Did Orwell know, or just coincidence?

[SteyrAUG]

1984 was Orwell's last novel, and he wrote it as an indictment about Stalin and the USSR. I do not think he had a clue what the US would look like 70-something years later. Who could??

Add to that it was a pretty easy thought experiment to realize the inevitable result of communism / socialism. Any kind of "statism" either founded on right wing or left wing politics, where the rights of the individual are secondary to the power of the state, you will end up with more or less the same result.

Monarchies, theocracies, fascism, socialism, communism, etc. none of them go anyplace good. But the real problem is truly free societies such as the early democracies of Greece and Roman Republics can probably never exist again because without obliging the citizenry to support for national defense either through taxes, service or both...such a state would never be powerful enough to defend itself from other super power states that engage in such practices.

The only thing that has prevented a true world war III is our early nuclear monopoly and our demonstrated willingness to use it. And the day we no longer support our military capacity as a super power, that will be the first day of the end of this nation.

Currently we are still "mostly" fighting enemies from within. While terrorists states still strike at us whenever they are able and Russian and China weaken us to the best of their ability with mostly deniable actions it's still a lot better than it might be. If anyone of us actually goes "weapons hot" everybody is going to lose pretty hard. I do not believe any country on Earth is capable of engaging in a "limited" nuclear exchange.

And while Berlin might not be the cold war flashpoint it once was, they better realize that we are going to hit satellite / client states first in any exchange so like it or not they have skin and real estate in this game. They can cry for nuclear disarmament all they wish, the US, Russian Federation and China are only going to disarm to their emergency SHTF stockpile and no further.

North Korea, Pakistan and Iran (if they ever join the club) think they are players but really they will be the first places scratched off the list and then it will be the US, Russia and China seeing if anyone wants to blink.

[Jellybean]

Uh. Apology redacted. Apparently I didn't realize I was a WS.

No white people ever do, that's why we need our moral betters in the media and society to point out our hidden faults so we may abase ourselves properly.
It's amazing how good these people are at finding things out about you that you didn't know...

I’m not white or even close to it but maybe I will just start saying I’m a white supremacist everywhere I go ha ha.

I mean, the leader of the PB is black, as are many of their members (or various 'other than white' races) and apparently they are a WS org, so yeah, I think you fit right in.

[morbidbattlecry]

How many people here have actually read and thought about the Book 1984?

[chuckman]

How many people here have actually read and thought about the Book 1984?

I had to write a 30-some-odd-page paper on it in college circa 1988. Not just the book but all sorts of literary critiques.

[Kevslatvin]

How many people here have actually read and thought about the Book 1984?

I read it but it's been a few years. Kept seeing it referenced on forums so I picked it up.

[Boy Scout]

The irony being that Orwell himself would be a staunch Antifa leader/marxist college professor if he were alive today. He was very much a believer in socialism and saw it as the answer to fascism/authoritarian/totalitarian governance, without being smart enough to see that it was in fact a more successful means to government authoritarianism than Hitler/Stalinesque fascism.

1984 was his diatribe on fascist authoritarianism as foresaw of the Soviet government; all the while he participated in activities directly lifted from the book:

-He was a propagandist, in radio and print.
-His wife worked for the censorship department for the Ministry of Information in England


A more apt literary comparison of our current situation would be Animal Farm:

“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”

[chuckman]

The irony being that Orwell himself would be a staunch Antifa leader/marxist college professor if he were alive today. He was very much a believer in socialism and saw it as the answer to fascism/authoritarian/totalitarian governance, without being smart enough to see that it was in fact a more successful means to government authoritarianism than Hitler/Stalinesque fascism.

1984 was his diatribe on fascist authoritarianism as foresaw of the Soviet government; all the while he participated in activities directly lifted from the book:

-He was a propagandist, in radio and print.
-His wife worked for the censorship department for the Ministry of Information in England


A more apt literary comparison of our current situation would be Animal Farm:

“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”

Definitely. He believed in the ideals of socialism as it could ideally be lived out inspired by what happened in Spain, he loathed USSR-style authoritarianism. Like so many kids today, he thought that it just had not been implemented correctly yet.

