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At the outset of Burma Sahib, the new novel by esteemed travel writer Paul Theroux, a woman and her husband aboard the ship Herefordshire take an interest in another passenger—a young man standing at the bow looking out to the sea. Who is he? Where is he going?
Orwell wrote not one, but two century-defining works, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four—novels that speak directly to readers today, more than 50 years later. He dedicated his life to writing about and warning of the dangers of totalitarian politics and, most presciently, the breakdown of language when it comes to previously clear distinctions between truth and falsehood. The life story of this brilliant writer underpins the free-flowing structure of Rebecca Solnit’s new book, Orwell’s Roses.
Here’s what, I believe, neither Huxley, nor Orwell, nor any of us saw coming: It’s not a matter of government using technology to enslave the people. It is a matter of technology using the government to harness people’s loyalties, monies, and energies. It is about the creation of a vast, quiet sea of smiling economic slaves. Technology has proven itself more of a powerfully uniting force than government. The Trump/Never Trump divide is real and is full of unforgivable (and unforgiven) vitriol that promises to last into the next decade.
Words. “I have the best words,” Trump famously proclaimed during the campaign, and just the other day he told Maria Bartiromo of Fox News how “well-crafted” his goofy tweets are. The same man announced from the White House lawn on Wednesday that “I’m a very intelligent person” — words that sounded more self-deceptive than presidential. Trump does have a way with words. Unfortunately, it’s a gruesome way.
While previous modes of discipline were more hidden and implicit in state control, the development of CCTV could be identified as a shift to a physical, identifiable sign of mass surveillance that has been developing for several centuries. This explicit form of surveillance certainly hints at ominous trends in Western society, which has sparked countless Orwellian allusions to Big Brother, but it may also offer an opportunity for change.