Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Quotes 246. Today we have a quote by George
Orwell and its first time we're doing a quote by him. He is a classic author and
he's one of the only authors I know that actually kind of has an adjective named
after him. A lot of times somebody might say something is very Orwellian. You
know and it's always in reference to a several books that he wrote that have to
do with a dystopian future. We'll get into that in a minute. For now, let's take
a look at the quote first. Here's the quote. "Those who control the past,
controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. " Okay. Let's
look at the note here. George Orwell was famous for several novels. This quote is
from his most famous book" 1984." George Orwell wrote this book as a warning to
the American people for a futuristic dystopian world. So he was warning you to
be careful about a futuristic dystopian world that he kind of saw possibly
coming. You know, all right. And also he was warning future generations worldwide
not just the American people but anybody who could figure it out. And future
generations to look at it . All right. Let's continue. Some say he got his ideas for a
futuristic dystopian world ... Now again, if we say dystopian, that's the opposite of
utopian. Utopian it's like a perfect world where everybody's happy.
Everything's peaceful. Nobody's fighting. Everybody likes each other. They get
along. Dystopian, it's the total opposite. Dystopian is kind of like a very dark
sort of a world where people have very little freedom and they're suppressed
and they're held down. And it's always a futuristic world. The total opposite of a
utopia is a dystopia. All right. Let's continue. From what was recently experienced under
the Nazis. Yeah. Well, he wrote this book I believe in the late 1940s so World War 2
was over not that long ago. So that's why some people
might of said he got some of his ideas of you know , how the Nazis treated people during
World War two. Also Russia you know, and the socialism and when Stalin came in. You
know, they were very suppressive of people and had a total tyrannical kind of
control over people. So some people said he got like a lot of his ideas for this
books from them. However others say he was aware of a plan by rich powerful
interests you know, what they planned for the future and that's what he was really
warning us about. All right. So let's continue.
When Orwell talks about controlling the past he is talking about rewriting and
changing history. So that's in part of his quote. In his book, 1984. The main
character, Winston has the job to revise historical records. The past became
whatever the ruling elite wanted it to be. All right. So they kind of knew this
sort of idea you know, I think the Nazis had a lot of book burning too. But still ...
Let's take a look at the note again. So those who control the past controls the
future. So if you could change the past around and people think of the past in a
different way. You could start to change their opinions about the future. This is
what he's saying. Who controls the present. Well if you control the present,
you can have the power and the influence to try to change the past. You know , try
to change history books. Try to brainwash people with media repeating things over
and over again. So this is what he means. So controls the past. So he who controls
the present controls the past. You control the past, you control the
future. So basically if you control the present, you control both the past and
the future. Okay. Let's continue.
Historical records . You know, I remember when I first read this book. I was in high
school and at that time , I remember it was actually before 1984 and I do
remember some people talking about 1984 is coming up. You know , will the world
really be like what George Orwell wrote about. And at that time we really weren't
that close to it yet. And I actually I thought some of the book was even a
little boring. But when you really relooked at this book in like like 30 years
later in 2014 , and we've been inching our way closer and closer towards you know
his world since that time too Since you .. since you know like now we're in 2019 . So
yeah, he had a world where you know, everybody was being filmed all the time.
Cameras were all over the place, In 1984 the world was not like that. Today
there are a lot of cities that have cameras all over the public. So that's
much, much closer. Plus we know that it goes beyond that. We know that some of
your electronic devices can actually film you and tape you. You even see
somebody like Mark Zuckerberg puts tape over his computer because he knows that
you know you could be spied on through your computer. There were reports of
course that Samsung TV can videotape you. If you own a Samsung you could be
videotaped through your TV. So suddenly we're getting a lot closer to this type
of a world that George talked about in 1984. We also know from Snowden that you
know , many of them almost all of our conversations are actually, not only
being listened to, but are actually being recorded and stored. Again we're getting
a lot closer to George Orwell's world. Okay. All right. Let me continue with this
point first before we go on. In our modern times, many have studied history
books over decades and have noticed considerable changes. There is also a
twist of history in a lot of movies or shows. So this is a sign of changing the
past. You know, if there is rich powerful interest and they buy up
a lot of publishing companies and they have people over time with the textbooks. You
know, maybe they make it the changes small but over time, if you revise it
three four or five editions. Suddenly what history that was written there has a
very different feel or aspect about it. So this is a way that you could ...we've
noticed changes in our history. Both in textbooks in school and in movies and
shows depending upon the directors that do them. And there not really quite what we
were ...we thought before or even if you go back and look at some of the historical
documents it's not exactly what they're saying.
All right. So powerful interests have the power to do this if they are following
an agenda. So they can also control the present. We, we also see fake news all
the time . There's so many, many reports that so many, so much of the
mainstream media has been caught reporting fake stories, twisting, twisting
facts. Reporting things that are sometimes even
complete lies. So again we are getting a lot closer to George Orwell's book.
George Orwell's story about the future. So I don't know you can let me know what
you think. Are we ..are we , are we almost there ?
Really let's hope not. Or let's hope that if we are there, that somehow some of
these things may be reversed. Yes. We don't ... Yeah and another thing was that
you remember the government (from the book 1984 ) was always Big Brother back then too. Big brother
and they try to convince the people that we're only doing this for your good.
We're just trying to protect you. And even today you know, a lot of times when
governments try to change a lot of laws that actually take away some of your
freedoms they're also saying they're doing it for you. They're trying to
protect you. That's their goal. Their only their interest is only best for you. This
is exactly what George Orwell was saying too, He was warning us about this. But again
let me know what you think. Let me know if we are getting close to what George
Orwell was talking about. It's a very interesting book when you look at it
from a modern-day perspective. Anyway I hope you got it. I hope it was clear.
Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.