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I Just Reread George Orwell's '1984' and the Novel Is Scarier Than Ever
Fox News ^ | Michael Levin

Posted on 09/05/2023 4:20:15 PM PDT by nickcarraway

If novelist George Orwell were alive today I wonder what he would tell us

That’s what George Orwell would say if he could visit our world, 75 years after he wrote his final novel, "1984."

Orwell sought to demonstrate the dangers not just of totalitarianism but of a world where words lose their meaning. Many of the terms he coined for the novel have since entered common discourse -- "thought police," "Big Brother," "doublethink," and the "memory hole," to name a few. And of course the adjective "Orwellian" comes to us because of this book. All of them point to the loss of our most precious freedom -- freedom of thought. And unfortunately, that’s where we as a society appear to be headed today.

The setting for "1984" is a dysfunctional, decaying London torn apart after the "atomic wars" of the 1950s and 1960s reshaped the planet into just three primary nation-states. Oceania (London and the West) remains in a permanent state of war, sometimes with Eastasia, sometimes with Eurasia. It doesn’t really matter, as long as there’s an external enemy to hate.

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Arts/Photography; Books/Literature; Society
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To: nickcarraway
The social media "apologies" folks make, in a vain attempt to avoid cancellation, always remind me of the public broadcast apologies the 1984 victims are forced to make before execution.


41 posted on 09/05/2023 5:25:06 PM PDT by fruser1
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To: nopardons

I went to public school in PA from the mid 80’s through the late 90’s.


42 posted on 09/05/2023 5:28:51 PM PDT by EvilCapitalist (81 million votes my ass.)
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To: P.O.E.

Indeed. I just finished re-reading Shirer’s work about a month ago.

So true.


43 posted on 09/05/2023 5:29:11 PM PDT by rlmorel ("If you think tough men are dangerous, just wait until you see what weak men are capable of." JBP)
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To: nickcarraway
Now follow that up with Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago. That's what they have in mind for us.
44 posted on 09/05/2023 5:43:57 PM PDT by Noumenon (You're not voting your way out of this. KTF)
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To: nickcarraway

Isn’t there another book called the same but is a newer version?

I couldn’t find the original.


45 posted on 09/05/2023 5:47:03 PM PDT by TribalPrincess2U (MURDER IS MYRDER)
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To: TribalPrincess2U

actually I saw the movie and I think the book is different.


46 posted on 09/05/2023 5:51:18 PM PDT by TribalPrincess2U (MURDER IS MYRDER)
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To: TribalPrincess2U

I’m thinking of Soylent Green. Sorry


47 posted on 09/05/2023 5:52:21 PM PDT by TribalPrincess2U (MURDER IS MYRDER)
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To: TribalPrincess2U

OK I’ll try this again..
There was a movie of both. 21984 and Soylent Green.


48 posted on 09/05/2023 5:53:27 PM PDT by TribalPrincess2U (MURDER IS MYRDER)
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To: TribalPrincess2U

1984! I’m quitting now.


49 posted on 09/05/2023 5:53:53 PM PDT by TribalPrincess2U (MURDER IS MYRDER)
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To: P.O.E.
Thanks - looks like a similarly scholarly work.

You're welcome. It is, I've read it twice. My edition is 844 pages which includes the sections of notes, bibliography and indexes.
If you haven't already checked it out;
The author was 18 and in the Wehrmacht in 1944 until he surrendered in France. Apparently he enlisted in the Army to avoid being drafted by the SS. His father was anti-Hitler, "one does not volunteer for Hitler's criminal war". After university he worked for the American-run Berlin radio station RIAS (Radio in the American Sector) from 1954 to 1961. The guy lived through the war and it's immediate aftermath.
It's an historical work without excuses or screaming condemnations, but he doesn't go easy on any of the players either. It's easy to digest. You don't need to be some kind of scholar to get into it.

50 posted on 09/05/2023 6:00:51 PM PDT by Bounced2X (Boomer - I survived childhood with no bike helmet.)
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To: Bounced2X

Bookmark


51 posted on 09/05/2023 6:03:46 PM PDT by Chgogal (Welcome to Fuhrer Biden's Weaponized Fascist Banana Republic! It's the road to hell.)
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To: Fzob
RE: Dystopian nightmare

That would be me, and I do. Younger folks just don't realize (or apparently don't care abut) how much freedom has been sacrificed to the Administrative State since then.

52 posted on 09/05/2023 6:10:00 PM PDT by Bernard Marx
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To: Bounced2X

Took me a while to find a decent hardcover at a decent price, but I think I found one. Not sure the wife is going to like me sitting in the chair reading for hours on end again, but so be it :)


53 posted on 09/05/2023 6:11:57 PM PDT by P.O.E. (Pray for America.)
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To: nickcarraway
Read (or reread) Fahrenheit 451. Prescient regarding reality TV shows, TV obsession, jaded violent youth, external wars, and censorship.

After that, read (or reread) Brave New World. Prescient about sexual degeneracy, drug culture, transhumanism, and euthanasia.

54 posted on 09/05/2023 6:17:25 PM PDT by Angelino97
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To: DouglasKC
Goldstein was Trotsky. Big Brother was Stalin.

Just like Snowball was Trotsky, and Napoleon was Stalin.

Goldstein wasn't a good guy. He was a former member of the Inner Party who fell out of favor. He probably wasn't a member of the Brotherhood, which might not have even existed.

55 posted on 09/05/2023 6:22:15 PM PDT by Angelino97
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To: Fzob
Someone transported from 1950 to 2023, once they got past the incredible technological advances, would think America has entered into a dystopian nightmare.

Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Having been watching it happen my whole life.

56 posted on 09/05/2023 6:23:03 PM PDT by Old Student (As I watch the balkanization of our nation I realize that Robert A. Heinlein was a prophet. )
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To: Angelino97
Goldstein wasn't a good guy. He was a former member of the Inner Party who fell out of favor. He probably wasn't a member of the Brotherhood, which might not have even existed.

Trump is Goldstein from the perspecitve of the state needed someone for the people to blame everything bad on...

57 posted on 09/05/2023 6:25:10 PM PDT by DouglasKC
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To: P.O.E.
Took me a while to find a decent hardcover at a decent price, but I think I found one. Not sure the wife is going to like me sitting in the chair reading for hours on end again, but so be it :)

Nobody said gaining the knowledge of the universe doesn't have it's pitfalls. ;O)
BTW Mine's a soft cover that cost $5.95 at the time. I've had it for a bit over 40 years.

58 posted on 09/05/2023 6:25:45 PM PDT by Bounced2X (Boomer - I survived childhood with no bike helmet.)
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To: nopardons

“””Combine 1984, BRAVE NEW WORLD, and FAHRENHEIGHT 451 and most of these things are what we have right now, today.”””


And I would add Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE to your list.


59 posted on 09/05/2023 6:28:46 PM PDT by Presbyterian Reporter
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To: nickcarraway

I re-read it a short while ago. The most demoralizing part of the book is the ending when Winston Smith’s will and spirit is crushed and the system, Big Brother, wins.

With what’s going on with Trump and the J6 political prisoners the parallels are ominous.


60 posted on 09/05/2023 6:32:41 PM PDT by aquila48 (Do not let them make you "care" ! Guilting you is how they control you. )
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