1984 vs The Hunger Games

In defense of my arguments above:A) Pro correctly identified a number of similarities between Oceania and Stalin-era USSR; it is not entirely incorrect to state, as did Pro, that Orwell was describing an existing society. However, Oceania has additional traits, or takes Soviet traits to further extremes. For example, there is no indication that the Marxist Dialectics pervaded the minutiae of everyday life to the point of Oceanic Doublethink -- i. e. having people believe that the chocolate ration had been decreased to 20 grams, and simultaneously that it had been increased to 20 grams. Nor is there any indication that the "curing" of Winston Smith had any counterpart in Soviet reality. Orwell took existing characteristics of the Stalinist regime and exaggerated them to make them more obvious, and more anger-provoking, to the reader. In order for Oceania to come about, these aspects of Stalinism would have to be re-introduced and exaggerated manyfold. By contrast, as I've indicated, military force, both intra- and international, is a way of life in many or most parts of the world. Converting this into a dystopia would be, in the minds of those who would seek to create such a society, more efficient than attempting to revolutionize sociology. Con does not seem to dispute that the infrastructure for Panem-type Peacekeeping already exists; by contrast, the micro-control infrastructure that Oceania would have over the Outer Party would need to be partly reintroduced, and partly invented, nearly from scratch. B) Pro correctly states that Oceania does not require reality TV. This misses the point; reality TV is already with us, already a fact of life, and given its influence in popular culture, a dystopia-building would be quite likely to build upon it, to wield its influence for his own benefit. It is no fault of Orwell's that he did not anticipate reality TV; he wrote six decades before Collins. Nonetheless, this is something we must take into account when deciding which society would be more likely to arise. C) Pro disputes the actual existence of Eurasia and Eastasia in 1984. This is a very interesting suggestion; he is quite correct that their existences are only inferred, from Winston Smith's point of view, from Party propaganda and from Goldstein's book, which was also produced by the Party. In addition, Julia raises the idea that the rocket bombs falling on Airstrip One are a false flag operation, fired by the Party in order to maintain an atmosphere of war. This is paralleled in Mockingjay when Coin bombs her own army and the Capitol's children under the Capitol's emblem. However, in the first place, Airstrip One was kept on a constant wartime footing, and it would be impossible to channel all of those resources to nowhere without some segment of the Proles noticing. In the second place, O'Brien confirmed the descriptive accuracy of Goldstein's book, and while he did deceive Smith in the past, by the time of that confirmation he had been captured, and there was no reason to lie to him anymore. Which is not to say that O'Brien could be considered a pinnacle of reliability even then . . . I consider this an open question, and thus leave it to the reader to decide. If we assume that Pro is incorrect, and that Eurasia and Eastasia exist, then this argument stands unrefuted. If we assume that Pro is correct, and that Eurasia and Eastasia are fabrications, and that Oceania -- or perhaps even Airstrip One -- stands alone in its world, then my C argument does fail. However, if we make that assumption, then my D argument, discussed below, is strengthened -- for something has to be in those other parts of the world in 1984, and to deceive everyone in Airstrip One into thinking it's Eurasia and Eastasia, when in fact it's something else entirely, would require a level of isolationism that would make Kim Il-sung blush with envy. D) Pro's point that information technology relates more to the sustainability of the societies in question is well-taken, but I contend that this is also a factor in whether such a society can arise. In 1948 -- and, to a somewhat lesser but nonetheless real extent, in 1984 -- the technology did not exist for an instant worldwide exchange of facts, opinions and ideas. The Soviet Union, Communist China, North Korea, Qaddafi's Libya, and so on -- all these societies began to exist before the internet age began, and before social media in particular. If we post-date 1984 to 2034, Airstrip One cannot possibly come about; there is simply too much awareness in Britain and elsewhere. Nor can another Soviet Union or North Korea come about; other states might come about with similar ideologies, but they cannot maintain the level of isolationism needed if, as Pro suggested in his response to C, Airstrip One stands alone. The only way to create a dystopia in this information age is with a combination of sedation and brute force -- e. g. Panem. Finally: I do concede that a society similar in some respects to Oceania has already arisen, whether it's Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. The parallels do exist. But these parallels are not sufficient to establish that Oceania, in all its (in)glorious detail, has existed in the past; any more than Survivor and the "War on Terror" is sufficient to establish that Panem exists at present. But it does make Panem more likely to come about. In sum, I have argued that, contra Pro's initial arguments, the difficulty in achieving an Oceanic level of micro mind control and the already-existing infrastructure of the military makes Panem more likely to arise than Oceania. I have also argued that reality TV can be built upon in creating a dystopia, and that Oceania requires a level of informational isolationism that is no longer possible to achieve in today's world.