George Orwell's Legacy: Insights on Totalitarianism and Truth

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membership George Orwell is perhaps one of the most widely read and reference literary figures of all time certainly

of the 20th century cited and mentioned by nearly every contemporary ideology in political worldview his voice Echoes

down the halls of History his insights about the power of language and Technology as well as his warnings about

the manipulation of truth and the threat of totalitarianism being relevant to rooms on both sides of the hall left and

right transcend the walls of any one moment movement or ideology Orwell was born in 1903 in

Bengal India which at the time was part of the British Empire he was born with the name Eric Arthur Blair and would

only become George Orwell many years later when using the name as a pseudonym to protect his family and their

reputation as well as his own as a child Orwell socioeconomic conditions were unusual his mother being the daughter of

a wealthy man had the attitude and tastes of someone well off but by the time Orwell was born his family had

little money and his father was working as a civil servant Orwell would later refer to his upbringing as lower upper

middle class a sort of amalgamation of impoverishment and snobbery after his family returned from India to England

where they originally from with the help of some family connections Orwell was sent to an English preparatory school

here both his unusual temperament and his Brilliance became apparent receiving both ridicule from other students as

well as scholarships to England's leading schools Wellington and Eaton at an early age however Orwell found the

academic environment miserable and so he would never go on to University instead in 1922 he entered the British Imperial

Service and worked as a colonial police officer he was posted in Burma a province of British India at the time he

also found this experience miserable and conflicting with his values 5 years later he would resign over the

subsequent few years Orwell would work several low-paying service jobs throughout Paris and London including a

part-time assistant job in a secondhand book shop around this time he would also begin writing and Publishing books of

his own including burmes days a clergyman's daughter and keep the aspidistra flying surely influenced by

his unique upbringing and his diverse experiences across Burma France and London Orwell would develop a fondness

for what he referred to as Ordinary People and ordinary life in individuals who worked normal jobs were not obsessed

with material Goods had minimal education and didn't strive for nor achieve any sort of prominence power or

so-called greatness in contrast he developed a disdain for intellectuals ironically of course Orwell would soon

become one perhaps one of the most prominent intellectuals of the 20th century Orwell's rise to prominence as

an intellectual and literary figure can be largely attributed to the catalyzing experiences he had after traveling to

Spain in 19 1936 initially he went to Spain as a journalist to report on the Spanish Civil War but he soon enlisted

as a volunteer in the Republican militia to fight against the fascist opposition if you had asked me why I had joined the

militia I should have answered to fight against Fascism and if you had asked me what I was fighting for I should have

answered common decency Orwell later wrote during his time in the war Orwell was shot in the throat and nearly killed

by a sniper perhaps even more affecting for him however was what he witnessed in the the coverage and portrayal of the

War years later he wrote early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper but in

Spain for the first time I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts not even the relationship

which is implied in an ordinary lie I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting and complete

silence where hundreds of men had been killed I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and

traitors and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the Heroes of imaginary victories and I saw newspapers

in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had

never happened I saw in fact history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have

happened according to various party lines Orwell's observations reveal to him a degradation of the value placed on

objective truth objective truth was being replaced more and more by the faith and subjective truths of

ideologies and political parties I'm willing to believe that history is for the most part inaccurate and biased

but what is peculiar to our own age is the abandonment of the idea that history could be truthfully written Orwell wrote

the consequences of this for Orwell risk leading to totalitarianism a form of government in which individuals lack

freedom and instead are subordinate to and controlled by the central authority of the state when there is no belief in

objective truth truth solely exists in the human mind becoming easily malleable and man atable for Orwell this threat

looms regardless of any specific ideological and political leaning be it left or right it is just the common

basis of agreement of Truth with its implication that human beings are all one species of animal that

totalitarianism destroys he wrote during the early and mid 20th century these consequences were unfolding and

totalitarianism was spreading and Germany Italy Spain the Soviet Union as well as in Orwell's mind England and

