by Richard Sprigg

Created on: May 29, 2009

Totalitarian Governments are characterized by the erosion of basic freedoms, as well as the intrusive nature of those governments into the lives of their citizens: without freedom, the concept of freedom and all that depend upon it, cannot exist in any coherent form. In George Orwell's masterpiece, "1984", the government has found the way to eradicate all basic freedoms for the governed: absolute control of the media is combined with control of language.

It is perhaps a reflection upon the extent to which we have become conditioned to accept limits on our freedom, that the above is eerily similar to the way many parents treat their children. The constraints upon means of expression, the censoring of inputs, the stifling of independent expression, thought or action, all these are methods that parents use in the raising of a child.

That many of these responses to inquisitive minds are instinctive is a chilling reminder of how effectively our behaviour has been modified by ingrained limits to freedom. If we reflect upon how many times a child is told to modify its actions "because I say so" it becomes clear that we are just mindlessly carrying out embedded programming and then imprinting that programming on to another generation of innocent open minds. In so doing we betray our children's trust In the same way that the NSDAP betrayed the trust of the voters in the thirties.

As Kahlil Gibran wrote in "The Prophet", our children do not belong to us, but to the future; yet many families insist on instilling them with the concepts of yesterday, concepts that provide an echo of the values that would have made 'Big Brother' proud.

From the point of view of a government, it is far easier to shape a society to the most pleasing format, that which conforms perfectly to the mental constructs of the rulers, if the average citizen says "Baaa" rather than "why?"

The creation of a coherent society, not unlike raising a child, requires a certain minimal infringement upon total freedom. For example, most citizens give up a portion of their freedom in exchange for security when they assent to the existence of a police force. The implicit social contract is that the citizens accept the authority of the police, and the police enforce laws made by the government for the orderly administration of society and the protection of its citizens.

This has a parallel in the upbringing

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