Brainwashing in 1984 and Today

In part three of 1984, we are treated to a very long and intense description of the brainwashing and torture that Winston went through at the hands of the party. And at the end of the novel, we see that to some extent, Winston would rather come to terms with his reality rather than challenge it. Aka, the brainwashing worked to some degree. While there have been instances of individuals from the U.S. government, for instance, torturing their prisoners and attempting to brainwash them in a way- I am instead going to explore the more general and widespread ways that the media (not governments) serves to brainwash its individuals into believing certain things that we would think are unthinkable.

I am going to exemplify my point using the homeless population. (Which is extremely relevant during our circumstances and the pandemic, which in turn has left way more people homeless)

According to the federal government, at any given time there are approximately 553,000 homeless people in the United States. However, I believe the number to be much higher, as this only accounts for people that the government can say are homeless. There are plenty of homeless people who limit their interactions with the government and therefore are unaccounted for. According to the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, the actual number of homeless people in the U.S. may be as high as 3.5 million.

In one of the richest countries in the world, I feel incredibly disturbed knowing that we have such high levels of homelessness in the U.S. But what is even more disturbing is how the media portrays homelessness as a disease, rather than a symptom of the disease that is hands-off capitalism/ small government. 

I argue that the media portrays homeless people as subhuman, almost cockroach-like and that this seeks to fuel our classist biases against poor people.

According to an article by the University of Santa Cruz, named "Please Do Not Feed the Homeless:" The Role of Stereotyping and Media Framing on the Criminalization of Homelessness", graduate students studied the relationship between the media framing of poor people, and the actual policy effects that this framing brought about for individual cities. 

"Findings indicate that homeless people were frequently described in terms of stigmatized characteristics (e.g., mentally ill) and behaviors (e.g., substance use, crime), while positive characterizations (e.g., hardworking) were rare. Moreover, policy discussions tended to focus on individual behaviors (e.g., panhandling, sleeping outdoors) rather than structural causes of homelessness (e.g., lack of affordable housing). 

Supporters of anti-homeless ordinances relied on stereotypes of homelessness and framed the issue as crime prevention and addressing public safety and health. Critics maintained that the policies violated civil liberties and emphasized the need for structural-level solutions."

So, right before our very eyes, we see that on some level, we are all being brainwashed by the media against certain types of people. Interestingly, in the world of 1984 we also see this beyond the individual brainwashing of Winston, where it becomes apparent at the beginning of the novel that Winston has been brainwashed into thinking the proles- "poor people" are dumb. When in actuality, it seems that they are just more focused on survival than the structural circumstances under which they are living.

It is important that we push back against the untrue narrative that homeless people are criminals and disgusting. They are people, just like you and I, who fell into unlucky circumstances that deserve compassion and empathy- not jail.

What are other ways that you think the media brainwashes people for or against certain things? (ie. the U.S. government v. communism, the war on drugs (which was against poor black people) etc)