What is Ingsoc and who is Big Brother some of you may be asking? Well, my little bundles of glory, I'm here to share with you my latest reading endeavor and my perspective about how it almost was and how it almost is. Not just a typical history lesson, but also an analytical look at the present global and hierarchal structure of governments. Quite and undertaking, you say. True, but I will try to make it short and sweet in attempt not to bore those of you less inclined to care. So, the latest reading endeavor is 1984 by George Orwell (an Eton man).

Ingsoc is the Newspeak word for English Socialism. "Newspeak was the official language of Oceania*." Big Brother, of the ever-infamous buzz-quote "Big Brother is Watching You," was supposedly the leader of Oceania. Now many of you are already becoming bored, thinking that this could possibly be yet another long oration of science fiction. Rest assured, I don't do science fiction. This is merely a comparison of aspects of Orwell's Oceania (a totalitarian and all-encompassing nation) and life in a modern day democracy. What does this have to do with you? Read on and see for yourself.

For those of you unfamiliar with 1984, I'll give a brief run-down. Oceania is one of three super-nations always at war with one of the other two. It is highly totalitarian and at best comparison similar to what most Oliver Stone wannabe's would vision Nazi Germany being. The society is stagnating, controlled by one definitive political party and all methods of dissent are liquidated, destroyed and annihilate. People disappear and they become "unpersons" and history is constantly being rewritten so that no evidence exists that the party was ever wrong with anything. Life beyond the 1950's really is forgiven and they claim responsibility for every great invention to date. Your every motion is watched through telescreens (similar to televisions, but they are two-way devices recording what you do as well). Every facial gesture is scrutinized and children are turning in "spies" as they are directed to do. Nothing is safe or sacred. Your every move is immediately suspicious if it is uncannt or outside the perameters of party normalcy.

I would like to talk about Newspeak, the language of Oceania. Words are eliminated from the dictionary if they are considered to superfluous to convey a message. Who needs good, better, best, bad, worse, and worst when you can have good, plusgood, doubleplusgood, ungood and et cetera. Cold is cold and warm is uncold. As you can see there is any number of ways to alleviate words from the dictionary in this manner. For a better explanation, see the appendix to 1984.

I would like to compare this Newspeak to Political Correctness. Or as Bill Maher might say, political incorrectness. There are hosts of politically correct way of saying things, and, as in 1984, they were not regulated by law, but imposed upon by societal thugs. Let's look at some examples of our own Newspeak. Handicapped became physically challenged; short became vertically challenged; woman almost became womyn (so that man wouldn't be in the word); and a host of others to make the world a more sensitive and liberal place. It's not that I don't encourage a certain sensitivity to certain people's plight, it's just that it went too far and we are finally getting over it. I'm glad the time of political correctness is over, it was an over-rated attempt to change our language. In Oceania, it was considered that by eliminating excess words, you would eventually eliminate any dangerous, excess thoughts of the people. In my opinion, the wrong people were trying to force that change upon America and I glad that they have finally been silenced.

Big Brother is watching you! Yes, believe it or not, to a certain extent, Big Brother is alive and well in the free world today. The Thought Police that were functioning in the book could very well resemble any number of government agencies today. If you cannot come to accept this notion, then you are blind (a visually challenged individually). While we don't torture people at the CIA headquarters and things like that (it's usually done in warehouses somewhere), the Thought Police can be reflected into any number of visions of tyranny. I suppose all of that depends on the group that does the looking and the agency being looked at. Think about all of the laws enacted in this country over the last few years and some of the acts in certain government agencies have been involved in.

Recently, with the IRS prying into the lives of people who would not testify against their employers and finding themselves under investigation and suffering the penalties thereof is one example. The ever-decreasing level of privacy over your life and the ease by which the government can now moniter you is evident in the new anti-terrorism bill that passed Congress so easily after the OK City bombing. Under the guise of being a suspected domestic terrorist, the government can monitor you for no reason if they really wanted to and claim you are a suspected terrorist if they ever had to show cause. And NO, they don't have to get a warrant to monitor you from a judge under this law, they can do it at their own volition. It is always important to remember that our government has become exactly what we have allowed it to become. Machiavelli, Hobbes and Locke, the three people whose principles of democracy the founders were guided by, would all concede that there is a certain time for revolution when the situation of life becomes unbearable at a government's behest. I should hope that if our society ever becomes as stringent as the fictional Oceania that we would rise up and "turn our plowshares into swords."

Why do I care? Someone must be observant of the slow changes. Ingsoc is about socialism, though, and we are not a socialist nation, you say. Right you are. Thank God or whatever higher power you belive in that we're not. If we were socialist, welfare would not be being reformed in the direction that it is, our healthcare would spiral into oblivion, and the standard of living would drop. But, we must use definitive caution when proceeding into the future because we cannot allow ourselves to realize we live under a totalitarian environment after it is too late. We must constantly be aware of the change that goes on in our country and in our world. By so doing, we can never be under the confines of an over-powerful government.

I highly suggest that people read 1984. It is an eye opener to how things could be before we know it. I find that the society described in this book is worse than any that has ever existed in history, because it takes from the core of man his human spirit and his joy of life. "Big Brother is infallible and all-powerful."..."Nobody has ever seen Big Brother."