Posted on 07/13/2019 9:58:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
This summer, George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four turns 70 years old, and that anniversary has prompted a surfeit of articles analyzing the book and its continuing relevance to our age.
There is no doubt that the book is one of the most consequential political novels ever written and ought to be on the reading list of every conservative -- not because Orwell was himself a conservative (he remained a man of the Left until his death), nor because the dystopian world that Orwell described turned out to be prophetic.
“The image of a boot stamping across the human face," in Orwell's memorable phrase, is an accurate depiction of present-day North Korea or China, but is not really an apt description of the U.S. or Western Europe, societies that have fallen into the kind of soft despotism described by Alexis de Tocqueville, but well short of the dystopian nightmare foreseen in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
However, the novel remains prescient in its depiction of two key elements of modern-day political correctness conceived of and promoted by the Progressive Left: the war on language and the war on memory.
In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell focuses on an individual living in "Oceania," a socialist society comprising the present-day nations of England and the Americas. In the novel, Oceania is abandoning standard English, which is referred to as “Oldspeak,” and is adopting “Newspeak,” a limited vocabulary designed to restrict thought.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The hobnailed boot is difficult to remove once it has been firmly planted on the neck.
I would add the rise of the surveillance state. Big Brother Is watching.
Facial recognition and surveillance cameras in all public spaces.
What Orwell got wrong, Huxley got right.
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
Gee, that sounds a lot like what’s happening in our Republic toay.
Indeed.
“Alexa...”
The “telescreens” of Orwell’s 1984 are today represented by Alexia, Echo and ‘smart’ appliances like TVs, radios, refrigerators, dishwashers, thermostats, light switches, etc.
Would you allow 24/7/365 access to your home by a person unknown to you with a video recorder to tape everything that happens? No? Do you own any of the above mentioned ‘things?’ ‘Nuff said.
The Two Minutes Hate was wrong...it is 24/7 from MSNBC and CNN.
The thing that is truly frightening is that we, who think we are enlightened, can talk about this in a dispassionate way instead of total outrage.
I think the appendix, even more than the novel itself, addresses the left’s obsession with control of language and thought.
Closing sentence:
<>A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”<>
Yeah. For those that don’t have time (though people really should take the time) to read the entire book, it is well worth reading the appendix.
Orwell also wrote several non-fiction essays touching upon the same topic.
Someone pointed out that much of the police state seen in Nineteen Eighty Four already existed in the year 1984; however, the police state didn’t stop there.
Modern police states, which were innovated during the reign of the first emperor of China, have a structured set of similarities that show whether they are new, mature or in decline.
The generally fit the rule of “government efficiency”, a ratio of what a government promises vs. what it delivers, at first, because they promise little, but deliver it.
This makes them acceptable to their people as a government.
However, as they keep promising more and more, and delivering less and less, they are seen by the people to be less and less efficient, and more in need of replacement.
In their final stages of the police state, they attempt to gather a vast amount of trivial information about the people, while ignoring the important things government is supposed to do.
That the United States intelligence and police apparatus seem to be at this point, of collecting mountains of trivial and useless information, does not bode well for them and suggests, unless they can be substantially reformed by the government, they may drag the government, and maybe even the nation, down with them.
They also seem to have lost their purpose and independence from the political process. Paradoxically imagining themselves as a shadow government above the law, with things like the Russia scandal.
In a contest between themselves and the nation, they have reached the point where they will choose themselves. But this in turn will mean their destruction.
1984 had soma, 2019 has marijuana.
1984 had Big Brother and Emmanuel Goldstein, 2019 has Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Bump
This is frighteningly accurate. We need to push back in the other direction.
Oh, I believe there IS outrage!
I hope our differences can be resolved without a show of it!
I don’t believe that We the People will have to resort to force of arms to resolve these differences.
IMHO, LIEberals will overreach and self-destruct, thus rendering all this back and forth yackety-yack moot.
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