I believe it is one of the most, if not the most seminal political works of the 20th Century.
Especially when one examines where we are now.
With few exceptions the Oceania of Orwell resembles inner cities of today’s US. Instead of a relatively few people in poverty like today, most of the proletariat in 1984 led grim and dirty lives.
Long ago I had to put the book aside for a while after reading the section regarding Winston’s childhood. His father was disappeared by The Party when he was very small. When a little older, Winston, his mother and baby sister were dying from starvation. After he didn’t share a morsel of chocolate with his mother and sister, he ran off. When he returned, they were both gone. He never knew precisely the fate of his family.
In 1984, Winston thinks he is about forty years old, but can’t be sure. There are no records. There is no truth, but he seeks out the truth. It is his demise.
The screws of today’s Thought Police will only tighten.
I have always found him fascinating. He saw modern total tyranny more clearly than nearly anyone else in his work, but was a socialist in his personal life.
I could never understand how he squared that circle.
Doublethink is an essential element of today’s Left, and I believe the psychic damage it has to cause is deadly and acute because we live in an Information Age.
To hold two diametrically opposed things as both equal truths is one thing in 1949, but in this Information Age, the cognitive dissonance and resultant damage has to be so much greater than ever before.
I believe it is driving the Left insane.
Literally.
It was June 8th 1949 and the clock was striking thirteen...
“In a time of universal deceit, telling me truth becomes a revolutionary act,”-George Orwell
read the book in high school. I might note... the year cameras were introduced into a jail I was involved with was 1984. Coincidence. “Big Brother”.... BUT YOU LEARN! “Big Brother” NEVER shovels the crap! EVER! ALL that big brother does is blame you for his inadequacies. Been there, done that! Lived it! Suffered it and hated it!
I read a biography of him which said he was a communist who went to war against Spain as a “republican”.
The things he wrote about in 1984 weren’t predictions, they were the SOP of the people around him.
The thing that seemed amazing to me is that he stayed a leftist after his experiences.
Transgenderism made me realize the profundity of Newspeak nowadays.