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 ...
I went to public school in PA from the mid 80’s through the late 90’s.
Indeed. I just finished re-reading Shirer’s work about a month ago.
So true.
Isn’t there another book called the same but is a newer version?
I couldn’t find the original.
actually I saw the movie and I think the book is different.
I’m thinking of Soylent Green. Sorry
OK I’ll try this again..
There was a movie of both. 21984 and Soylent Green.
1984! I’m quitting now.
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.
Bookmark
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.
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 :)
After that, read (or reread) Brave New World. Prescient about sexual degeneracy, drug culture, transhumanism, and euthanasia.
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.
Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Having been watching it happen my whole life.
Trump is Goldstein from the perspecitve of the state needed someone for the people to blame everything bad on...
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.
“””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.
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.
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