In Russia you must love Stalin. He changed the people because it change there personality on how they act and who they had to like. You had to work for Stalin and had to love him. Overall, all 4 leaders or governments changed how the people acted and there personalities. Toltaliatarism is not nice to the people at all.
In conclusion, a totalitarian government is bad for the people. It hurts people in every way. Especially physically, mentally, and there personalities. Leaders were really mean and they got what ever they wanted. People didn't no what to think. There personalities were lost. People were tortured and hurt. A lot of people committed suicide because they were so miserable. The 2 books we read and hitler and Stalin are both pretty similar on how they treat people. It affected people throughout there lives!
Kai:
"What is of prime importance is the state itself. The state is above the individual, and both the individual and the party exist for the state. The state itself is the cause, the cause to which all belong and in which all submerge their individual identities and become one."-Hannah Arendt. Hannah Arendt's assessment and belief that ideology is, in fact, secondary to a supreme goal of solid power is correct as Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia's past and tyrant leaders support this. In the two books 1984, and Feed, although they differ in many ways, have a supreme power expressed in the book just like the Nazis and the Soviets. Even though both books have been written many years apart, from different people, in different eras, they are more similar than you would think. This power mentioned in both history and fiction has erased people from record books, tortured people into compliance, created camps, forced work upon enemies, and ultimately made an ignorant empire for their rulers to control with ease. Which is relative to the document, "Excerpt from Feed." This document shows that some people in Feed, although they are enlightened and knowing on somethings, don't care about it and everyone else is just ignorant, stupid or dead. Although many of these things may sound outrageous and far from true, they are so close to the historical truth that these stories of control and misery were actually based on and came directly from the past of two nations; Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.
Before becoming global pests, the two "soon to be rulers", Hitler and Stalin, didn't make such a smooth rise into power either. While growing up they were both delinquents and thugs. They fought with their teachers and parents and they never respected authority. Later in his life Stalin became a huge loyal supporter of Lenin's (The ruler of Russia at the time) and was appointed commissar of nationalities. Stalin then used this position to appoint his loyal comrades into higher positions. He was then named General Party Sec'y in 1922, pretty much because of his comrades manipulation. Lenin slowly became ill and was slowly dying. While he was dying two people were jockeying for power, Trotsky and Stalin. When people where voting, Stalin had his men force people to vote for him. Stalin also used the current times to gain more power. Because Stalin was in the communist state of Russia he promised and worked on propaganda that was focused on industrialization and collectivization, tried to make everyone equal, expanding communism to other countries, and he used Lenin's name to say he was doing what Lenin would have done or what he couldn't do or wanted to. Then, when Lenin dies on the 4th of January 1924, despite opposition, Stalin was announced the ruler.
Like I said before Hitler was also brought up in a cruel world just as Stalin was and their rise to power was somewhat similar. Hitler fought in WW1 for Germany. When the war was finished he had joined the "German Workers Party". The German workers party eventually evolved into the nazi party. And in 1921 he became the leader of said party. He used the times of Germany to gain power, like in document C. This shows how after the war Germany had lost a lot, they were quiet weak and people were very sad. Hitler used this sadness to make promises and speeches like that he would get back all that Germany had lost, he would raise Germany back up, and that we can get Germany back to it's former strong, militarily united nation. In 1923 he attempted to take over the government of Germany through violence in the "Munich Beer Hall Putsch." This failed and Hitler was arrested. While in jail Hitler wrote the famous Mein Kampf (My Struggle). He was released in 1924 and immediately gained popularity through his public speaking skills, promoting German nationalism, anti communism and anti semitism. In 1933 he was appointed chancellor, because of the governments fear of him. He completely transformed the political landscape from the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, which was basically a single party dictatorship. After losing the next election, he found a way to get Hindenburg to give him full power for four years. While in this time he took complete control and ultimately totalitarianism was formed in Germany.
Now after both rulers got high enough in power they started taking out their competition. Killing opposing leaders, sending possible or potential traitors off to work camps and more. They would order their men to go, find, and kill a man because he was against the rulers belief. This shows that Hannah was right when she said rulers will do anything to gain or remain in power.
Both rulers had four goals when in power, militarizing society, targeting enemies, media control and remaining in power. Both rulers were also similar in the way that they both created their empire from a democracy. Hitler took any opportunity he could to blame communists, jews or any enemies he had, for uncommitted and/or committed crimes. On the 27th of February 1933 the Reich Stag was set fire to. Hitler and Goring blamed the communist and urged Hindenburg to issue the Reich Stag Fire Decree, which basically suspended basic rights and allowed imprisonment without trial. The communist party was crushed and Hitler and the Nazi party continued to promote anti communist propaganda. This propaganda was a form of media control and this persuaded society in any ways Hitler wanted. Stalin also carried out this type of propaganda and media control. This is shown in Document B, which is a piece of propaganda making the character look heroic, which is the goal. The big media control they both did though was, they controlled every single thing that came out of the media. They made sure everything going in or out was good Hitler, or good Stalin, BAD everyone else. This is shown in Document E. This is an artifact showing that because someone did something against the views of the state, Stalin eliminated him from the media and the past. Hitler also targeted enemies further by completely disarming and getting rid of the communist party and also any other parties against the Nazis. Hitler did all this just to gain and remain in power, which supports Ms Arendt. Both Hitler and Stalin militarized society by giving people weaponry, making the army a community thing and sending people to camps or to work to get fit for the war. Stalin made advantageous alliances with people and also discredited his rivals to gain control. He was a back stabber. He would be nice to peoples face and then go and talk bad about them or make them seem foolish for his benefit. This gave people the feeling he was a nice guy when really he was evil. By 1929 Stalin was the undisputed leader of the USSR. Then the Great Terror began. Stalin became extremely paranoid and always wanted to strengthen his hold on power. So he began to demand that any critics be arrested and executed.
It truly doesn't matter whatever the political philosophy—and political philosophies differed greatly between Nazism and Communism—no deviance in thought or action was permitted. What was the real fact is that methodology is the big deal. Both Hitler and Stalin had goals of controlling every aspect of life, and to gain and remain in control. Which is the main point of totalitarianism. Hannah Arendt and document A explain that even though they both hated each other on political views or philosophies, their main goals or method of totalitarian regimes caused them to come together. This idea is shown and explained through the Molotov-Ribbontrop Pact. This act shows that although Hitler and Stalin were enemies, they came together because they had a common goal. To gain power and take out a country. Which also relates to the countries in 1984! Eastasia, Eurasia, and Oceania would all have had to have the same method and goal of a totalitarian regime to make the world work in this manner. They would all be connected in someway to control the world. Which supports the point that the main goal, drive, and platform for a totalitarian world or regime is to gain and stay in power. And as I said before; to a totalitarian regime, ideology is secondary. "What is of prime importance is the state itself. The state is above the individual, and both the individual and the party exist for the state.The state itself is the cause, the cause to which all belong and in which all submerge their individual identities and become one."-Hannah Arendt
Aly (late):Totalitarian societies effects every person who lives in it and effects there way of life. The citizens were corrupted with torture, death, and disappearances. In these society’s they faced many terrible events which affected everyone’s life who was involved with this society. In “1984” the citizens were faced with torture, disappearing of there friends and family, and having no freedom what so ever. In “Feed” they are corrupted with death. The citizens realize that the feed is taking over the bodies of the people. For the two countries that face this problem they also make drastic measures to make the lives of there citizens terrifying and a terrible place to live in. Russia faces a large threat with poverty and lack of resources. Germany tried killing off an entire race which were the Jews. These two countries show that dictatorships affect everyone who is surrounded with them. This makes things difficult for people who actually want to live and be able to sustain off of materials and have essential items for life.
