Does any of this sound depressingly familiar to those who keep up with political developments, especially in the Western 'democracies':
In George Orwell's dystopian story 1984, the central character Winston Smith is a member of the Outer Party who works in the Ministry of Truth rewriting past news articles. The narrative is set in Airstrip One (once Great Britain), a province of the superstate Oceania.
Life in Oceania is a world of perpetual war, omnipresent surveillance, thought control, and public manipulation. An elite and privileged Inner Party governs the superstate through merciless persecution of individualism and independent thinking or "thoughtcrime". The leader of the Inner Party is Big Brother, a personified entity with no physical presence. Four omnipresent Ministries are the instruments that control all aspects of life in Oceania:
1. The Ministry of Peace ensures perpetual war and directs atrocity.
2. The Ministry of Plenty manipulates shortage through rationing and deliberate starvation. It subjects the outer party, the general citizenry, and the proletariats (the uneducated working class) to sub-standard living conditions while conversely, the Inner Party enjoys luxurious lifestyles.
3. The Ministry of Love manages torture and brainwashing. It ferments hatred of all 'enemies' of the superstate by publically executing war prisoners. Transgressors of state rules are tortured to extract meaningless answers and ultimately dehumanise.
4. The Ministry of Truth is concerned with producing lies. It oversees propaganda and historical transmutation.
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