I Wanna Go Play BioShock Now

"He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother." -- Page 266

I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really liked 1984 (by George Orwell).  The more that time passes since I've finished reading it, the more I find myself enjoying everything about it.  Sure, it takes a little while to pick up a pace, and sure, most of the conflict is internal, and sure, it's all a bunch of political philosophies tied up in jargon within Winston's chaotic brain and O'Brien's bold statements and the Party's haunting aphorisms and the Book, but what can I say, I like that stuff.  I would like to think that Orwell's vision hasn't come true, but sometimes the amount of information documented of individuals and filed out there is scary to think about.  However, while having a discussion with a scholarly friend over Spring Break about 1984, we both agreed that a society such as the one Winston Smith lives in during the novel is unrealistic in today's world, mostly because of the obsessive use of the Internet.  With so much information able to be uploaded, processed, shared, downloaded, and synthesized so rapidly anywhere on the globe, a society where the populace is entirely closed off from the outside world is unthinkable.  Oceania relied on lies about the wars and the destruction of excess goods through continuous warfare to keep its citizens in the dark, and this would be virtually impossible in today's world because of the Internet.  Recently in the Middle East, the suppressed classes have revolted against their governments, and these revolutions in short were made possible because of networking sites that exist today like Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter, none of which were even conceptualized ten years ago.  Orwell could not have foreseen the Internet when writing 1984, let alone the thought of mass social networking.  On the same thread, websites like WikiLeaks, founded by Julian Assange, will reveal ridiculous amounts of information that governments keep from its people.  Documents that aren't even withheld for power-hungry reasons, as in 1984, but for issues of national security.  Because of the inconceivable power and capacity of the Internet, and, I think, because of the existence of the book 1984 itself, George Orwell's vision of the future, at least at present, is in no danger of eventuation.