What is the real ‘Orwellian nightmare’ now?

"In its near universal display of contempt for the masses, the liberal intelligentsia is exhibiting a particularly ‘Orwellian’ trait: uncritical political conformism"

Mick Hume
Spiked.com 

In the 70 years since George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four, the word ‘Orwellian’ has become a form of lazy political shorthand. It is used to condemn anything deemed to smack of the sort of Big Brother system of authoritarian control Orwell described in his last and greatest novel. The irony is that many of those who use it today might also have a touch of the ‘Orwellian’ about their views.

As the Guardian’s Dorian Lynskey outlines in his widely acclaimed new book, The Ministry of Truth: A Biography of George Orwell’s 1984, published to mark the 70th anniversary, the meaning of Orwell’s masterwork has often been reinterpreted over the years to suit the prevailing fears of the age.

Thus in the 1950s and 1960s, at the height of the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union, the focus was on the threat of Stalinist totalitarianism. In the 1980s, concerns were more likely to be expressed about the ‘Orwellian’ potential of hi-tech surveillance systems and CCTV cameras. When the actual year 1984 came around, many of us young radicals imagined plenty that was ‘Orwellian’ about the British state’s year-long war to defeat the striking miners.

When Lynskey comes to now, however, he does the same thing and reinterprets Nineteen Eighty-Four to fit the prejudices of the present. Almost predictably, he begins his book by linking the dystopian world described by Orwell with Donald Trump’s America. He quotes Trump’s adviser, Kellyanne Conway, who claimed – in the row over the true size of the crowd at his presidential inauguration – that she was using ‘alternative facts’. This is why, Lynskey tells BBC News, people are now turning to Orwell’s novel again, ‘for what it says about truth. And flagrant lies. And the nature of exerting power by distorting reality.’

Thus a discussion of the importance of a 70-year-old classic can become yet another exercise in blaming lies – and, implicitly, the stupidity/gullibility of voters – for Trump’s victory over the liberal establishment. Many try to claim that similar propaganda lies were behind the mass vote to leave the EU – effectively blaming Big Brother tactics for the Brexit revolt.

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70 Years Later, It's Still '1984'

Matthew Feeney

Inside Sources

 In October 1947 Eric Blair, known today by his pen name George Orwell, wrote a letter to the co-owner of the Secker & Warburg publishing house. In that letter, Orwell noted that he was in the “last lap” of the rough draft of a novel, describing it as “a most dreadful mess.” 

Orwell had sequestered himself on the Scottish island of Jura in order to finish the novel. He completed it the following year, having transformed his “most dreadful mess” into “1984,” one of the 20th century’s most important novels. Published in 1949, the novel turns 70 this year. The anniversary provides an opportunity to reflect on the novel’s significance and its most valuable but sometimes overlooked lesson.

The main lesson of “1984” is not “Persistent Surveillance is Bad” or “Authoritarian Governments Are Dangerous.” These are true statements, but not the most important message. “1984” is at its core a novel about language; how it can be used by governments to subjugate and obfuscate and by citizens to resist oppression.

Orwell was a master of the English language and his legacy lives on through some of the words he created. Even those who haven’t read “1984” know some of its “Newspeak.” “1984” provides English speakers with a vocabulary to discuss surveillance, police states and authoritarianism, which includes terms such as “Big Brother,” “Thought Police,” “Unperson” and “Doublethink,” to name a few.

The authoritarian government of Orwell’s Oceania doesn’t merely severely punish dissent — it seeks to make even thinking about dissent impossible. When Inner Party member O’Brien tortures “1984’s” protagonist, Winston Smith, he holds up his hand with four fingers extended and asks Smith how many fingers he sees. When Smith replies, “Four! Four! What else can I say? Four!” O’Brien inflicts excruciating pain. After Smith finally claims to see five fingers, O’Brien emphasizes that saying “Five” is not enough; “’No, Winston, that is no use. You are lying. You still think there are four.”

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No, George Orwell Wasn’t a Spy for British Intelligence (or a crypto-Right-winger)

Tom Secker 
Medium

Ever since the revelation that the radical author George Orwell had provided names of possible communists to British intelligence, liberal revisionists have claimed he was a crypto-racist and a British spy. Any honest examination of the available documents shows that not only is this untrue, Orwell was the subject of surveillance and investigation by British intelligence for over a decade.

Was Orwell secretly a reactionary snitch? How the author became an internet meme and target of the…

 
To many, he came close to being a secular saint. George Orwell, born 115 years ago on Monday, was the writer who…www.independent.co.uk

The Independent recently ran an article asking if Orwell was ‘secretly a reactionary snitch’. It recounts how in 1996 the declassification of a Foreign Office file chronicling a meeting between Orwell and an agent of the FCO in 1949 shocked many readers and admirers of Orwell’s writings.

Orwell had met with his friend Celia Kirwan, who worked for the Information Research Department — an FCO unit devoted to gathering information on suspected communists and carrying out anti-communist propaganda operations. He provided her with a list of 38 names of people he suspected to be pro-Stalin or fellow travelers.

Orwell's List | Spy Culture

 
In 1948 the post-war Labour government set up an anti-Communist propaganda unit within the Foreign Office called the…www.spyculture.com

Liberal Reactionaries and Orwell’s ‘Jewish Question’

 

Even before the list itself became available, left-wing critics laid into Orwell for his supposed racism. Alexander Cockburn, who is otherwise an excellent writer and journalist, said:

There seems to be general agreement by Orwell’s fans, left and right, to skate gently over Orwell’s suspicions of Jews, homosexuals and blacks.

When Cockburn wrote that in 1998 he was right — there was a tendency for Orwell’s fans to simply avoid this question. However, by the time Ben Norton arrived on the scene trying to draw attention to himself by endorsing the idea that Orwell was a secret bigot, that opinion had spread all over the internet.

Norton’s article is full of attention-grabbing phrases like ‘reactionary snitch’, ‘outright counter-revolutionary snitch’ and ‘the first in a long line of Trots-turned-neocons.’

What is missing from his analysis is any facts. 

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