A world like George Orwell's 1984 has always frightened me, mostly because of a concept discussed within the pages of the book called unhistory. What happens with the practice of unhistory is this: The end result of anything would cause an adjusting of history, as well as a justification of older thoughts and actions, even if those actions were based on something entirely different. For example, let us say, in a hypothetical situation, the United States were to enter into World War II because of the threat to American business interests in Europe. However, while parading around through Europe they come across some concentration camps, and liberate the people therein. Then, at the end of the war, they manipulate the information to make it look like they went into the war solely as a humanitarily concerned nation looking our for the well being of the population of the world. This works in the long run, and will eventually come to be accepted as the truth, but it does not work right away. It doesn't work on the people that were there, the people in charge of these decisions. People who know better simply because they were involved, they said themselves that this is why, and this is what will happen. You can change the past, but it means alienating the segment of the population that lived through it. Luckily they are usually very easy to deal with, you either ignore them and go along your merry little way happy with the fact that they will die before you do, or you attempt to hammer the new history into these people. That doesn't always work. But hey, if it makes you feel better, and if it justifies the things you are saying now, I suppose unhistory has fulfilled it's purpose. To fuck people over. It is a good way to make the same mistake over and over again. It is also a good way to make sure other people do the same thing, so you aren't alone in your foolish ideas of what has happened. Isn't it wonderful when we can draw upon our literary knowledge and use it in our everyday lives? Especially when the terms had to do with a ficticious totalitatian government bent on controlling every aspect of our lives!