tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/george-orwell-1442/articlesGeorge Orwell – The Conversation2023-10-18T16:02:50Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2157352023-10-18T16:02:50Z2023-10-18T16:02:50ZJulia by Sandra Newman: a vibrant retelling of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four<p>George Orwell <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1360500/#:%7E:text=He%20did%20get%20Nineteen%20Eighty,while%20I%20was%20writing%20it%27.">apologised to his close friends</a> the writers <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anthony-Powell">Anthony Powell</a> and <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/julian-symons">Julian Symons</a> for his novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. He told one that it was “a good idea ruined” and the other that “I ballsed it up rather, partly owing to being so ill while I was writing it.” </p>
<p>For a work often seen as <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/top-classic-political-novels-3368080">the greatest political novel in English of the past century</a>, and certainly the best known and most quoted, this seems an unnecessarily harsh self-review. It’s clear that, ideally, he would have reworked the novel. As it happens, he wrote his apologies from a hospital bed. Orwell died barely six months after Nineteen Eighty-Four was published.</p>
<p>Nearly 75 years later, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/07/orwellian-nightmares-george-orwell-rage-culture-rewriting-1984">Sandra Newman’s</a> new novel, <a href="https://granta.com/contributor/sandra-newman/">Julia</a>, is not so much a reworking of Orwell’s novel as it is a lively and intelligent reorientation of its focus. Her version is told not from the perspective of Orwell’s protagonist, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Winston-Smith">Winston Smith</a>, but that of his lover, Julia.</p>
<p>One indication of the change of emphasis is that Newman’s Julia has a surname – Worthing. This an example of what is often seen as a flaw in the original novel: that Julia is not fleshed out sufficiently. That she is merely Winston’s apolitical love object.</p>
<p>It could be counter argued that given that Winston is the central character – Orwell had thought of calling his novel The Last Man in Europe – it is not surprising that other characters are less three dimensional. </p>
<p>Newman does something similar herself. Winston is a relatively minor character in Julia, appearing only occasionally, if significantly, in key scenes reworked from Nineteen Eighty-Four that give Julia’s view on events.</p>
<h2>Developing Julia</h2>
<p>Of course, one of the ironies Newman uses is that many readers will come to her novel already “knowing” Winston from Orwell’s work. </p>
<p>But whereas in Orwell’s book Winston is the hero (or anti-hero), in Newman’s he is viewed more sceptically. Julia has a backstory that precedes him and her own life (spoiler alert) continues significantly beyond Winston’s famous final capitulation: “He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”</p>
<p>Not giving away the details here of Julia’s life pre- and post-Winston preserves the many thoughtful and inventive plot twists, added scenes and characters Newman weaves into the detailed scenario that simultaneously deploys and extends elements from Nineteen Eighty-Four. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/sandra-newman-george-orwell-julia-1984/">The George Orwell Estate approached Newman</a> to write the novel, but it is sufficiently independent minded that it can be seen both as a companion to and a critique of the original.</p>
<p>For instance, Newman explores a plausible take on Julia’s willingness to become Winston’s lover. She develops this beyond their relationship to a more complex exploration of Julia’s perspective on the surveillance state and sexual politics. Through this we find that Julia has an exuberant and earthy imagination.</p>
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<p>Given the relatively cardboard cut-out nature of the original character in Nineteen Eighty-Four, the foregrounding of her own sexual experiences and sexuality as well as her early life gives her a vitality in this retelling lacking in Orwell’s portrait.</p>
<p>This is not so surprising. Orwell’s female characters (even Dorothy Hare, the eponymous heroine of <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/clergymans-daughter-9781847499097/">A Clergyman’s Daughter</a>, 1935) tend to be slight figures. By contrast, Newman’s Julia Worthing is anchored and adventurous. She’s willing to take risks and to suffer for her actions in ways that might seem unlikely if not impossible with Orwell’s Julia. </p>
<p>Because we follow her, readers see and hear things of which Winston has no knowledge. A natural consequence of this different focus is that, in Newman’s novel, Winston is ignorant of important dynamics that Julia knows of and, in some cases, facilitates.</p>
<h2>Julia’s world view</h2>
<p>One implication of the new novel’s focus is that, because Julia is younger than Winston and has grown with less knowledge of a time before Big Brother, she is less oppressed by the world of Oceania. </p>
<p>His somewhat morose nostalgia contrasts with her more energetic view of reality, allowing her to deal with and resist explicit horrors in the present. And while his job reworking newspapers to suit the ever-changing reality promoted by the Party underpins a knowing rejection of it, her work in the Fiction Department allows for a cynical detachment.</p>
<p>These differences play out in the general moods of the respective books, so that while the world of Julia is dark and unappealing, it exhibits far fewer of the oppressive qualities that torment Winston in Nineteen Eighty-Four.</p>
