1984

I was speaking to one of you yesterday after class about my hero, George Orwell, and I may have seemed almost religious in my praise of him. He is the guiding spirit of this course: humane, articulate, and incisive. He sniffs out hypocrisy and authoritarianism wherever it may be found and promotes sincerity and authorship in their place.

Our exercise in class yesterday in which we analyzed the excerpt from President Bush's press conference was intended to illustrate Orwell's argument that our political leaders use language and abuse it to disguise their true intentions. You all were able to cut through the words to the kernal of substance in that paragraph and put it in much clearer prose. Orwell would be proud of you as readers and writers but horrified by the state of language a half-century after his death. Clearly, we, as an electorate in the 21st Century, do not insist on clarity and directness in those whom we trust to lead us, yet without real transparency of language how can we know on what basis to make our decisions as citizens? How can we know when we should lay our lives on the line for our country or when to hit the streets in protest? If we are told nothing in a nice way, we will know nothing and still feel warmly toward those who have appeared to provide us with the info we need to understand the issue. We are, thus, as Betty wrote, "satisfied enough and quiet."

In 1984, Orwell is, as I read it, almost prophetic. As I argued, the "telescreen" is proliferating in today's public spaces with tvs and surveillance cameras, controlling our attention (keeping us distracted) and watching our every move. What specific element in Orwell's novel do you believe has parallels in today's world? What does it mean?