George Orwell, Our
Contemporary—Almost
American Greatness,
by
Mark Falcoff
Original Article
Posted By: Imright,
12/10/2020 3:55:14 AM
The current wave of cultural Marxism and postmodernism (amounting virtually to the same thing) that is prominent at our universities now threatens to bleed full-bore into our mainstream culture. This has caused more than one observer to liken the current American scene to something akin to George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Published in 1947, the book introduced several new concepts into the English language, the most recognizable being the reference to “Big Brother.” Without attempting to summarize a finely filigreed novel, one cannot help but point out some features which possess a certain resonance in the current American scene.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
F15 Gork 12/10/2020 6:55:37 AM (No. 627668)
In 10th Grade English Class, Animal Farm was one of the books we were required to read and discuss in class. No doubt in anybody’s mind what it was about and what it was about wasn’t good. Whet my appetite. Got a copy of 1984 and read it on my on. Nine years later I was doing the Lord’s work killing commies in Vietnam. In a month the illegitimate spawn of 1984 will be in Washington destroying our republic. Always said we were probably bombing the wrong people....our real targets were a lot closer to home.
17 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Bur Oak 12/10/2020 8:52:09 AM (No. 627786)
People thought George Orwell was a writer of fiction but he was a prophet.
7 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
john56 12/10/2020 8:57:56 AM (No. 627793)
I've come to realize that George Orwell is pretty spot on today except for three things.
1. The Year
2, The two minutes of hate are extended to 24/7 for all those thing Trump.
3. The Ministry of Truth isn't a drab downtown building filled with bureaucrats. It's at pretty pastel colored Silicon Valley tech campuses.
And of course, “The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”
4 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
StrikingViking 12/10/2020 11:16:37 AM (No. 627984)
An excerpt from Orwell's “The Lion and the Unicorn” caught my eye. When you read it, substitute "American" for "English" and "The Star Spangled Banner" for "God save the King":
“The really important point about the English intelligentsia is their severance from the common culture of the country. In intention at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanized. They take their cooking from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought. England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their nationality. It is a strange fact, but unquestionably true, that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing at attention during ‘God Save the King’ than stealing from a poor box . . . Unlike [the English intelligentsia], the common people have never indulged in power worship. England will never recover its greatness until patriotism and intelligence come together again.”
3 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
TexaTucky 12/10/2020 12:54:48 PM (No. 628065)
What disturbs me about Orwell's prophetic skills is that at the end of 1984, Winston forsakes Julia for Big Brother.
While we fantasize that we are John Galts, I wonder how many of us are actually Winston Smiths. How far down the path will we have to go to discern that truth about ourselves?
4 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Heraclitus 12/10/2020 1:59:58 PM (No. 628150)
John Wesley Young in his study* of totalitarians' manipulation of language to acquire, consolidate and strengthen control over the people, studying both communist and NAZI models. Young proposes that Orwell, writing in 1948, just transposed the number in the date to read 1984. Orwell was an eyewitness to the objectivization of human beings, the relentless accruing of power for the purpose of destroying the individual, which is how you get total submission.
If you can find the book, i think you would find it to be excellent and disturbing because we are seeing these trends, here, in a country where we have a Right to free speech, thought, religious beliefs. Yet, we are being silenced and coerced without even the threat of prison... but the threat of job loss, bad reviews, ostracization, leading to a different, metaphorical prison of the mind.
*I have a copy from back in early 1990s and have not been able to find another, as of now. "Totalitarian Language: Orwell's Newspeak and Its NAZI and Communist Antecedents" UP of Virginia 1991
0 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
caljeepgirl 12/10/2020 10:13:47 PM (No. 628544)
#6, Amazon has it for a mere $250.00!
https://www.amazon.com/Totalitarian-Language-Newspeak-Communist-Antecedents/dp/0813913241/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=totalitarian+language&qid=1607656197&sr=8-1
0 people like this.
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