In the book of “1984” everyone feels like there is no good to there lives. They feel as if they were worth nothing and have no feelings towards anyone but there leader. The people of this society are so depressed most of them don’t even reach the point of torture because they have already committed suicide. In the book “feed” technology is killing all living humans. The feed is taking over there world and making it a terrible place to be. The feed is very tricky and smart. It is very persuading in its trends they make and what they make what is cool or not. People in this society think that having cuts on them is a trend, so many people don’t mind strutting around its scars and cuts all over them. The Russians are a different story. They live in extreme poverty and sadness. The way the soviets placed themselves in the scale of hard workingness, is very sickening. The Russians had to slave away everyday just because the government wanted modern technology and be more technologically advanced than other countries. These poor people were placed in to camps just because it was “cheaper” for the government. For the Germans, there life was also a struggle to alive. They are threatened with torture and death like the other totalitarian countries and stories. They were also known for making people disappear from the world. It is very peculiar that the book “1984” is so similar to the reality of the old Germany. They both would erase people from there world.
While living in this totalitarian society, people often had lost hope and there sense of freedom. The citizens of these countries and books
did not know exactly first hand that something was affecting them and that was affecting there personalities and emotions. For example in the book “1984” many of the citizens were he oblivious that anything bad was happening around them because that was there normal. They would figure that everything was ok because nothing new has been brought up. They had no way of expressing themselves and would neverspeak up if annoying was wrong. In Germany or Russia if you did notagree with the leader you would most likely be out to death or tortured. In Germany women were downgraded to being thought of as only “baby makers.” Women were very degraded and had little rights. This relates to the photo which is called “Mutter und kind.” These regimes make there citizens feel very suffocated and feel like there’s no way things could get any better. Which, is what the initial plan was for these dictators and leaders. These citizens get put in risky situations in everything that they do. If they are not too careful they maybe put in to danger and disappear. In these societies people can never be to careful about what they say and do. If they are caught in an act that is not ok by the government, they would be put to death and erased completely from history. In Stalins time he would cover up any trace of that person exsisting at all. The picture that was shown to us had two pictures. The top photo had Stalin and a man standing together looking very friendly. The bottom picture had only Stalin in it, as if that man had erased from thin air. Eventually everyone came to know that Stalin or one of his spies shot this man. These people have no freedom to do what they want at all. It is a shame that these people had to live in this type of enviroment. Totalatarian societies makes it difficult for all citizens to live and thrive.
Totalitarian governments rise into power through only one way: democratic processes. For whatever reason, these governments are only coming not power when they are put into power by the people. When they do this, the governments last for an extremely long time, until the people in power either die, someone new is put into powers or outside forces knock out the people in the power. Then you have how these governments will sustain themselves. They exploit people, resources and anything else to make sure they stay in power. Yet people will still love the rulers of these societies. The people is what will keep these oppressive people in power, no one else. The way that these powers make the people love them is the entire reason that they stay in power. Their rise to power is just a set up. A set up for them to hold power for years to come.
To rise into power, the governments will generally use two methods: propaganda and physical power. Propaganda is an extremely useful tool. When it's plastered everywhere, you're bombarded by it constantly. It's always in your head and will convince you things that you maybe didn't believe before. Two good example of this would be documents B and F. Document B is a poster of Lenin, looking like a superhero. Although I cannot read the words, it is obvious that it is promoting the communist revolution and making people think of Lenin as larger than life. From this picture you get ideas that Lenin is the person who is going to save you. He looks awesome and you get this feeling of overwhelming prowess from him. The imagery they've used is powerful and will influence your emotions over time. Document F is a poster from Nazi Germany. It translates to "mother and child". It was trying to tell people that they thought that the most important thing was the mother and child. The farmland in the background also shows that they were trying to promote the hard labor that they wanted people to do. Just by looking at this, you get a sense of serenity. Propaganda is masterful in the use of imagery and the message it communicates. Definitely a powerful tool in the box of tricks that dictators have. Within 1984, propaganda is something that is used extensively. They have Big Brother as the person for them to love, and then the other two countries for them to hate. Big Brother was a constant factor in their life as the protector. In turn, all that the Party asked for was their complete and utter devotion. Within Feed, it isn't as obvious, however it is the main form of control. The propaganda that they used was, and was delivered by, the Feed. The Feed was a tool that everyone loved and enjoyed. Everyone wanted one, and felt empty without one. Then, the Feed was used to deliver ads. the ads made people want to buy things, and this was their form of control. Propaganda is definitely a powerful thing for rising to power, but as we know, there are many other things that they did to unsure their rise to power held.
Another form of control that was used was the physical punishment and death sentences. The main examples of this would be the torture, prison and concentration camps and death squads. In all of the societies, you'd only get these punishments if the government decided that you were a threat, or a potential threat. The torture was evident within 1984. They'd bring you into the Ministry of Love and then torture you until you loved Big Brother. Afterwards, maybe a year, a day, a week or any amount of time, they would kill you. The reason that they did this was expressed as "because we can". I believe that the real reason this was done was in order to influence people even more. No one wants to go into the Ministry of Love. And when the people come out of there looking like death, that reinforces it even more. Stalin had something similar going on within Russia. He'd take people and send them to labor camps. There, most people would die of starvation, and the few that survived would work there for years before they were allowed back into society. Stalin and the Party and the most torture within their societies, while Nazi Germany held more of "Kill them all!" approach. If someone was guilty of plotting against the state, or being "rebellious" then they'd either be killed by a death squad, or sent off to concentration camps and would die there slowly, or quickly depending on the wardens. Oddly enough, Feed didn't have any physical punishments. The only example would be Violet, and the damage to her Feed was caused by the hacker on the moon. When she started to rebel and they couldn't get a reading on what things she liked, then they simply refused to fund her for research and medical expenses. Granted, it killed her, but the root of her punishment was caused by someone outside of the government. All of these governments generally had a way of killing off the people that were a threat to them, but generally wanted to have the population be more stable. They contradicted themselves, however their methods ensured that they would rise and stay in power.
Once these governments were in power, they had ways of ensuring that they'd be able to stay there. There are two main methods of doing this: changing history and mass brainwashing. Oddly enough, this was split between societies. The two societies that we looked at that would manipulate history are the U.S.S.R. and 1984, while Feed and the Third Reich would brainwash the societies. Evidence of Stalin changing history is evident in many of the documents people would simply disappear from the government and population. One such example is Document E, showing one of Stalin's party members being edited out of a picture. Presumably, Stalin was convinced that this man was plotting against him, and had him killed and then erased him from textbooks, newspapers, pictures, everything. 1984 would do this, quite obviously. Winston had a job in manipulating history, evident in the excerpt from 1984. This excerpt is talking about how Winston would get orders to edit newspaper articles, and he'd comply by creating a new article. They'd do this masterfully, making sure that they would replace all newspapers and other things by having people edit them, and then replace them. The complex manipulation of these things morphed the societies into ones which were ideal for the dictators. This changing of history, made people forget that certain things have ever happened. And when the only history you can trust is your memory, than who can you trust?
As I've said, Feed and Nazi Germany had a different idea. Feed managed to brainwash everyone by using the Feed as a powerful tool. People would simply become addicted to the Feed, and would base their entire lives around it. They'd slowly dive themselves deeper and deeper into them until they didn't know how to function without them. The excerpt from Feed shows this. The excerpt is them in the hospital, after they turn off their Feeds. Titus is talking about how utterly bored he is, saying that everything sucks without the Feed. No one is quite clear on what is happening in the outside world because all other technology has simply been combined into the Feed. No one can live without the Feed and bases their entire life on the Feed. They feel empty without it, and don't know how to live their lives without being dependent on the Feed. Hitler pulled this off in a different way. He was gifted with the power of speech. He knew how to whip people up into a frenzy and have them love him and agree with him simply by talking. By using this powerful gift, he got people to agree with him, and in turn work for him, practically free of charge. The other way he did this was through influencing the young. He would do this in schools, such as in the biology textbook. The book talked about how people should be able and willing to sacrifice themselves for the government. He convinced people like this at an early age so they would grow up believing these things. Once a child believes something, they will convince themselves that for the rest of their lives until they have very convincing evidence that it is untrue. This method of control was just as effective as modifying history, and all other forms of control that were used. The governments were powerful and effective with their use of propaganda, punishment and control, to the point that it is undisputed that these were powerful nations and governments.
