George Orwell’s "1984," Great Insight & Relevant Today
I am still impressed that as early as 1948, in his book, 1984, George Orwell wrote such a clear description of the dangers communism posed to individual freedoms. While Orwell despised communism, he actually supported socialism. However, Friedrich Hayek (1944) described how socialism led inevitably to totalitarianism since when the state is all important someone must be in charge (e.g., Orwell’s, “all the animals were equal but some were more equal than others”). Current day examples of socialism failures abound from Greece to Venezuela and even throughout Europe. Even though the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (that collapsed by the end of 1991) was Orwell’s primary target, his book is still relevant today.
Sometimes good people think that the state can be a Utopia and make life better for all. These Utopians hope that people will not be too rich and privileged or too poor and underprivileged. However, it never works because someone has to decide who is too rich and how rich is too rich and who should that person who gets to decide be? Those who want desperately to be that person have historically been the wrong person (e.g., power hungry dictators). Only George Washington voluntarily walked away from his position as President of the United States. Although we now have a two-term limit for President, most politicians spend a great deal of time and money trying to stay in political office (i.e., power). Politicians in power and common citizens are not equal and in practical terms our politicians are our “rulers”…even though we do get to elect them they have a great deal of power over our daily lives.
It is simply common sense that all people are NOT created equal. Some are tall and some are short. Some are very smart, some are average and others are less than average…some are strong and others are not so strong. Some people are ambitious and many are not. People are only equal before God but they should also be equal under the law. If the politically elite are not subject the same laws as the rest of our citizens [Secretary Clinton’s mishandling of Top Secret SCI information], then we are getting closer to living in George Orwell’s fictitious Oceania (i.e., the all powerful state where individuals have no freedom).
It is not good that the mainstream news media continually try to mislead our citizens by shaping news stories to cover-up the political elites’ mistakes and wrong-doing. It is also depressing that these same newspapers and TV channels try to socially engineer our society so that we all think alike and think like we are told to think. The mainstream media have become Orwell’s fictional “Ministry of Truth” and they are trying to teach us what Orwell called “Newspeak” or the language of political correctness. I thought it might be helpful to quote a few passages from Orwell’s book (See below) since I doubt many of us have read this important book recently. Also below is a quote from Hayek's (2007) The Road to Serfdom describing how the truth is systematically kept from citizens so those in power can stay in power. Hopefully these passages will provoke some thought and discussion [Before we arrive at Oceania - Orwell's fictitious all-powerful, all knowing government?].
George Orwell, Quotes from 1984 [The Ministry of Truth?]
Thus history is continuously rewritten. This day-to-day falsification of the past, carried out by the Ministry of Truth [E.g., the mainstream media], is as necessary to the stability of the regime [Current administration]... The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc [Ingsoc is an acronym for "English Socialism”]. … And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it. (Orwell, 1948, p. 127)
The purpose of Newspeak [i.e., politically correct language] was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, [English socialism] but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought— that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc — should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. (Orwell, 1948, p. 127)
To give a single example. The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as "This dog is free from lice" or "This field is free from weeds." It could not be used in its old sense of "politically free" or "intellectually free" since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be dispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum. (Orwell, 1948, pp. 310-311)
From Hayek’s Road to Serfdom
Everything which might cause doubt about the wisdom of the government or create discontent will be kept from the people. The basis of unfavorable comparisons with elsewhere, the knowledge of possible alternatives to the course actually taken, information which might suggest failure on the part of the government to live up to its promises or to take advantage of opportunities to improve conditions--all will be suppressed. There is consequently no field where the systematic control of information will not be practiced and uniformity of views not enforced. (Hayek, 2007, p. 176) ― Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom
I hope we wake up and see America has been going in the wrong direction for the last eight years…towards an all-powerful government run by a political elite and away from the individual freedoms that have made America the Shining City on a Hill that people from all over the world have envied. I pray we will return to the primacy of individual freedoms and liberty.
References
Hayek, F. (2007). The road to serfdom (B. Caldwell Ed. Vol. II). London: The University of Chicago Press.
Orwell, G. (1948). 1984. New York: Signet Classic.