I’m rereading George Orwell’s 1984 and there’s a line halfway through that says, “By lack of understanding, they remained sane,” talking about how the government party is able to quell the unrest among the masses by controlling what they know about their situation.
It’s a simple, haunting sentence. It implies a kind of safety—emotional, psychological, maybe even moral—that can only be preserved through ignorance. Understanding, by contrast, becomes a threat. It tears away the illusion of stability, and with it, sanity.
It reminds me of how we use social media to construct our own realities. We curate our reality to a degree, thanks to how we’re able to filter what our world looks like. A customized catering of content and culture, if you will.
This Orwellian line isn’t just dystopian fiction—it’s a theme that echoes across some of our most unnerving modern stories. It made me realize I really enjoy exploring this theme, and I found this unsettling truth plays out in three standout works that I like quite a lot: Severance, The Truman Show, and Get Out.
⸻Severance: Sanity as a Product of Partition
I want to start with Severance not only because it’s super relevant, but also because it becomes so cinematic at certain points that it really should be shown on the silver screen.
In Severance, employees at Lumon Industries undergo a surgical procedure to divide their consciousness in two: one version of themselves exists solely at work (“innie”), and the other exists outside (“outie”). The innies don’t know anything about the outside world—and that’s what keeps them stable.
Their lack of understanding is not a flaw. It’s the entire premise of the system. Knowledge would destroy the illusion of choice, identity, and safety that Lumon has curated for its employees.
As we watch innies like Helly and Mark slowly begin to question the world around them, the cracks begin to form—not just in their environment, but in their minds. Sanity doesn’t survive truth. It survives compartmentalization.
⸻The Truman Show: The Fragile Peace of Not Knowing
You’ve probably heard enough about The Truman Show if you frequent this blog, or if you listen to my podcast, or if you follow me on Letterboxd, or if you had me in my sophomore-year sociology class. This movie has taught me more lessons than one, but they are all rooted in the ideas of freedom and truth.
Truman lives in a picture-perfect town. Everything is clean, friendly, and controlled. And fake.
Everyone around him—his friends, coworkers, even his wife—is an actor. They play their roles with a serene smile. Why? Because it’s the job, and they never question it.
The cast stays sane by never acknowledging the ethical horror of their jobs. Eventually, Laura Linney’s character snaps under pressure, showing that even the most dedicated actors would find their breaking point. But they push down the urge to acknowledge what is real and choose to instead continue swallowing the lie that has been fed to Truman his whole life.
The audience stays entertained by not thinking too hard about what Truman is enduring, but instead using his fabricated reality as a way to enhance or escape from their own.
Truman’s awakening—his need to understand—becomes a destabilizing force, both figuratively and physically. He begins to unravel, not because he’s broken, but because he can no longer sustain the lie. His sanity becomes redefined as his willingness to confront the truth.
⸻Get Out: Comfort Through Denial
On the surface, the Armitage family in Get Out is progressive, friendly, and well-adjusted. But beneath that mask lies a violent, parasitic system built on racism, exploitation, and theft of identity.
The horror of Get Out is that these people don’t see themselves as monsters. They’ve constructed a version of reality that justifies their actions. They admire Black bodies, they say. They’re not racist, they insist.
Their calmness isn’t empathy—it’s selective understanding. They show a righteous indignation toward anyone that disagrees with them because they’ve convinced themselves that their way is right.
They stay sane by refusing to acknowledge the truth of what they’re doing.
Chris, the protagonist, starts to descend into madness only when he begins to fully understand the system he’s caught in. His survival requires not serenity, but clarity—and eventually, rage.
⸻What It All Means
These stories suggest something Orwellian and deeply human: sometimes ignorance really is bliss.
But it’s a fragile bliss—one that comes at a cost. Systems that rely on our lack of understanding—be it corporate, cultural, or personal—aren’t built for our freedom. They’re built for our compliance.
And when characters in these stories do begin to understand, they lose their ability to go back.
They can no longer fake the smile.
They can no longer say “everything’s fine.”
They can no longer remain “sane.”
⸻Final Sip
Whether it’s an office hallway, a film set, or a suburban driveway, the illusion of peace often depends on not asking questions.
But ask enough of them and the whole thing begins to unravel.
If someone gets nervous when questions are being asked, it’s because those questions are shaking the foundation of something they built.
Truth doesn’t shake, it doesn’t waver. It remains the same. But if you don’t know the truth–if no one has told you–then your foundation is flawed. It’s missing its solidity that will stay planted when you need a rock to hang onto.
I spent a lot of my twenties floating through life with no rock to hang onto, sometimes by choice, and other times not so much. Due to that lack, though, life carried me through streams that turned into rapid rivers where I felt like I could barely catch my breath. The tide would fall soon after and I’d wash up on a sand bank, unable to find solid ground to stand on, slumped in the sand, waiting for the next current to come and carry me to my next resting place.
I’m getting carried away with the metaphor, but my point is that the thrashes of life–both good and bad–can toss you in a lot of different directions if you don’t have something solid to hold onto, a solid rock to stand on.
One of my favorite sayings is that “if you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything.”
Understanding may break the illusion. But sometimes, it’s the only way to be truly free.
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