The totalitarian society is one that is quite simple: the person or thing in power is loved, and the people are a just a gray mass. These societies are only given power one way: the people. They convince the people that they are what they need, and thus enter into power. When they control that power, they are unstoppable. It takes years and years for any one of these governments to be knocked out of power. These governments control and manage their resources and people extensively. Not one detail slips past them. Their prowess of control is well managed and disciplined. The governments are powerful and rise for good, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Kris MLiving in a totalitarian society brings down the hope and life of a citizen. Totalitarian means that the government has complete power over its country. Totalitarianism is founded by a man named Karl Marx. A totalitarian society controls not only the rules you follow, but also how you think. A large continent living by this is Europe. Europe has been ruled by many people that follow out this type of control. Stalin and Hitler were two of the main men to cause many deaths and was good at changing someones personal view of everything. Two similar examples of ruling come from recent books that I have read; 1984 and Feed. The book 1984 by George Orwell, is powered as well by a government. In Feed people are being controlled through their mind.
Hitler was a man that made use of his resources. He used posters, children, speeches, metaphors, etc to get him up to power. For example, when Hitler used a little girl as his advertisement, he ended up killing bother of her parents. In 1934 it was called the "Night of the Long Knives," when Hitler had used two men named Himmler and Heydrich to help get rid of any threats towards him. Hitler brainwashed children and taught them ways in order for them to worship him. In articles written it said how families or parents favored him and how they wanted their children to do the same. When Hitler had goals, you would be part of the scheme. One of Hitlers big goals was to make Germany independent. His solution was to start invading other countries using his army. As others started to find out what he was doing they let him have some slack and get away with it again and again. Sometimes Hitler pushed things too far. For example, if Hitler were to go beyond his boundaries, countries in Europe would start another war. (Doc C) When Hitler invaded other countries that spoke German in some areas, he wanted to protect the German race. To protect his people he came up with a law called the "Nuremberg Law." This law prevented Jews from having any opportunities. Jews were not allowed to marry Germans or own a business, and if they disobeyed this law they would be shot in the head.
Before Stalin was the leader of the USSR, Lenin was in charge. Lenin was the one known to be the man with the power, (Vladimir Illyich Lenin, Doc B) while Stalin was just your average human being. After Lenin's death, Stalin stepped up the plate and decided that he would be in control. He as well used posters with him and children to advertise himself as a likable ruler. This quote shows how Stalin had hypnotized people into loving him, "And when the woman I love presents me with a child the first word it shall utter will be : Stalin." (Hymn to Stalin) Stalin wanted everyone contribute one way or another to the whole. (Biology for the Middle School) When Germany was invading parts of Europe, Stalin needed allies in order for him to maintain his country. Until 1939, the signing of Molotov. It had said that Germany and the USSR will not go to war for ten years. There was a twist to this though, a secret that not many knew of; if the USSR invades Poland no one shall stand in their way. On September 1 Poland was invaded. Stalin killed many Jews, including teachers, doctors and the wealthy. He had anyone killed, if he thought that they were a threat to him. For example, Stalin had a friend that had helped him all throughout his journey. This comrade's life was taken because Stalin had feared that he was interfering with his ideas and Stalin disagreed to whatever he had said. This situation is represented through a picture, with his comrade smiling and standing right next to Stalin. Then, in the next picture Stalin is still there, but the man next to him is no more. (Doc E)
A totalitarian society has not only occurred in the past, but as well as in books. In 1984 life in Oceania is the same type of society in Germany. People of Oceania are not only band from having thought, but at the same time their ruler, Big Brother is watching everything that they do. Telescreens are placed everywhere trying to catch every mistake you make, to have a reason to turn you in. Children are trained to spy on their own parents and turn them in as well if they see anything suspicious. There is only a few ways to rebel and that is to love one another or have thoughts. Winston and Julia have been seeing each other constantly and soon had to pay for their actions. Winston and Julia were sent to the ministry of love, where they were beaten until the government received the answer they wanted. (George Orwell) In the book Feed it is a different way of controlling your life. In this case people are able to feel love, party, etc. They are being watched over by a device implanted into their heads. The feed manages what you purchase, your interests, and gives you the answer to all your questions right at you finger tips. People in this society learn to love the feed, they depend on the feed, they cannot live without it. (Excerpt from Feed)
In my opinion I find Hitler and Stalin to be very similar. Both of these rulers have invaded other countries to increase in numbers. They both, got rid of anyone who was a threat to them. Hitler and Stalin hated people who disobeyed their laws and made them suffer the consequences. Many Jews had suffered because they were not allowed to marry a German, their property was destroyed and many had lost loved one. All that Hitler and Stalin wanted was to protect their people and stay in power. One thing that everyone knew was even though they both signed the Molotov and agreed there will be no war for 10 years, the relationship between them will not last forever. Feed and 1984 keep both of their societies under control, just in different ways. In 1984 they are being watched by Big Brother through the telescreen and suffering due to not having freedom. Feed has people watching everything you purchase, everything you chat and everything that you are using it for. In a totalitarian society, there are many ways citizens can be controlled. No matter what happens, there is no way out to have freedom.
Marshall:
A life in a totalitarian society involves being in total control over the people by the government or party. Citizens are being constantly watched by the government knowing that any negative emotion or threat to the party can result in deadly consequences. The government controls the people with physical and mental methods that lead to physical and mental effects. Hitler and Stalin’s regime and also 1984 and Feed all have similar characteristics of those methods and effects of totalitarianism. The documents that I observed contain information about individual citizen’s experience under the control of the government. The effects of being in this type of environment can change their mentality into loving the government or intentions to rebel against the government.
All governments in a totalitarian society have the same goal of absolute control. The government use physical punishment control to the people. In 1984, Winston was controlled by tele screens and propaganda. The tele screens are a type of surveillance that were used to observe the actions that the people did to see if they break any of the rules such as thought crime. Propaganda was posted everywhere around the society to influence fear and paranoia into the people. “The great purges involving thousands of people, with public trials of traitors and thought-criminals who made abject confessions of their crimes and were afterwards executed, were special show- pieces not occurring oftener than once in a couple of years.” – Excerpt from 1984, by George Orwell. Torture impacted the people physically and mentally. As seen in 1984, physical pain can change their mental attitude towards the government into loving the party or to never commit a crime again. After they were tortured in 1984 or sent to work camps in Hitler and Stalin regime, they were killed or forced to live a life of fear and regret. The government’s methods of physical control resulted in physical effects on the people.
The constant fear and torture of control leads physical effects that impact the whole society of people. In all regimes, control was the number one priority. They never cared about the health of the people because they only focus on control. In 1984, Winston developed some type of skin problem because the government didn’t care that he had health issues because as long as he doesn’t commit a crime they won’t bother him. In Feed, some people developed skin lesions because of the environment that they live in. Stalin’s and Hitler’s regime basically didn’t really care at all for the people. A regular person in Germany or Russia would get a minimum amount of food which wasn’t enough to survive. Around 4.5 million people died in Russia because of starvation. Because of the physical health fatalities the population in all of the regimes decreased tremendously.
