The Guy Fawkes Mask & Ignorance is Strength

The plot of V for Vendetta had us digging through history in a fictional future, to find that the powers that be had orchestrated biological warfare in order to instill fear. They then used this fear to reduce or destroy freedom, life and liberty of the population, and further their dominance.

Orwell’s 1984 had a similar message, written well before the current global climate. The phrases:

1984

appear throughout the novel as the Party’s slogan. From it, we can deduce:

1. The war in 1984 is between one or another enemy, and is a fabricated threat along with propaganda to keep people afraid
2. When accepting the opposite — slavery is freedom — we see that we can work our entire lives as slaves to debt, trading our labor for some capital
3. This is the interesting bit — the more we don’t know about what’s really happening around us, or the more we accept what’s forced down our throats, the closer (more divided?) we become, allowing us all to rally under a flag

Take from it what you will, but actual history teaches us that you invent a threat and then tell people how they should feel about it. This can and does happen, usually, to drive the war machine forward and allow you to do more harm elsewhere than if you had no alleged reason to go.