Beyond in response to this Orwell believed that literature could be used to help warn against this development it

could be used to shed light on the circumstances of the world and help people fend against the increasing

threat to Freedom truth and well-being what I have most wanted to do throughout the past 10 years is to make

political writing into an art my starting point is always a feeling of partisanship a sense of Injustice when I

sit down to write a book I do not say to myself I'm going to produce a work of art I write it because there is some lie

that I want to expose some fact fact to which I want to draw attention and my initial concern is to get a hearing

Orwell wrote the Orwell had already written and published several relatively successful

books by around the year 1939 his real rise to Global mainstream prominence came after the publication of his Nolla

Animal Farm in 1945 and it was here that Orwell's mission to spread important ideas and warnings about the threats of

the time and future times began to successfully ensue at scale in Animal Farm there is no real

main character rather the protagonist of the book is a population of anthropomorphized animals living on a

farm known as Manor Farm each species of animal represents a different archetype or group of humans in society one day on

the farm a pig named old major expresses to the other animals that they are being exploited by the humans who own the farm

and if they work together the animals can and ought to overtake the humans and create a better future for themselves a

revolution happens the animals take over and a new philosophy known as animalism is established two pigs named snowball

and Napoleon take lead over the new conditions of the farm which soon becomes just Napoleon after he has

snowball chased off though things appear to go well initially hell soon breaks loose and the pigs who lead the farm

begin to lead with malice selfishness manipulation and violence ultimately becoming the equivalent of the humans

that the animals had revolted against the creatures outside look from pig to man and from man to Pig and from pig to

man again but already it was impossible to say which was was which reads the final line of the

book broadly Animal Farm is a thinly veiled critique of the Russian Revolution and the subsequent rule of

Joseph Stalin over the Soviet Union it showcases and warns against the fallibilities and susceptibilities of

revolutionary movements and the potential threats of counter revolutions what arguably makes this Nolla so unique

and important however is its ability to cut through the surface of any single social or political Target and instead

reveal Timeless truths about social political and psychological phenomena and to do so with animals in the form of

a fable like that of asop or Disney Orwell brings the complexities of social and political movements into an

accessible easily understandable allegorical format that can appeal to mass audiences across time and space and

that's exactly what animal farm did and does selling 500,000 copies within the first year of publication and then going

on to sell millions and millions more the same year Animal Farm was released Orwell lost his wife while she was

undergoing a routine surgery only a year or two later he began to fall ill himself with tuberculosis he would

however muster everything he had left and work on one last book after collapsing multiple times while writing

his science speculative and dystopian fiction novel 1984 was released in 1949 in brief 1984 focuses on a

character named Winston Smith who lives in what was once London but is now a province of the superstate of Oceania

Oceania is run by a totalitarian government known as as the party which follows the doctrines of English

Socialism or inok and is led by a dictator figure known as Big Brother in Oceania citizens are under constant

surveillance and are ruthlessly punished for even so much as thinking thoughts that counter the party's ideological

doctrines devices known as telescreens are put in everyone's homes where they both consume broadcasted content and are

constantly observed by the party what are known as the th police are also always looming ready to arrest anyone

who commits what are known as thought crimes or simply thinking the wrong things about the party

moreover the party is constantly producing propaganda in the form of manipulated information data statistics

and language language is simplified and reduced in Oceania through what is known as New speak where words are eliminated

from the vernacular in order to prevent the likelihood of nuanced critical thinking words are also often used in a

contradictory manner in order to undermine the true nature of the things they describe for example labor camps

are referred to as Joy camps torture takes place in the ministry of love the military is referred to as the min

Ministry of Peace the department responsible for falsifying data and facts is known as the ministry of truth

and the slogans of Oceania are war is peace freedom is slavery ignorance is strength all of this causes citizens to

engage in what is known as double think a sort of cognitive dissonance in which they both have their own perceptions and

understanding of what is true and yet they accept what they are being told by the party as true despite any

contradictions at the beginning of the novel Winston writes in his diary down with big brother by the end of the novel