Mental problems are one of the key effects of control. The experience of being a citizen of a totalitarian society can lead to deep depression or paranoia. People like Winston are always blank and show no emotion because they have no motivation to do something with their life. He has no motivation because he has barely any freedom to do what he wants. That’s the main reason why he wanted to rebel against the party because without freedom he would carry on with his boring usual life. In Feed, the people always want to use their feed. They can’t stop using it because it’s implanted into their brain. Without the feed they won’t be able to mentally do things because they are used to relying on the Feed. Because they are constantly under control, it can affect how they interact with other people. The people mainly just care for themselves. Titus only cared for himself and didn’t care about Violet or his other friends because all he wanted to do was use his feed. “And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that I was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn’t really mean it. But that isn’t true. At the time, when it happened you do mean it. You think there’s no other way of saving yourself and you’re quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself.”-1984. In Winston’s situation, he gave up to the party and betrayed Julia to save himself from more physical pain. He wasn’t mentally strong to withstand the physical control of torture given by O’Brien. The mental effects of being under total control can affect your actions and decisions.
Propaganda is the main method of mental control. The government influenced the people’s minds to potentially prevent the people from breaking the rules. Hitler and Stalin used a variety of posters, cartoons and many other types of propaganda. The propaganda would bring fear or convince the people to do certain things. “In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would half to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy.” -1984. The governments would change what reality is and the people would go along with it or else they face consequences. They would have to believe in something that is wrong or be punished by the government. “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.” – George Orwell. They know the answer to something that is logically true but they have to say what the government wants you to say even if it doesn’t make sense to you at all. That is the experience of what an average person has to go through each day under the control of a totalitarian government. In conclusion, the system of control mentally and physically affects the people in a totalitarian society.
Emma:
Totalitarian governments have a huge impact on people’s lives and the experiences they have throughout that time. Life in a totalitarian government is not easy for mostly anyone. This is because a totalitarian government is when one single person rules the state and they have complete control. Which is clearly described in the analysis of totalitarian governments written by Hannah Arendt. That document clearly states “What emerges is a portrait of an entity that seeks to establish total control within the state, absolute control not only of the government but also of every aspect of the lives of those who reside within it.” Truly explaining that a totalitarian truly affects the society that is being ruled by this type of government because the people must follow everything that is being done, changed, etc. by the ruler.
A key fact that effects the peoples lives in a totalitarian government would be the fact the government feeds them lies and is brainwashing the society. In the case of the Nazis the army would hang around the children and they would be taught about the war etc. They had it where at a point there had been a 5th grade textbook for children that would talk about animals and how they survive in their habitats etc, etc. But then It would somehow relate it to one of Hitler’s famous quotes from his book Mein Kampf. The children being taught that what Hitler is doing is for the best and is going to better their community. There is also an area in the novel 1984, where the children are in love with Big Brother, who is the leader in this society, and will do anything to help serve him. For example, if they believe their parents have committed a crime against him, they will gladly turn them into the police and feel proud of themselves. There is also a completely different take on how brainwashing in a way would look in a totalitarian government, which is shown in the book Feed. In the story the greater amount of the population has a feed, which is like having a computer in your brain. But if you are a part of percentage that doesn’t have the feed then gets it later in life there are great chances that you will die because of the malfunctions it will go through. So this point is that in this situation if you didn’t follow the changes the government makes, you will face consequences later because you chose not to. As well as when you have had your feed for a long period of time and then suddenly lose it you feel lost in life. Shown in the excerpt of feed called “missing the feed”, the characters did not know what to do. The main character himself, Titus, was having flashbacks and memories of when the feed had came out and everyones reactions. Then simply stated how much he missed the feed. This shows how what the government has changed for the society in their everyday life’s had truly affected them.
A major action that occurs in a totalitarian government would be consequences for rebelling against the government, since there are so many rules and guidelines for the societies to follow in a totalitarian government. Many examples of this are shown throughout the Nazis and Soviets, as well as the two novels, Feed and 1984. This is shown from the Soviets because of their poor camps and working camps that they had throughout their time. People would be sent there and have to work 24/7 until eventually they would die. This caused many deaths as a consequence to being sent to the camps. As well as the fact of what happened to the people that came as a threat to Stalin or Stalin did not like. These people were shot in the back of the head and all history of them were to be erased. The document the black and white photo of Stalin and a few men shown on the top, then one person disappearing on the bottom portion of the same photo is an example of this. The example being that the man who disappears was someone who Stalin had not liked and was erased from all history. Another example of how consequences were given to people who attempted to rebel would be from George Orwell’s book 1984. The two main characters rebelled against the government by loving each other and having a passionate relationship. They had success hiding it from the government, until one day they were caught and imprisoned. They were then tortured very crucially until they gave in and did what the government had wanted them to do.
One last important effect that a totalitarian government has on the society it is ruling is that it kills the happiness from that community. In all of the situations (except for the book feed) everyone’s lives are miserable. The Nazis, Soviets, and people of 1984 are all sad and don’t enjoy life as much as they possible truly could. But instead they lived in a life of fear, not wanting to screw up because of the consequences that they could possibly face if they did. The leaders used signs and posters around their societies to show how powerful they were etc.. Lenin had his own poster of him and in the background there was this communist flag that he had created himself. His pose that Lenin was in looked very strong, but also made him look fierce and in charge. These societies all had different types of propaganda which made their totalitarian governments look like they were doing great things. One example would be a poster of a women holding her child, showing how women are in charge of creating new life. Trying to put the message across that the even though the government doesn’t treat men and women equally, it is for the best and is creating the best possible results. In thought of these three societies they all 3 had a type of secret organization that would creep around the corners and always be watching over you. These organizations were just waiting for you to make a mistake and screw up so that they could turn you in eventually. This example of fear and lack of happiness from 1984 would be how everyone was always only doing their job and the streets were dirty and run down. There was a time when the main character, Winston, was walking in the street and a building had just exploded and he found a mans hand just lying in the middle of the street.
In conclusion, totalitarian governments have a huge impact on people’s lives and the experiences they have throughout that time. It is shown throughout history as well as novels that were based off of it. All showing many different situations and experiences that are possible to happen in these types of societies.
Caelin:
What does totalitarianism mean? Well according to Britannica Encyclopedia, totalitarianism is defined as: a form of government that subordinates all aspects of its citizens’ lives to the authority of the state, with a single charismatic leader as the ultimate authority. An example of this is when Stalin, Hitler and many other leaders in communist and totalitarian societies were in power. They were abusive, controlling and manipulative. With their charismatic personalities they were able to sway millions of people into believing anything they said. They tortured or killed anyone disagreeing with them and were able to control an entire country using this method.
When, and how does a totalitarian regime rise? Totalitarian regimes come to power when a country is in bad condition, weak, poor, and desperate. An example of a communistic totalitarian regime is Russia, when Stalin came into power. Russia was in need of a great leader and the promise of a better life. The government of Russia was at a low, it lost its reputation and lost a war. People were starving, and easy to manipulate. When Stalin came and promised a better life and seeming like the leader they needed they supported him willingly. They were brainwashed by the government into believing almost everything they said and never questioned it. They wanted life to be easier, and having a government make all these incredible promises for wealth, warmth and happiness was too good to turn down. They quickly supported their leader and became afraid to question it. They witnessed mass death and starvation amongst rebels and realized going along with the government was easier than fighting it.
An example of a fascism totalitarian regime is Hitler in Germany. Germany had just lost a major war and the government was failing. Hitler was apparently good looking, charming, an amazing speaker/ persuader, and seemed like a good option at the time. He spoke of a better future and the country quickly followed him. Soon after he had gained the people’s trust he began to control and eventually take over Germany for his own, kill millions of people, and start a war. His goal was to take over other countries, which may have been part of his demise. Both communistic and fascistic totalitarian regimes rise and come to power the same way.... out of complete and utter desperation for a change.
