Orwell
Discussion on George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair, who is better remembered by his pen name, George Orwell, was one of the most influential authors of the twentieth century. He is one of the few modern day individuals who has fostered the creation of a new word -- "Orwellian." This word itself could be the subject of an entire book with many modern day examples. This has led many people to believe that much of Orwell's work was prophetic in nature; giving insights as to what individuals might expect in one possible future for humanity.
Just to illustrate the importance of the term Orwellian that has perpetrated the modern vernacular, a few examples will be provided. One example of a rather Orwellian term that actually predates Orwell himself is the concept of civil war. If the contradiction doesn't appear immediately, just reflect on any war that you were aware of that was truly "civil." Wars are not civil by any stretch of the imagination. In fact all wars are bloody and horrific in nature and result in vast amount of human suffering. However, associating a war along with the term civil serves to distract the reader from the true nature of the event that it describes.
Furthermore, Orwell's ideas may be even more relevant today than they were in his time. The world has developed a more complex operating environment at an exponential pace. It is seldom that people get the chance to study any topic in-depth due to the fact that the challenges of modernity leave little time for people to thoroughly research the nuances inherent in any given topic. Many people believe that some of Orwell's concepts have been further refined and are still in play today; just better disguised.
On example can be provided by Paul Krugman who is a Nobel Prize winning economist who writes for the New York Times. He argued in his book "Fuzzy Math" that the Bush era tax cuts was really a trick on the public to hide an alternative motive by politicians to disguise...
ORWELL George Orwell 1984 Eerie parallels with today's online economy of words and knowledge George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 functions as a satire of many of the excesses of 20th century communism, such as everyday citizens' communal, monotonous lives, its nonsensical wars to keep the people complacent, and the creation of 'Big Lies' that are accepted, simply because the government so totally dominates the media. A symptom of this totalitarian thinking is manifested
But that's where we are now. 'We have to look at this operation very carefully and maybe it shouldn't be allowed to go ahead at all'" (Nat Hentoff, p.A19). Today we find our system of government to claim that they are the only people who know the difference between right and wrong and thus while the entire world should disarm themselves of nuclear warheads, we should keep them. Our government
George Orwell wrote "Homage to Catalonia" about his time spent as a soldier for POUM, the Worker's Party of Marxist Unity, during the Spanish Civil War. His vision of war was certainly different going in than it ended up being after he had spent several months on the front line. Perhaps the most disheartening aspect of the war (besides the cold) for him was the political conflicts that were undermining
George Orwell's last novel, 1984, was released in 1949. The world was still reeling from the effects of World War II and the Soviet Union was emerging as the next great threat to world security. That same year, the Western world watched as the Soviet Union exploded the first atomic bomb, sparking forty years of the Cold War. Supporters of capitalism and democracy quickly hailed the book as a warning
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George Orwell's 1984: The Danger That Abuse Of Power Poses To Individual Liberty There are several themes in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four that are still relevant in our world today, which is evident if a process of analysis is used to draw parallels between the book and current day issues. One such theme is the danger that the abuse of power poses to individual liberty. Indeed, the preceding statement is as
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