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  • 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.

Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Quotes 246. Today we have a quote by George

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