Two Classic Books by George Orwell
“1984”and”Animal Farm”
If you read Orwell’s classics years ago then they are well worth another reading… and if you have never read them, then it is definitely time to discover their power for yourself. Eric Blair (more famous by his pen name, George Orwell) was highly critical of Communism, but considered himself a Socialist. The result is a more honest assessment of the inherent dangers of any government in possession of powerful technologies. Orwell wrote these provocative works just after World War II, at the dawn of the Cold War and modern propaganda battles waged upon the minds of each populace. They are still considered classics not because his specific visions have literally come to pass, but because his analysis of modern politics, power structures and human psyches have proven to be so accurate in general. It’s very spooky.
For example, in “1984”, Orwell describes his nation as one which is “always at war” with other nations which were once trusted friends but are now eternal enemies and vice versa. The leaders (known ‘lovingly’ as “Big Brother”) have perfected manipulative language techniques (“doublethink”, “newspeak”) to help the rulers obscure truth and effectively control the masses by re-writing history to suit their purposes (today, of course, we have a variation widely acknowledged as ‘spin doctoring’). The plot synopsis is thus: “Winston, a worker at the Ministry of Truth has a job falsifying records for the Party. Secretly subversive, he and his colleague Julia try to free themselves from political slavery but the price of freedom is betrayal. Newspeak, Doublethink, Big Brother, the Thought Police – George Orwell’s world-famous novel coined new and potent words of warning for us all.”
Similarly, while our livestock have not mounted a revolution ala “Animal Farm”, various factions within our society DO exhibit many of the personal and political traits of these ‘fictional’ animals. The Pigs who take over, with the help of the military attack Dogs, initially sell the masses on a slogan, “All animals are created equal”, to win support for their coup, later adding the end tag “… but some are more equal than others” to justify why so many riches flow to the ruling class Pigs.
Any reader who is not in total denial will immediately notice the eerie parallels between the societies Orwell describes and our own modern world… leading, of course, to the realization that we have moved too far down the path Orwell warned us about over 50 years ago. Prescient, frightening, and (hopefully) motivating.
Fortunately, both “1984” and “Animal Farm” are available in various audio book, movie, and video forms so you can still easily challenge the minds of those who absolutely refuse to read anything but the sports page.