Kailey Christensen, #7-6, 4/17/19

4/17/19

Today we continued our 1984 lesson presentations from yesterday. Group 6 finished their presentation on Psychological Manipulation, Group 1 did their presentation on Political Control (totalitarianism), and Group 3 started their presentation on Information and History Manipulation.

My group did Political Control and this was our presentation
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/19OmwAFDXdgGDzbOR8hxZoCghTr-aqKhCE4MWticXoBU

Group 6: Psychological Manipulation

My group discussed that the Party takes advantage of the Oceania citizens’ minds by using doublethink and crimestop to condition the people’s minds into thinking that whatever the Party thinks is the best and also to stop them from even thinking about conspiring against the Party. They also manipulate the people’s memories to the point where they dont even remember what actually happened or not.  

Most people argued that our government should not use psychological control to make society a better place because then we wouldn’t be able to question the world or the government around us. However, people did think that it could be successful because people’s memories are easily manipulated. Another point was brought up  that we could not define what made society a better place because each person would have a different viewpoint. 

For the summary, we discussed the overall meaning of psychological manipulation and how it aids the Party in being so successful. They related their do now experiment back to 1984 and their use of psychological manipulation as well. 

Group 3: Information and History Manipulation

For the Do Now, groups were given different topics to research and discuss with the class what they found

Groups 1 and 2 said that the Soviet Union censored many books and classic literature because t did not agree with the Party’s ideas, the people of the Soviet Union were not allowed to read these books
Groups 4 and 5 said that Tiananmen Square was a good example of Chinese manipulation because the government rewrote what actually happened in Tiananmen Square. The government also banned many websites and most popular search engines like Google and Yahoo.
Group 6 said that St Valentine was the god of fertility and many nations used to perform sacrifices to him and there were many rituals in which women seeking fertility were beaten.

Group 3 discussed how in the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin would physically remove people from photographs that he killed to make it seem as if they never existed in the first place. This was very similar to how the Party vaporized citizen that they felt were a threat to the Party, just as Stalin felt these people were a threat to his rule.