George Orwell’s book 1984 is about a horrible future in which a fictional world is dominated by a totalitarian regime that uses technology to read our minds and control our thoughts. As Orwell writes: "Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves."
The turning of the calendar on January 1, 1984 did not create a particular uneasiness about whether this nation would fall into a totalitarian abyss. But I do recall that it was a time when American office workers were starting to use computers more and more for word processing. Automation was coming to American factories, carburetors were being phased out of cars in favor of electronic fuel emissions, typewriters were on their way out, stock brokers started carrying around these large box like things called cell phones and every now and then a document was sent over the phone lines, it was called a fax. It did seem that technology was changing the world. And true to most change, the world was resisting these technological changes.
In that background comes Apple Computer appealing to the revolutionary inside of every American and points out beautifully, in a Super Bowl commercial in January, 1984, that the Macintosh is the computer that will crush totalitarianism and bring you freedom in this new technological age.
This great nation was founded on the belief that we the people should have the ability to govern ourselves. Only when we select our own government through a democratic process do we experience true freedom. Consequently, we as American’s think of ourselves as perpetual revolutionaries – we give our consent to be governed by living here and electing officials, but we reserve the right to withdraw that consent and vote the government out.
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