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George Orwell — mastermind of dystopian fiction or enlightened prophet?
It seems the latter may be the truer answer.
If you haven’t read the classic “1984,” the novel is a cautionary tale that follows a futuristic society dominated by a surveillance state that aims to redefine truth through rigid thought control.
Sound familiar?
While Orwell’s “1984” is technically categorized as fiction, a recent article, HERE, from The Federalist by Monroe Harless poses the argument that the book contains a disturbingly high number of “descriptors of reality.”
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
“They add nothing to the wealth of the world, since whatever they produce is used for purposes of war, and the object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war.”
“Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution … children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen.”
“I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.”
“… one knows the news is all lies anyway.”
“The sex impulse was dangerous to the Party, and the Party had turned it to account. They had played a similar trick with the instinct of parenthood. The children, on the other hand, were systematically turned against their parents and taught to spy on them and report their deviations. The family had become in effect an extension of the Thought Police.”
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end, we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible because there will be no words in which to express it.”
“Power is not a means; it is an end … The object of persecution is persecution.”
“How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?“ Winston thought. “By making him suffer,” he said. “Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own?"
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.”
“The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink.”
“DOUBLETHINK means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered.”
“We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends.”
“The fabulous statistics continued to pour out of the telescreen. As compared with last year there was more food, more clothes, more houses, more furniture, more cooking-pots, more fuel, more ships, more helicopters, more books, more babies — more of everything except disease, crime, and insanity.”
It was supposed to be fiction, not a guide book!
For additional reflections on the state of affairs, see Terry Gilliam's brilliant dark dystopian tale (movie), "Brazil". Great cast (Jonathan Pryce, etc.), fabulous production design, another story that was supposed to be a cautionary tale but ended up being predictive.