1984: The college Years

1984: The College Years

            Many students in college read George Orwell’s 1984 and discard as simply a story about communism that holds to relation to their lives. However, 1984 has a distinct relationship with the way college students socialize. Human behavior is controlled through social facts, the norms, values, concepts, and expectations that a group imposes on an individual. 1984 is still valuable to today’s college students because Big Brother is analogous to the social norms experienced by college students. Orwell demonstrates the coercive manner of social power through Big Brother’s use of one’s coworkers, friends, and love interests to manipulate and control the people of Oceania. Social norms are powerful forces that goes unseen by those they influence.

            In college, as well as beyond the walls of campus, our peers surround us. Winston’s coworkers at the ministry of love encircle Winston, the protagonist, all of whom ensure his orthodoxy to the party. Tom Parsons is one such person. He is a man who is a “mass of imbecile enthusiasm… on whom… the stability of the party [rests]” (23). This kind of person posses a threat to Winston because he has internalized the social norms of the party to such a degree that he would gleefully turn Winston into the Thought Police at the first chance, and thank them for the opportunity. The kind of man who “puts in an appearance at the Community Center every evening for the past four years” has abdicated his ability to think to someone or something and turned himself into a fanatic (23). Parsons has absorbed to the message of the party totally, he lives and breathes to please the unfeeling father figure that is Big Brother. Big Brother has manipulated the social norms of the workplace in order to maintain control of its citizens.

Like Winston, many of today’s college students find themselves in a work environment that punishes unorthodoxy. College students crave the acceptance of their classmates and this need for social acceptance leads to fiercely upheld social norms. The strongest social norm that I have seen in the academic setting is the resistance to talk in class. When a student talks in class they are broadcasting to their classmates that they care about the topic, and caring about school is seen as something social outcasts, such as nerds and geeks, do. Participating in class discussion is met with social punishment both in and outside of the classroom. In 1984 Big Brother punishes unorthodoxy by torture, but on college campuses punishment takes the form of social ostracization. Outside the classroom, classmates will avoid interaction with students who regularly talk in class because by talking the student is demonstrating a different set of values than those who remain silent. Inside the classroom, the student’s classmates will avoid interaction as well as simply submitting to the talking student’s authority when in group projects. Both the party and a campus culture influence their citizen’s behavior through the use of social controls.

            Winston must successfully navigate the terrain of his peer group to avoid the iron fist of Big Brother just as college students must tiptoe through the social scene of their campuses. Winston has to be careful with who he associates himself with so that he does not alert others to his rebellion against the Party. He has to keep away from those who “see too clearly and speak too plainly” because when they do eventually get “vaporized” they would implicate him (54).  Winston is limited to superficial relationships with his peers that arise from a needed cooperation. He must avoid giving people the sense that he has “OWNLIFE”, or “individualism and eccentricity” (82).  Thinking is hunted down and eliminated in Oceania because it poses a threat to the Party’s dominance, however, Big Brother cannot observe everything at once so they have twisted people into wanting to spy on those they are cordial with.  

            A college student’s peers also demand that he or she conform to social norms. The peer group that one joins defines one’s identity. During the first few weeks of a college student’s freshman year they are thrust into a new social setting where friendship bonds are rapidly forming. In order to not miss out on this important period of relationship development people will conform to whatever they think will gain them social acceptance. This ends up only reinforcing the present campus culture because in an attempt to fit in freshman will imitate upperclassmen in hopes of gaining their approval as well as their peers who will see them as already being acclimated to the campus culture. People will go out to drink and engage in reckless on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights because they don’t want to stand out as different from their peers, even if they don’t necessarily want to.

It is impossible to be in a romantic relationship, a relationship that is based off trust and communication, with someone when they “wince and stiffen” at their lover’s touch (67). If people were to be enjoying themselves and their partners in sex then they would see the whole government and its initiatives as “bloody rot” (134). The true value in the extreme puritanism is that it can lead to “induced hysteria, which [is] desirable because it could be transformed into war fever or leader worship” (134). One begins to live in both in the present and in the future. One wants to give the person they love everything of himself or herself and build something even more beautiful from their love. The Party has engineered a model for “romantic” relationships that both places an enemy in one’s bed and reinforced devotion to the party.

There is also a distinct lack of truly romantic relationships present on college campuses. In 1984 sex was reduced to a physical act because it was made into something repulsive, but on today’s college campuses sex is purely physical act because people perceive that everyone is doing it. There is no longer any romanticism in sex. This is reinforced by the “bro” culture that is dominant on many college campuses. This bro culture is one that emphasis hyper-masculinity and the objectification of women. This culture fosters negative attitudes towards women because males see them as commodity to be gotten rather than a person to love. The concept of dating as described by one student was “hooking up with the same person every weekend”. Even though men and women may not want to have causal sex, they still will in order to gain the acceptance of their peers. College students need to be aware of norm shifts so that they don’t have to go along with them if don’t want to. College students are having the norms of a romantic relationships redefined for them by their campus cultures.

Novels like 1984 give college students the knowledge that a social norm exist and exert power 
over our lives, and by doing so gives students the ability to either accept or possibly change the norm. Big Brother’s use of social control to change the relationship between coworkers, peers, and lovers is similar to how a college campus will resocialize its incoming students. If people ever want to change the way their college culture operates and influences people then they must understand social norms and how they impact students.