What is the difference between the nature of the two totalitarian regimes?Fascism is a type of political government in which the state is being governed by a single political party. On the other hand Totalitarianism is a political system in which the power to make all decision of the state is in the control of an individual. Fascism employs the mass communication and media which is controlled by state to spread propaganda that works to provide favor to the ruling people of the state which allows rulers to avoid opposition from the general public. Totalitarianism political system oppresses the rights of an individual from general public through the use of power. An example of a communistic totalitarian regime is seen in Feed. In Feed the government is in control, but it has wiggled it self into power without the knowledge of the citizens. Also when Titus started to notice that the Feed is actually taking control, he didn’t care, he liked the Feed. Communistic totalitarian regimes seem to be kinder in their approach. The regime tries to get the approval of the citizens so that the regime can take over easily and with the approval of the country. Where as a fascistic totalitarian regimes are more cruel.
Fascism also refers to creation of a single party that has all power of the state. People who support such political system are of the view that a state can improve and stay strong as long as the leadership is strong and a single person is governing all the issues of the state. Such political system also has a violent approach as such political system thinks that people should be able to become violent at time and indulge in war when needed to make the nation strong enough. Fascist political system also opposes people or a group of people who oppose the decisions of state. Violence is promoted through fascists governments for the purpose of creating a powerful nation.
There is an example of the regime in 1984. The citizens aren’t aware of the fascistic government because thats all they know, but when Winston starts to notice he really hates it and starts to rebel. Fascistic regimes rule with control and, makes everyone in the country a mindless robot.
How do totalitarian regimes sustain themselves? They are able to sustain themselves and stay in political power through an all-encompassing propaganda campaign. This is controlled through the state controlled mass media. There is control over the economy and regulation and forbidden freedom of speech. Due to all the surveillance and use of terror they are able to maintain power over the people. They brain wash the people and country into believing what they are doing is the best for them. If anyone disagrees or protests in the slightest, then they are usually killed immediately and made an example of so no one else rebels. It is all about control and keeping the country from wanting to think for themselves. If they can rule with an iron fist and not allow you to hear or see anyone doing better for themselves, then the regimes will continue to sustain itself. For instance, N Korea does not allow any outside news or information including GOOGLE, to penetrate their walls. They only want their citizens to hear what THEY put out.
The fascistic regimes just use control to sustain themselves. As seen in Germany with Hitler. Millions of civilians have died at the hands of these governments, but only a small amount of brutality was necessary to retain their power. The main function of the totalitarian regimes was to change human behavior. To transform normal human beings into willing servants of their rulers. People do not normally want to change their behavior in a drastic fashion, so they have to be convinced. To make them change requires credible threats of brutal punishment, and the main way to make such threats credible is to carry them out on a massive scale. Even if people believe your threats, some will resist anyway or seem likely to resist later on. This is why so many people were killed or tortured if they did not give in, and go along with the ideas of the government. It is necessary for the state to make the citizens dependent on them for their livelihood. This will help them maintain control and keep them in power.
There are only four ways in which a ruling group can fall from power. Either it is conquered from without, or it governs so inefficiently that the masses are stirred to revolt, or it allows a strong and discontented middle group to come into being, or it loses its own self confidence and willingness to govern... a ruling class which could guard against all of them would remain in power permanently. Ultimately the determining factor is the mental attitude of the ruling class itself.
George Orwell, 1984
The problem with most of the regimes in the past was that the highest officials saw the outside world first hand and saw people were richer and happier in other countries. They lost faith in their own system. The best way to sustain a totalitarian society is to cut off contact with the non totalitarian world. The problem with cutting off contact with the outside world is they have trouble growing and their economics and military dominance eventually fails.
Totalitarianism would also be more stable than it was in the 20th century if the world were divided between a small number of totalitarian states. Orwell’s idea in 1984; Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia control the earth’s surface and wage perpetual war against one another. In a world like this, every country would be poor and miserable in a typical totalitarian society, and no one would make anyone look bad.
Experiencing a totalitarian or communistic way of life can sometimes be described or felt by children with over bearing parents. If you visit 158 Aikahi loop you can witness a lighter version of a totalitarian society. The leader of this land is known to many as the “Crusher”. He rules with an iron fist, and though we have some freedom, there is slave labor which he calls “chores”. There is a no voting policy in the Lathrop country, his word is law, not to be questioned or debated. To disobey the “laws” vary in punishments including more slave labor and having the outside world (television, phone, and internet) taken away. Sometimes solitary confinement is implemented and if you slam a door you not only lose that door for a week, you also lose any possibility of privacy. I completely understand how some people just go with it and give in. Unfortunately for me, I tend to rebel and am often found without a door, cut off from the outside world, and in my room in confinement. I think I understand how so many people just follow the leader and don’t fight for their rights. It may be the easier route, but not always the right one. And this, is how these governments sustain themselves.
Nikki:
The experiences of living in a totalitarian society are detrimental to the mind, body, and personality which forms all people to become victims of the regimes. Physical harm and death is one dreadful experience that citizens in the society face everyday. In the futuristic society of Feed, humanity is dying. The Feed community is technology based which is why humanity is dying. People are constantly becoming sick and ill but no one seems to notice. They are slowly dying. Are they blind to see that the Feed and technology are killing them? Not only is the Feed ruining the world, it also can kill people. The Feed killed Violet because she was not adapted to it at a young age. She died because the Feed took over her control after she was hacked. In this society, people also have lesions or cuts in their body because they think that it is cool. The Feed tricks them into thinking it is a trend, so they don’t mind the pain that comes with fitting in. In 1984, everyday you watch people being hung, enemies of the state, or prisoners. You see the same people everyday until one day they disappear and you know what happened. You know they were taken, tortured, and most likely dead by now. It is sad for Winston to see people and know that they will one day be taken and killed. Most people in 1984 commit suicide before they are tortured because they cant stand the pain. When Winston was caught, he was was hoping that someone would sneak a razor in so that he could kill himself. It could be in the middle of the night when they grab you and take you away. In Russia, there is extreme poverty, people dying from starvation. Children had inflamed and swollen stomachs caused by starving. Teachers, politics, anyone with a connection to Stalins ruling, all died. People would work at camps and freeze to death or starve to death after working for hours in the cold then only receiving a small piece of bread. In Germany people were also tortured and killed. They were brought into concentration camps in which many did not survive much like Stalin’s camp. Any enemy to Hitler was killed. Anyone who was suspicious or spoke something hateful to the Nazis would disappear and be gone the next day. Hitler hated Communist which meant that those who were Communist must die. Most Communist were Jewish which caused a hate for the Jewish in Germany. He started to kill one jewish after another. Physical harm and death is sadly only one component to living in a totalitarian society.
What gets people the most is the mental struggle and harm that these societies have. In Feed, nobody knows that the Feed is harming them but yet they see people in riots for reasons that no one knows. As the excerpt from Feed shows, people need the Feed because it becomes apart of them. You are mentally adapted to seeing ads and products. When you are without the Feed like Titus after getting hacked, you realize how strange your life is when you get it back. Violet helped Titus realize that the Feed is harming them. If you wish to escape the Feed, you can’t. In 1984, you are mentally always under pressure. You know that you are constantly being watched and studied. You can’t make any emotion or noise without being worried that you will be caught. Imagine living in a world pretending to be someone who you are not for the rest of your life. You also see that history is changing but yet you can’t do anything about. Everything that you had once believed in is gone. The excerpt from 1984, shows that everyone must love Big Brother. To the people in Oceania, it is better to love Big Brother than to see reality. The more you know, the more dangerous you are to those in control. People in Russia either trust Stalin or don’t. In the Hymn to Stalin, the author loves Stalin, most likely because he does not see what he is doing behind the scenes. Some people don’t know that Stalin is killing people because he covers up his traces. Such as the picture of Stalin and a man who was shot. Stalin would edit pictures of people to change the past and to coverup deaths. People would often ask for help from Stalin and did not know that Stalin was the one who was ruining their lives. In Germany, you must not be an enemy, you must do everything because you love Hitler and the Nazis. Living in this society you are constantly scared and careful about every little thing that you say. The citizens are also brainwashed by propaganda in who they must think is the enemy. The posters tell a story and what the story tells, is who the enemy is which directs someones mind with hatred towards the enemy.