[Lowdown3]

1984 was Orwell's last novel, and he wrote it as an indictment about Stalin and the USSR. I do not think he had a clue what the US would look like 70-something years later. Who could??

1984 depicted three separate world powers, all socialist. Oceania which I believe was meant to represent the UK and USA, East Asia and Eurasia. If I had a guess that was China and Russia respectively.

Orwell states in the book that no one party ever seemed to get to a victory and parties would occasionally switch sides in an attempt to gain some victories. Hence the part where the phrase "Oceania is at war with Eurasia. Oceania has always been at war with East Asia."

In a way, this is a macro view of how global politics have worked since Orwell wrote it. First it was China (East Asia) and Russia (Eurasia) teamed up against the US and UK (Oceania). Then when supposedly Mao had his falling out with USSR then it was claimed that China (East Asia) was siding with the US (Oceania). This would be the Nixon reset up till maybe a little before the turn of the century when Putin became BFF with China.

"How many fingers am I holding up Winston?"

"I see four but I want to see five....."

So yes 1984 was about the horrors of socialism, but it wasn't just the USSR he was warning about.

Animal Farm could be directly related to the USSR, down to the characters.

[okie]

1984 depicted three separate world powers, all socialist. Oceania which I believe was meant to represent the UK and USA, East Asia and Eurasia. If I had a guess that was China and Russia respectively.

Orwell states in the book that no one party ever seemed to get to a victory and parties would occasionally switch sides in an attempt to gain some victories. Hence the part where the phrase "Oceania is at war with Eurasia. Oceania has always been at war with East Asia."

In a way, this is a macro view of how global politics have worked since Orwell wrote it. First it was China (East Asia) and Russia (Eurasia) teamed up against the US and UK (Oceania). Then when supposedly Mao had his falling out with USSR then it was claimed that China (East Asia) was siding with the US (Oceania). This would be the Nixon reset up till maybe a little before the turn of the century when Putin became BFF with China.

"How many fingers am I holding up Winston?"

"I see four but I want to see five....."

So yes 1984 was about the horrors of socialism, but it wasn't just the USSR he was warning about.

Animal Farm could be directly related to the USSR, down to the characters.

This dude gets it.

[chuckman]

1984 depicted three separate world powers, all socialist. Oceania which I believe was meant to represent the UK and USA, East Asia and Eurasia. If I had a guess that was China and Russia respectively.

Orwell states in the book that no one party ever seemed to get to a victory and parties would occasionally switch sides in an attempt to gain some victories. Hence the part where the phrase "Oceania is at war with Eurasia. Oceania has always been at war with East Asia."

In a way, this is a macro view of how global politics have worked since Orwell wrote it. First it was China (East Asia) and Russia (Eurasia) teamed up against the US and UK (Oceania). Then when supposedly Mao had his falling out with USSR then it was claimed that China (East Asia) was siding with the US (Oceania). This would be the Nixon reset up till maybe a little before the turn of the century when Putin became BFF with China.

"How many fingers am I holding up Winston?"

"I see four but I want to see five....."

So yes 1984 was about the horrors of socialism, but it wasn't just the USSR he was warning about.

Animal Farm could be directly related to the USSR, down to the characters.

Remember, the book came out before China became communist. That said, Chinese expansion, be it communist or nationalist, was on the march in the early 20th century so he knew something was going to happen, soon.

For all the literary critique and analysis, he was not a complicated man. I mean, this isn't Moby Dick. But it's pretty clear that he was not into prognostication or prophecy, but analysis. In his books He wanted to warn the dangers of the type of totalitarian and fascist government that he saw climbing in the Soviet Union yet hit on the ideals of what he thought he saw in Spain.