The narrator concludes referring to Winston two Gins scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose but it was

all right everything was all right the struggle was finished he had won the victory over himself he loved big

brother like Animal Farm 1984 would obtain immediate success which Orwell was able to witness in his lifetime

before dying of tuberculosis the next year in 1950 ultimately it is unclear how cynical Orwell truly was was but the

cynical endings to his two Masterworks are arguably not a declaration of total hopelessness but a warning for the

potential hopelessness that the future could exhibit the future we are living in now since Orwell's passing his work

has only continued to become increasingly popular and culturally relevant 1984 is likely one of the most

widely read books certainly of the dystopian speculative genre finding itself still 75 years later a part of

many if not most high school English literature classes as well as college courses Orwell has become one of the few

writers in history to have a term created out of his work orwellian most broadly orwellian refers

to any conditions reminiscent of Orwell's work in which the welfare and freedom of citizens are undermined or at

the risk of being undermined typically by a central political power and ideology but arguably orwellian is not

purely defined by totalitarian conditions but by the means in which totalitarian conditions are carried out

specifically it refers to the intention Distortion and manipulation of language and information for the purposes of

serving some ulterior power for power's sake like Orwell's work itself however this term is often misunderstood

misrepresented or altered in service to whatever cause the user favors often causes in ideologies that Orwell himself

would likely have disagreed with the term orwellian can apparently be orwellian itself what is clear and

important to note however is that although the party of Oceania in 1984 originated from socialism orell was not

a Critic of socialism he was a Critic of totalitarianism regardless of its origins or political leaning he was in

fact a proponent of democratic socialism a political democracy with a socially run decentralized economy every line of

serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written directly or indirectly against totalitarianism and

for Democratic socialism as I understand it Orwell wrote furthermore he was anti- capitalist and believed capitalism

incentivizes conditions of suffering and leads to small concentrations of power and wealth this certainly makes those

who reference Orwell in favor of capitalism and against socialism especially and ironically

orwellian ultimately regardless of whether you agree with Orwell or like his writing there is no denying his

influence and there is no denying the value and relevance of exploring the topics and ideas that he did his

insights into how human psychology plays out in the arena of politics and how the use and control of language influences

and controls the thoughts and opinions of a population is likely a Timeless and immensely relevant insight to all

societies past present and future his unique ability to use language to convey this insight and warn against the power

and influence of language is something only a brilliant writer could even try to do and his ability to bring

incredibly complex and typically dry Concepts down into the realm of Mass Appeal and interest perhaps has helped

ensure that the developments of aspects of the world remain on a track that leads to at the very least

a less dystopian destination in truth we are always susceptible to our own malice and

ignorance when we aren't paying attention individually and collectively tyranny is not a part of History it is a

part of humanity humanity is always on the brink of slipping into it of chasing the rabbit of Hope into dystopian

wonderlands Orwell realized this that tyranny was always possible and can occur even in a society in which the

intentions are noble or in a society in which the conditions appear prosperous and Democratic IC perhaps Our Only Hope

somewhat countering Orwell's view is realizing that in fact there is no ultimate objective Truth at least that

we have access to and that subjective truth is likely all there is and all there will ever be for us we must accept

this as a consequence of our condition of ignorance and limitation our fragmented perceptions and dissenting

values but perhaps when we take this realization to the extreme we realize that all individuals all groups all

organizations and all ations are fallible and wrong there's no one idea or truth to follow or believe in perhaps

in doing this we burn up all the fuel of totalitarianism and at the bottom of the tank we find the collective realization

of simple decency the kind in which Orwell advocated for the kind in which we arrive at mutually beneficial inter

subjective truths based on humility and compassion toward the differences and Mal abilities of humanity across time

and space rather than an ultimate rightness and finality right now of course this is far far easier said than

done but in the words of Orwell when referring to the conditions of 1984 the moral to be drawn from this dangerous

nightmare situation is a simple one don't let it happen it depends on you some of the best books we will ever

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