Socratic Seminar Questions
English 1-2 1984 Socratic Seminar Questions 3. Reading and writing for pleasure promotes independent thought, but it is not dangerous. It lets you express how you are really feeling inside. It is something private that you decide whether or not someone may look at it. In the beginning of the book 1984, Winston writes in his notebook. He hesitated about it for a while before he actually began writing. He let out what was going through his mind, it was going really well but then he suddenly stopped writing. The thought that he could get caught terrified him. Big Brother considers writing and reading for pleasure to be dangerous.
If people were to read and write they would realize what has been going on, and this would bring an end to Big Brother. 4. Revisionism still exists today, and we have been victims of it without us even knowing. When we were younger we would learn about Christopher Columbus and how he sailed on three ships and how he reached the Americas were he kindly greeted the Native Americans. But is this really what happened? What they didn’t tell us was how Columbus committed genocide. He deliberately slaughtered so many of these indigenous people. Him and his crew raped, tortured, burned, and killed these Natives.
We have been victims of revisionist history. I do agree that knowledge of history is powerful. If you are able to control history, you control the past. In 1984 Winston works in the Ministry of Truth were he changes the history to make it seem like Big Brother is always right. That is why the people had a blind fold over their eyes. They couldn’t realize what was really going because of the rewriting of history. 6. Thought crime, according to the book 1984 is thinking of anything that the Thought Police and the Party says is illegal. Illegal is anything that creates individuality. Individuality for the party is not good.
I do believe a form of “thoughtcrime” exists in our society today. We have our own way of thinking that might not go along with what society or the government believes. The government has laws that many people do not agree with. But we really can’t do anything about it. We have our own thoughts that the government may not like, but the government can’t do anything about that either. 5. In the book 1984 technology helps the Party control Oceania. Today technology functions through television, radio, phones, cameras, satellites, and the internet. I believe it is used for evil. Yes, technology an be very helpful, but is it really needed? Back in time people didn’t have much technology and they were still happy. Technology now a day is used for evil things. Many people cyber bully. Because of cyber bullying many children have committed suicide. This is what technology has led to. Music is also a big part in technology that is very influential in technology. The music we hear daily have messages behind them. Most of the music is about sex, revenge, getting drunk, doing drugs, and many other things. This is what our brain is recording, these messaged are in our head. That is why I think technology can be evil.
