The J-Curve Study Questions

The J-Curve Study Questions In addition to George Orwell’s 1984 you will be reading portions of Ian Bremmer’s, The J-Curve: A NewWay to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006). You can buy or borrow the book or else access a PDF version at . It is recommended that you read J-Curve before reading 1984. You will be responsible for getting a copy of 1984 either on your own or from Mr. Ault by Thursday, 6/12.

Type your responses to the following three questions. This, along with the 1984 study guide, is your first major assignment for ISA and will be the basis for discussion the first week of school. Your response should be as long as necessary to adequately answer the question. Grammar, spelling, and structure should be considered. Both assignments are due the first day of class. The study questions are in the Project category for AP Comp Gov and the Writing category for AP Lit.

1. In your own words, define what Bremmer means by “openness” and explain how it is a source of instability for “left-side” countries and stability for “right-side” countries. Why is it difficult for closed countries to become and remain open? (3 pts)

2. Ian Bremmer argues that closed regimes are “at risk because a large portion of their resources must be used to maintain the country’s isolation. A closed country must build an ‘ideological immune system,’ because airwave-borne viruses of foreign influence [e.g. television and radio signals that shows prosperity in the West in contradiction of Soviet propaganda that the USSR was as well-off as the US] can produce a fast-spreading effect on the population that an authoritarian government can’t control. Maintenance of that immune system costs a lot of energy, man-hours, and money” (p. 28).

Apply this argument about the long-term weakness of closed regimes to 1984. The Party’s slogan of “War is Peace” makes exactly the opposite claim of Bremmer. Explain the Party’s argument about how the enforced poverty of its citizens produces stability and explain how this poverty is related to the purpose behind Newspeak. Using specific examples from the real world, do you think that the Party or Bremmer is correct about the costs and benefits of totalitarianism? (7pts)

3. Winston, Julia, and O’Brien live in a system that attempts to not only control behavior but to take away even the ability to think of an alternative. However, each of them makes choices. Some of their choices are freely made, and other choices are illusionary. For example, a person who has fallen off a cliff cannot choose to stop falling but they can choose how they respond to falling.

A) Identify one choice each made by Winston, Julia, and O’Brien and for each choice explain whether this was a real or illusionary choice. (4 pts)

B) If stability is thought of as a desirable characteristic of societies, then deviation from acceptable behavior is a threat to the society’s stability and must be minimized. Since democracies cannot survive if their people choose dictatorship, free societies must limit choice in order to maintain freedom. Identify a means of control that is similar to both Oceania and the United States and discuss how that mechanism of control is necessary for freedom in the United States. To what extent is the effectiveness of choice in the United States and Oceania different? (6 pts)