Most of the people in these regimes lose their individuality. In Feed, trends are always changing and people always want to fit in. People are afraid to talk and show emotions, instead they use the Feed to communicate. For example, Violet would try to talk to Titus many times but Titus was scared to show his emotion. He would send messages to her instead. They all have a general vocabulary that they use such as meg or unit. They don’t have much emotion or feeling. Titus would delete all of Violets memories because he didn’t really care. He only realized at the very end what he had done, but it was to late. In 1984, Newspeak allows only certain words to show less emotion much like in Feed. Instead of using words such as bad you would use words like ungood. Everyday is a rerun and you must not do anything but to hate the enemy and love Big Brother. Sadly, you must not have any love either. To love is to rebel in Oceania and that it one thing that is hard to control. In Russia, there is Capitalism. Everyone must work to help with Stalin’s five-year plans. Stalin did not take complaints, he did not care about what he did. You must love Stalin. Those who try to help or stand out will die because they are “not trustworthy”.This is very similar to Hitler as Hannah Arendts theory pointed out. Everyone in the state loses their identities and become one. The Nazis also killed many people like Stalin. Women were used to reproduce for new generations of Nazi soldiers. Mutter and Kind showed a picture of a women breastfeeding a baby. This poster was used in propaganda for the women. Everyone was a German Nazi and did their part to help Hitler. In the end, you must also love Hitler and no one else. All these societies have similarities. They all show that those who understand what is happening will die. Those who are blinded will survive. Totalitarian societies create suffering for all who see reality.
Josh:
In a totalitarian society people are being brainwashed, how people got physical punishment, and how even normal people who live none rebellious lives still lose freedom, choice and opinion. All these will be compared from Stalin Russia, Nazi Germany, 1984 and Feed all of those topics have totalitarian regimes in them. The questions I will have to answer are what are the experiences of living in a totalitarian society? What are the effects on people? Include material from our fiction as well as history studies. People who live in totalitarian societies have their freedom, choice and opinion taken through brainwashing, physical control and torture.
In totalitarian regime you have to have control of people and you do this by brain washing people. In Nazi Germany they brainwash kids from a young age by putting Nazi officer's into the school system so that they can control what they think. They put it in there text book to control what they read and learn as well from Biology for the Middle School For 5th Grade Girls, Germany, 1942 (excerpt). In Stalin Russia and Nazi Germany they have camps for kids its so that young kids learn good health habits at a young age, and it is to control their thoughts and make sure they worship Hitler and Stalin. In Feed they had the Feed to control what people did and the different trends. They were unknowingly being controlled by the Feed. In 1984 you had to love Big Brother if you didn't you were turned in. In 1984, Nazi Germany and Stalin Russia there was secret police watching you every move. (Refers to 1984) In these societies since the kids were raised and brainwashed they would turn in family and people that they knew. In all of these societies they used propaganda to plant ideas into the citizens head. In Nazi Germany Stalin and Russia they used kids on the poster to make it look like they were better people and that there first need were making sure the families were flourishing. (Mutter and kind). In these societies they were being controlled to love the surrounding and the people in charge. People couldn't say anything about what they actually thought about the because if you said something someone might turn you in. This is where people lose there opinion. The people made it so they were wanted by the people so the people praised them, so people wanted them in there presence(hymn to stalin). In both Nazi Germany and Stalin Russia they made look like there were a group of people in charge put actually there was just an overall leader like Stalin and HItler. ( Picture of stalin standing)
In these societies to make sure that you were task and obeyed the rules at all times they had camps and room 101 these were a constant lingering thought that would make you second guess your acts, because you know if you got caught you would be so miserable and the conditions were so terrible. In the camps you had to work with such rigorous conditions. In Russia the weather was extremely bad, and in Germany and Russia they would hardly feed you and the work load was so much. In 1984 they had room 101 this was a room that terrified the citizens no one knew what went on in it but when you came out of the room you were never the same again. In room 101 they tortured you to get information out of you, after they got what they wanted you were so emotionally broken down that you were just a walking body so out of it just walking around soulless and worshiping big brother. In Feed they didn't have a torture place were you went to. I feel like the everyday torture of the lesions were so bad and unbearable even though the people in Feed didn't know what was really up behind closed doors. (Refers to Feed) The feed was actually deteriorating there body. The companies were smart and they told people on the feed that they were cool, they look sexy on people and to look at the lesion as a positive day to day thing. In these societies they used physical torture as a controlling aspect so people do what they are told and they listen and are scared to rebel.
In totalitarian regimes there are people who live a quiet rebellious life who do what they are told and stay down low. In a totalitarian society you can't stay away from losing your opinion, choice and freedom. In 1984 you had your same routine that you had everyday no variety. In all societies they were so used to getting hammered by one idea, and having that same idea implanted into there head. The idea is you must follow orders you must love the one leader and if you didn't something bad would happen. In all of these societies you couldn't speak up for yourself and you couldn't have an opinion of something because the government wanted you so under control. In 1984 they had newspeak it limited your vocabulary so you couldn't express yourself the way you wanted to. This also happened in Feed where they couldn't really express themselves with the words they had like meg and unit. The vocabulary that you had was made by the government and they used it so people had no ways of expressing their real thoughts. No one knew about this because it was planted in the brains of the people that this language was correct, and by using this language they were able to express themselves even less and less. What the government did was to control everyone so they could have total control and they didn't just aim for the rebellious people.
We can come away with that they were three main vocal points of a totalitarian regime. They were brainwashed you so that you so they could have total control and they could plant ideas into your head when ever and they would stick. They used propaganda to help brainwash people it was an easy way to plant idea into your head about people with out you even knowing. Another vocal point was they used physical harm to make you scared and to have that lingering idea in your head that if you do something against a powerful person you will be tortured or sent to a camp which in my view is just as worse. The last vocal point is that the ideas and controlling aspects of this society go to everyone even the people that follow the rule and don't do anything bad. Through these aspect people are having a miserable life a life controlled by the government. People in these societies lose their opinion, freedom and choice from the constant control of the government.
Sean:
Living in a totalitarian society means that the high power has total control over you. You have to follow strict rules made by the government or else you will be punished. The government is constantly watching you so you have to watch what you do and say. If you do anything wrong you will be severely punished and even killed. The government controls you by making you follow strict rules or else be severely punished, changing basic information, and constantly watching the community. 1984, Feed, Hitler, and Stalin all have similar methods to controlling the community. This will only end in one of two ways: loving the high power, or hating it. There are many good and bad outcomes of living in this society.
There are different ways to gaining total control over the society, but they all are similar one way or another. In 1984, they constantly change basic information like who they're at war with. They are constantly watching them using telescreens and always listening to them. In feed they control their thoughts using the feed. In Germany, everyone who didn't know about what hitler did to people who spoke badly about him and Germany loved hitler. If you said something bad about Germany then you would be heard or told on and your punishment would be chosen depending on how bad the crime was that you committed. In Russia, Stalin would kill anyone who he thought could beat him. If he felt threatened by you, you'd be killed. If you commit a crime you will be sent to a camp and work until you die. In all of these societies, you are being watched or listened to, and if you are caught saying bad things about the government or high power, you will be punished severely and might even get killed. In all of these society's children get brainwashed. Each generation is more brain washed then the last. In 1984, the children believe the lies that the government is telling them so they become more willing to do what the government says. In Germany and Russia, they gave 5th graders textbooks that tell them how they should live. It tells them how other animals live and indirectly tells them that that's how they are suppose to live. In feed they always get their feeds early in their lives. They get it so early that their body relays on it to live. Everyone's brain can't function on its own without its feed because they get it so early. But there are some good things that come with totalitarianism. In Germany, Hitler brought unemployment to zero. There was no unemployment in Germany. Even though some of the jobs were really bad and had bad pay, they were still getting paid. It's better than not getting paid at all. All of these ways to control the society works but have a few problems. Some people will hate it and want to rebel. They could succeed.
