Lieux et formes de pouvoir, bac oral anglais LV1

Power can be defined as a position of control, authority over others, given to a delegated person. In politics and social sciences, power is also the ability to influence people's behaviour.

On may wonder, to what extent the abuse of power can lead to an authoritarian regim. In order to answer this question, we will study how the pressure can be the root of a mind control, and then how the authorities use it to have the upper hand on the population.

So first of all, pressure and fear mongering are an efficient tool to brainwash and manipulate the population. In the trailer of “Guilty by Suspicion”, a 1991 film by Irwin Winker, David Merill a film director came back from england. He has to make his name cleared as possible if he wants to make a movie because the HUAC thinks that his is associated with a communist party. The State is scared that the reds are spreading across the country though their films and TV shows. This is the Mc Carthyism : it's a red scare and the fact that you see them everywhere. So fear mongering is based on this idea and the government manage to alter the perception of the population in order to make them see reds everywhere. In this trailer we can see that this mind control by the pressure leads David Merill's friends to ask him if they can give his name to the HUAC. In fact he his black listed because he don't want to give any names, so that's why his friends want to use is name : he is already kown by the HUAC.

Here we can see that the pressure have a impact on people's behavior. If the government thinks that they have some affiliations with communism, they will go to jail, in this example we can see that people are ready to do everything if it can allow them to be out of trouble. So there is actually a mind manipulation.

Then this mind maipulation can leed to an authoritarian regim when the authorities have the upper hand on the population. When you succeed in controling minds, then you can also control people's behavior and life. George Orwell, in his opening scene of 1984, also deals with the communism question and highliths the fact that people's life is totally controled. With the famous caption which reads “Big Brother is wathing you” we can see that every single world and movement is eavesdroped. As it is explained, the police is plugged on any individual wire which is guesswork or not. So they know that they are spied with bugs and telescreen as they call it. Here we can see that the society discribed is an authoritarian one because they're not free of their actions, the police and so the government, is constantly looking at them “the black mustachio's face gazed down from every corner” as it is said.We can see that Wiston Smith, the story's protagonist, have set hi features into the expression of optimism when he is facing the telescreen to hide the fear that this eavesdropping can create. Winston is also compelled to stay in an alcove outside the rang of the telescreen, to write what he want to.

Here we can actually see that an authoritarian regim is born because of fear. It ensure the government an upper hand on people's life to rule their behaviour.

As a whole, power can be used in order to create a leadership by manipulating population and making pressure on them. Even if this statement is based on the example of the scare of reds, we can

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