Direito à verdade e à memória em 1984 de George Orwell e em Engenharia Reversa (Black Mirror) : uma análise na perspectiva dos Direitos Humanos, à luz do pensamento de Hannah Arendt

Abstract

The objective of the present work was to investigate the link between the violation of the right to truth and memory and the loss of the “right to have rights” in the book 1984, written by George Orwell, and also in the episode Men against fire, from the Black Mirror series, from the studies of the German political scientist Hannah Arendt on human rights, especially when it comes to the condition of the stateless persons, the totalitarians regimes’ tools of reality distortion and the necessity of an applicability of the Human Rights conditioned only on the human condition. Therefore, some of the mechanisms used by the totalitarian regimes in order to manipulate the facts and to make their narratives legitimate – which can lead to the loss of the “right to have rights” of the groups considered enemies – where also analyzed, from the studies made by Hannah Arendt on the third part of her book The origins of totalitarianism. Thus, from the frauds perpetrated in the “Ministry of Truth”, one of the main structures of the government in 1984, and from the reality distortions made by an technological implant in the soldiers in the episode Men Against Fire, the relation between the violation of the right to truth and memory in both works and the loss of the “right to have rights” of the “unpeople” and the “cockroaches”, in the book and in the episode, respectively. Studying Law together with Literature and Cinema – which includes the series – allows not only the jurist, but also the reader/spectator to enlarge their horizons, to understand Law’s complex themes and also to find better solutions to problems that, without the perspectives given by the Literature and the Cinema, could not be found.