Consider what Orwell did when he published his final book, 1984, on June 8, 75 years ago.
Does the world owe George Orwell an apology? Think about this while doing a Google search for the term “Orwellian” and noting the frequency with which it has been used in the last six months to describe not just a system or law that seems repressive or dystopian, but also opinions and arguments that might be disagreeable or unsettling. For a writer with a well-known aversion to the “pre-fabricated” phrases that bedevil modern English, to have his own name reduced to a cliche would surely feel like an affront. But should it?
Consider what Orwell did when he published his final book, 1984, on June 8, 75 years ago. In describing a world where memory is made false, thoughts are policed and even love is directed towards the “appropriate” object, Orwell created the language to describe what was, until then, an unimaginable nightmare of absolute loss of control over one’s own life. Since 1949, the story of Winston Smith’s complete subjugation by the all-powerful cult of Big Brother has given readers a means to express fears about what the 24/7 surveillance technology, stupidification of language and performative living anticipated by Orwell means for their individuality, independence and privacy.
That Orwell couldn’t escape the fate of eventual reduction to banality visited upon other great writers (Dickensian, Machiavellian and Hemingwayesque) is a testament to both his lasting literary impact and the truth of his argument that a word is only as powerful as its meaning. At a time when telling facts from “alternative facts” has become harder than ever because of deep fake technology, when the clocks might well strike thirteen and two plus two might just be five, both Orwell and 1984 remain as important as ever to how the world — and its future — are imagined and articulated.
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