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 ...
And, the right ignored at our own peril.
“So did we. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, as well.”
We’re living a combination of both today.
But as genetic engineering becomes more advanced we’ll be more like Brave New World full of people happily and dutifully doing what each was designed to do. No need for Big Brother watching or torturing you.
“And I would add Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE to your list.”
The book is by Anthony Burgess. Kubrick was pretty faithful in transferring it to film.
It was required reading when I was in school along with Animal Farm, 1984 and Atlas Shrugged was for extra credit. I am requiring my children to read them all as well. We are at the end times.
It was required reading when I was in school along with Animal Farm, 1984 and Atlas Shrugged was for extra credit. I am requiring my children to read them all as well. We are at the end times.
“Read it, at the beginning of the Reagan era, the leftist professor was rabid that Orwell was predicting Reagan, I knew better.”
Funny.
Orwell fought alongside the Republican Left in the Spanish Civil War which put him in close contact with Trotskyites and Stalinists other jewels of 1930s Communism.
That experience taught him to loathe them with a passion and it inspired Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.
He remained a social democrat but he wasn’t fooled about the totalitarian nature of the hard Left.
Hopefully enough "savages" hold out to make that difficult to accomplish.
But as I posted earlier, states( and in some very few instances, areas within some states) have control of what kids read or don't read in public schools and times change.
It probably is no longer true; however, there was a time when ALL schools, private, public, specialized, and parochial, in New York State had to follow the state's mandated syllabus for each grade, K-12. That was due to the Regents tests, I surmise, which every student had to take in high school.
Eric Blair was actually an atheist, although he often attended Anglican services.
Oh yes; except for the race of the gangs; spot on!
Men are Women.
Women are Men.
Sterilizing Children and Cutting Off Their Breasts and Genitals is “Gender Affirming Care.”
Rioting, Arson and Looting are Mostly Peaceful Protests.
Mostly Peaceful Protests are an Insurrection.
War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
Orwell just got the year wrong.
About 4 or 5 years ago, a friend of ours with kids in elementary school asked her kids teacher when the class would be readying 1984 and she was told that they could not assign that book... their Glendale Arizona school district had banned it.
I need to read it again... Seems like Winston was what we now know as a “Fact Checker” in the book...
I don't understand the ban of it in Arizona, or was that just for grades K-8?
My grandson had to read FAHRENHEIT 451 in high school and now 1984, but he does go to private school, though NOT in Arizona.
In my opinion the Scariest Book (non fiction) was:
The Creature from Jekyll Island.
I got to Chapter Five and could NOT continue...TOO SCARY.
And it is all updated with the introduction to The World Economic Forum, The Dreaded, Hated ...WEF!
I re-read 1984 a few months ago. It’s the first time I read it since high school 50 years ago. It was much scarier now then it was back then.
“Orwell just got the year wrong.”
Yep. Orwell was a prophet ahead of his time.
It was not was WAS to come, the year it would be functioning all over the world, nor as the lefties/Dems here seem to think...a manual on how to govern.
I think her son was going into 5th grade, meet the teacher night, but not positive...
that is about when I read it, 5th or maybe 6th grade.
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