George Orwell’s warning for the future was published 76 years ago today.
George Orwell's classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is set in a dystopian future Great Britain, now known as Airstrip One, run by a totalitarian government. Themes of mass surveillance, propaganda and war pervade the novel, which gave rise to well-known terms today like Big Brother, thoughtcrime, doublethink, Thought Police, Newspeak, Room 101 and many others.
The novel follows a member of the ruling party in Oceania (the superstate in which Airstrip One is located) named Winston Smith who secretly despises the government, dreams of overthrowing it and enters into a banned relationship with Julia, his colleague. Nineteen Eighty-Four is Orwell's most famous work and gave rise to the term Orwellian, used to describe anything immensely restrictive and harmful to a free society.
The book has been adapted into many forms, including a film released in the year 1984 and starring John Hurt and Richard Burton.
Orwell’s depiction of a grey Stalinist state was a bit off the mark, I think. The fascist state we’ll end up with will be a gaudy veneer over a holy-rolling theocracy that will make is say “Merry Christmas” at gunpoint.
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