Totalitarianism really affects the people who live in a society that uses that type of government. The citizens will either love the government, or hate it and want to rebel. In Germany, hitler has made everyone love him. He got all of Germany's land back that they lost, eliminated all unemployment, and improved the economy. Little did anyone know, he had people always listening on what you say or do. If you made one little bad remark about hitler or Germany's government, you will be punished. In a video about Germany, a couple were working in a shop and the wife teases Germany's economy in a playful way and she ends up having to go back to school for four years. In feed, everyone loved the feed. They relied on it and they could live life with it. They had fun, they went to parties, they had all the information they need in the feed. They didn't know that they were being controlled and watched constantly. They're being controlled to buy things to help make the economy better. They're thought are being recorded and they're dreams are being watched. Nothing that they know or think is private. They don't know the truth about the feed. They don't know the full story. In 1984, everyone knows that they are being watched and listened to. Everyone knew that they had to watch what they say, do, and think. They are under strict rules made by the government like all the other societies, but the difference is that they know that they are constantly being watched. Everyone in that society is paranoid and/or going crazy. They are also being lied to. The government tells them that they are at war with Oceania and allies with Eurasia, but the truth is, they're not at war with anyone. They are forced to exercise every morning to stay fit. The government tells them that it's to be ready if they have to go in the war, but it's just to control them more. They are always changing information. Four years before, they were allies with Oceania and at war with Eurasia. The citizens knew that the information was switched but they're not 100% sure. All these things are causing them to stress and they're brains won't be able to handle all that information and thinking. Winston wanted to rebel. He did and got caught. He barely rebelled. All Winston did was have sex with Julia. Julia is a girl he met and they are rebelling together. He was committing a thought crime. He use to feel miserable. He use to hate his life. When he met Julia, he started rebelling and he became happy. He he feels good. His stress is gone. He should've taken more risks. He didn't make much of a difference in the government, he just made himself happy. If he affected the government he would get killed if he got caught, but more people would start rebelling. He ended up loving the government because he finally understood what they were doing.
You are always being controlled by the government. You will either be affected really well or really bad because of the government. You either love it or rebel against it. You can get good benefits from the government but you can get hurt badly by it. Totalitarianism controls you too much, you should be able to be free, in a set of rules.
Blaine:
A totalarlism government is not a good government for the people under the government. It affects the people physically and mentally. Most of the people don't no what there doing themselves and they don't no what's going on outside of the government. People under the totalarlism government are really hurt and really have no idea what is going on. They are hurt physically and mentally.
In a totalitarian government, people have no idea what is going on. People read papers full of lies. They have no idea what is going on in the outside world. In Germany hitler would made up his own education. He changed facts in the books to what he wants and what he wants the kids in Germany to learn. He changed it because they are the future and he needs them. Hitler didn't care so much for the older people because he knew that the younger people were gonna be the people who would lead him to take over the whole world. At the time, hitler was on the top so he basically could do anything. If you went against hitler, your a dead man so every just had to listen. Some people didn't even no what was going on. In feed, they have a feed. It controls how they think. People no about the feed but they don't no what it is doing to them. The excerpt from feed showed that you need the feed. You need it to survive because everyone else has it. In 1984, they have 1 leader named big brother. He controls the people. He wants everyone in the society to love big brother. He has rules and he has police to make sure people follow the rules. Stalin used propaganda to make himself use good. He also made friends with the government. Once Lenin went down, he stepped in. Once he was in power, everyone listened to him. People didn't really no Stalin was hurting people because he used to cover up his tracks. People loved stalin and trusted him. For example, in the picture, it had Stalin walking with a guy on his right. I didn't no the guys name but he was later killed and Stalin covered his tracks and erased him from the picture.
They also hurt people physically. Although in feed they didn't really hurt anyone accept the feed killed violet. In 1984, they would torture people who rebelled against the government. The government didn't want anyone to rebel and find out the truth of everything. In 1984, they were basically hiding everything. they were hiding who they were having war with. The people thought they were at peace but in reality they weren't. They didn't want anyone to no because they new people were going to rebel against them. Thats why when someone had some idea whats really going on, they torture them. Thats what winston had to go through. In germany, they would send people to camps and most of the people wouldn't survive. They would either die from starvation or they would just kill them Hitler also killed all the Jews. Anyone that hitler didn't like he would kill. If you are anti Nazi, than he would kill you. You must love nazi and for it no matter what or else you won't live. In Russia, they send people to camps and make them work in really cold weather. They keep working until they eventually die. They didn't really get fed any food so a lot of people died from starvation.
From all 4 examples, people were not normal. In a toltaliatarian government, the rulers make the people not normal. In 1984, people must love big brother. If you ever tried to rebel, you will end up getting tortured and killed. They had the thought police so a lot of people didn't rebel. Most of the people has no idea what was going on. In feed, they were controlled by a feed so really no one was normal. They new about the feed but they didn't no what it was doing to them. Hitler made everyone believe in the nazi government. You basically had no choice. It's really sad because none of these people had no choice but to listen to the leaders. It changed people's whole personalities. People are scared of saying anything because if they do, they will get tortured and killed. In Russia you must love Stalin. He changed the people because it change there personality on how they act and who they had to like. You had to work for Stalin and had to love him. Overall, all 4 leaders or governments changed how the people acted and there personalities. Toltaliatarism is not nice to the people at all.
In conclusion, a totalitarian government is bad for the people. It hurts people in every way. Especially physically, mentally, and there personalities. Leaders were really mean and they got what ever they wanted. People didn't no what to think. There personalities were lost. People were tortured and hurt. A lot of people committed suicide because they were so miserable. The 2 books we read and hitler and Stalin are both pretty similar on how they treat people. It affected people throughout there lives!
Kai:
"What is of prime importance is the state itself. The state is above the individual, and both the individual and the party exist for the state. The state itself is the cause, the cause to which all belong and in which all submerge their individual identities and become one."-Hannah Arendt. Hannah Arendt's assessment and belief that ideology is, in fact, secondary to a supreme goal of solid power is correct as Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia's past and tyrant leaders support this. In the two books 1984, and Feed, although they differ in many ways, have a supreme power expressed in the book just like the Nazis and the Soviets. Even though both books have been written many years apart, from different people, in different eras, they are more similar than you would think. This power mentioned in both history and fiction has erased people from record books, tortured people into compliance, created camps, forced work upon enemies, and ultimately made an ignorant empire for their rulers to control with ease. Which is relative to the document, "Excerpt from Feed." This document shows that some people in Feed, although they are enlightened and knowing on somethings, don't care about it and everyone else is just ignorant, stupid or dead. Although many of these things may sound outrageous and far from true, they are so close to the historical truth that these stories of control and misery were actually based on and came directly from the past of two nations; Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.
Before becoming global pests, the two "soon to be rulers", Hitler and Stalin, didn't make such a smooth rise into power either. While growing up they were both delinquents and thugs. They fought with their teachers and parents and they never respected authority. Later in his life Stalin became a huge loyal supporter of Lenin's (The ruler of Russia at the time) and was appointed commissar of nationalities. Stalin then used this position to appoint his loyal comrades into higher positions. He was then named General Party Sec'y in 1922, pretty much because of his comrades manipulation. Lenin slowly became ill and was slowly dying. While he was dying two people were jockeying for power, Trotsky and Stalin. When people where voting, Stalin had his men force people to vote for him. Stalin also used the current times to gain more power. Because Stalin was in the communist state of Russia he promised and worked on propaganda that was focused on industrialization and collectivization, tried to make everyone equal, expanding communism to other countries, and he used Lenin's name to say he was doing what Lenin would have done or what he couldn't do or wanted to. Then, when Lenin dies on the 4th of January 1924, despite opposition, Stalin was announced the ruler.
