George Orwell in today’s world
When I was in high school I read two books by George Orwell, “Animal Farm” and “1984”. Of course as a teenager I wasn’t entirely sure why we were made to read these books so all that was learnt went to the back of the filing cabinet of my mind. Oddly enough in the last months a faint memory came to the forefront of my mind when I saw many of the current events of 2020 unfold which prompted me to revisit some of George Orwell’s books and quotes.
Here are a few that stood out to me:
“It’s frightful that people who are so ignorant should have so much influence.”
“The people will believe what the media tells them they believe.”
“True freedom is the right to say something that others don’t want to hear.”
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”
“In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
“So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot.”
“Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.“
“However much you deny the truth, the truth goes on existing.”
“There is no swifter route to the corruption of thought than through the corruption of language”
“Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing.”
“Whoever controls the image and information of the past determines what and how future generations will think; whoever controls the information and images of the present determines how those same people will view the past.”
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
“He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.”
“All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers.”
“The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable.'”
“Using clichés is a substitute for thinking“
“Truth becomes untruth if uttered by your enemy”
“Right thinking will be rewarded, wrong thinking punished.”
There were so many more statements that I came across that resonated with me but I think the point is that these are warnings for us to start using our minds otherwise we will unfortunately live out predications of authors, repeat unwanted history and most of all create a future we don’t want to live in. I’m by no means calling George Orwell a prophet but he has put forth enough thought provoking statements that will help us all navigate the minefields we find ourselves in and help us get clarity when clarity seems so difficult to find. I encourage you to also revisit George Orwell’s statements and writings as they seem as relevant today as they were when they were written.