Like I said before Hitler was also brought up in a cruel world just as Stalin was and their rise to power was somewhat similar. Hitler fought in WW1 for Germany. When the war was finished he had joined the "German Workers Party". The German workers party eventually evolved into the nazi party. And in 1921 he became the leader of said party. He used the times of Germany to gain power, like in document C. This shows how after the war Germany had lost a lot, they were quiet weak and people were very sad. Hitler used this sadness to make promises and speeches like that he would get back all that Germany had lost, he would raise Germany back up, and that we can get Germany back to it's former strong, militarily united nation. In 1923 he attempted to take over the government of Germany through violence in the "Munich Beer Hall Putsch." This failed and Hitler was arrested. While in jail Hitler wrote the famous Mein Kampf (My Struggle). He was released in 1924 and immediately gained popularity through his public speaking skills, promoting German nationalism, anti communism and anti semitism. In 1933 he was appointed chancellor, because of the governments fear of him. He completely transformed the political landscape from the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, which was basically a single party dictatorship. After losing the next election, he found a way to get Hindenburg to give him full power for four years. While in this time he took complete control and ultimately totalitarianism was formed in Germany.
Now after both rulers got high enough in power they started taking out their competition. Killing opposing leaders, sending possible or potential traitors off to work camps and more. They would order their men to go, find, and kill a man because he was against the rulers belief. This shows that Hannah was right when she said rulers will do anything to gain or remain in power.
Both rulers had four goals when in power, militarizing society, targeting enemies, media control and remaining in power. Both rulers were also similar in the way that they both created their empire from a democracy. Hitler took any opportunity he could to blame communists, jews or any enemies he had, for uncommitted and/or committed crimes. On the 27th of February 1933 the Reich Stag was set fire to. Hitler and Goring blamed the communist and urged Hindenburg to issue the Reich Stag Fire Decree, which basically suspended basic rights and allowed imprisonment without trial. The communist party was crushed and Hitler and the Nazi party continued to promote anti communist propaganda. This propaganda was a form of media control and this persuaded society in any ways Hitler wanted. Stalin also carried out this type of propaganda and media control. This is shown in Document B, which is a piece of propaganda making the character look heroic, which is the goal. The big media control they both did though was, they controlled every single thing that came out of the media. They made sure everything going in or out was good Hitler, or good Stalin, BAD everyone else. This is shown in Document E. This is an artifact showing that because someone did something against the views of the state, Stalin eliminated him from the media and the past. Hitler also targeted enemies further by completely disarming and getting rid of the communist party and also any other parties against the Nazis. Hitler did all this just to gain and remain in power, which supports Ms Arendt. Both Hitler and Stalin militarized society by giving people weaponry, making the army a community thing and sending people to camps or to work to get fit for the war. Stalin made advantageous alliances with people and also discredited his rivals to gain control. He was a back stabber. He would be nice to peoples face and then go and talk bad about them or make them seem foolish for his benefit. This gave people the feeling he was a nice guy when really he was evil. By 1929 Stalin was the undisputed leader of the USSR. Then the Great Terror began. Stalin became extremely paranoid and always wanted to strengthen his hold on power. So he began to demand that any critics be arrested and executed.
It truly doesn't matter whatever the political philosophy—and political philosophies differed greatly between Nazism and Communism—no deviance in thought or action was permitted. What was the real fact is that methodology is the big deal. Both Hitler and Stalin had goals of controlling every aspect of life, and to gain and remain in control. Which is the main point of totalitarianism. Hannah Arendt and document A explain that even though they both hated each other on political views or philosophies, their main goals or method of totalitarian regimes caused them to come together. This idea is shown and explained through the Molotov-Ribbontrop Pact. This act shows that although Hitler and Stalin were enemies, they came together because they had a common goal. To gain power and take out a country. Which also relates to the countries in 1984! Eastasia, Eurasia, and Oceania would all have had to have the same method and goal of a totalitarian regime to make the world work in this manner. They would all be connected in someway to control the world. Which supports the point that the main goal, drive, and platform for a totalitarian world or regime is to gain and stay in power. And as I said before; to a totalitarian regime, ideology is secondary. "What is of prime importance is the state itself. The state is above the individual, and both the individual and the party exist for the state.The state itself is the cause, the cause to which all belong and in which all submerge their individual identities and become one."-Hannah Arendt
Aly (late):Totalitarian societies effects every person who lives in it and effects there way of life. The citizens were corrupted with torture, death, and disappearances. In these society’s they faced many terrible events which affected everyone’s life who was involved with this society. In “1984” the citizens were faced with torture, disappearing of there friends and family, and having no freedom what so ever. In “Feed” they are corrupted with death. The citizens realize that the feed is taking over the bodies of the people. For the two countries that face this problem they also make drastic measures to make the lives of there citizens terrifying and a terrible place to live in. Russia faces a large threat with poverty and lack of resources. Germany tried killing off an entire race which were the Jews. These two countries show that dictatorships affect everyone who is surrounded with them. This makes things difficult for people who actually want to live and be able to sustain off of materials and have essential items for life.
In the book of “1984” everyone feels like there is no good to there lives. They feel as if they were worth nothing and have no feelings towards anyone but there leader. The people of this society are so depressed most of them don’t even reach the point of torture because they have already committed suicide. In the book “feed” technology is killing all living humans. The feed is taking over there world and making it a terrible place to be. The feed is very tricky and smart. It is very persuading in its trends they make and what they make what is cool or not. People in this society think that having cuts on them is a trend, so many people don’t mind strutting around its scars and cuts all over them. The Russians are a different story. They live in extreme poverty and sadness. The way the soviets placed themselves in the scale of hard workingness, is very sickening. The Russians had to slave away everyday just because the government wanted modern technology and be more technologically advanced than other countries. These poor people were placed in to camps just because it was “cheaper” for the government. For the Germans, there life was also a struggle to alive. They are threatened with torture and death like the other totalitarian countries and stories. They were also known for making people disappear from the world. It is very peculiar that the book “1984” is so similar to the reality of the old Germany. They both would erase people from there world.
While living in this totalitarian society, people often had lost hope and there sense of freedom. The citizens of these countries and books
did not know exactly first hand that something was affecting them and that was affecting there personalities and emotions. For example in the book “1984” many of the citizens were he oblivious that anything bad was happening around them because that was there normal. They would figure that everything was ok because nothing new has been brought up. They had no way of expressing themselves and would neverspeak up if annoying was wrong. In Germany or Russia if you did notagree with the leader you would most likely be out to death or tortured. In Germany women were downgraded to being thought of as only “baby makers.” Women were very degraded and had little rights. This relates to the photo which is called “Mutter und kind.” These regimes make there citizens feel very suffocated and feel like there’s no way things could get any better. Which, is what the initial plan was for these dictators and leaders. These citizens get put in risky situations in everything that they do. If they are not too careful they maybe put in to danger and disappear. In these societies people can never be to careful about what they say and do. If they are caught in an act that is not ok by the government, they would be put to death and erased completely from history. In Stalins time he would cover up any trace of that person exsisting at all. The picture that was shown to us had two pictures. The top photo had Stalin and a man standing together looking very friendly. The bottom picture had only Stalin in it, as if that man had erased from thin air. Eventually everyone came to know that Stalin or one of his spies shot this man. These people have no freedom to do what they want at all. It is a shame that these people had to live in this type of enviroment. Totalatarian societies makes it difficult for all citizens to live and thrive.