<p>Julia’s more benign view of the world of Big Brother is a feature of Orwell’s portrait. But because in Newman’s novel readers spend more time in Julia’s physical and emotional world, the worldview presented through her is far less subjugated. </p>
<p>These differences also have stylistic implications. Orwell’s stark, gloomy prose is central to his novel’s unrelenting oppression, whereas Newman’s more vibrant style reflects Julia’s energetic resistance to the Party. At least to a point – in time she will have to come to terms with darker forces. </p>
<p>We need not choose one style or approach over the other. Nineteen Eighty-Four remains a totemic piece of political literature, but Julia offers contemporary readers new ways of thinking about Orwell’s novel while ingeniously constructing its own, fully realised, world.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Marks receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Potter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Julia offers contemporary readers new ways of thinking about Orwell’s novel.Simon Potter, Professor of Modern History, University of BristolPeter Marks, Emeritus Professor in English and Writing, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2073802023-07-07T08:53:51Z2023-07-07T08:53:51ZUnpacking the controversy behind Roger Waters’ latest tour<p>“I will not be cancelled,” roared the former Pink Floyd singer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jun/01/roger-waters-review-a-powerful-humanist-spectacular#:%7E:text=%E2%80%9CThey're%20trying%20to%20cancel,%2Dyear%2Dold%20is%20tearful.">Roger Waters</a> at a recent concert in Birmingham, part of a European tour mired in controversy. There have been <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65725902">police investigations in Berlin</a>, <a href="https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/holocaust-survivor-daughter-evicted-from-roger-waters-o2-academy-gig/">demonstrations in Britain</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/germany-roger-waters-concert-antisemitism-allegations-protest-9cb70636d69019deab0b70e196b7f88b">accusations of fostering hatred against Jews</a>, but Waters has remained defiant.</p>
<p>At the centre of the uproar has been onstage imagery, particularly an SS-style leather trenchcoat emblazoned with <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/pink-floyd-star-roger-waters-says-he-was-opposing-fascism-when-he-wore-nazi-inspired-uniform-12890501">quasi-fascist crossed hammer symbols</a> which Waters has worn while brandishing a prop machine gun. The German investigation, which also precipitated a tirade of criticism in the UK, stemmed from laws forbidding displays of Nazi symbols as part of restrictions on hate speech – but with exemptions for artistic and educational purposes.</p>
<p>Waters’ <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/140cc3d7-0a3e-4bba-9c72-38fb498f58e2">riposte</a> – “It’s called theatre, darling, it’s called satire” – is first, that the costume depicts a fictional character who imagines himself a totalitarian icon and, second, is nothing new. The costume derives from the 1979 concept album <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/dec/05/pink-floyds-the-wall-a-bleak-manic-agonised-album-1979">The Wall</a>, whose protagonist descends into madness – a reflection connecting alienation to fascistic tendencies and, ultimately, a critique of them. Representations of these fevered imaginings have been a feature of Waters’ set for decades.</p>
<p>Another staple has been a flying inflatable pig, based on the 1977 album <a href="https://www.loudersound.com/features/rioting-bitter-acrimony-and-the-story-of-pink-floyds-unsung-masterpiece-animals">Animals</a>, which got him into <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/rogers-waters-defends-use-of-religious-symbolism-5812317/">hot water in 2013</a> when he adorned it with a Star of David, adding other religious symbols following complaints. The pig doesn’t feature a Star of David <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-rogerwaters-pig-idUSL1N37X0TS">on the current tour</a>. </p>
<p>So why has his tour generated all this fuss now?</p>
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<h2>An increasingly strident position</h2>
<p>Context is key, particularly Waters’ political trajectory since recording The Wall, and stances that have become progressively more strident and extreme. Although anti-war themes have infused his writing since his earliest compositions in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVdIieS1HkY">late 1960s</a>, his anti-capitalism and critique of western imperialism have taken on an increasingly conspiratorial bent, overshadowing any message of peace.</p>
<p>Animals was based on <a href="https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/biography/">George Orwell’s</a> anti-Stalinist fable <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/170448.Animal_Farm">Animal Farm</a>, which Waters <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Intertextuality_and_Intermediality_o/dN2JEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=animals+pink+floyd+orwell&pg=PA105&printsec=frontcover">reconfigured</a> into a commentary on how industrial capitalism had debilitated British society. He has cited, and <a href="https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/rogers-waters-manchester-ao-arena-27098352">compared himself</a> to, Orwell at recent concerts.</p>
<p>But Orwell – himself no fan of capitalism or imperialism – was alive to the risks of giving succour to your <a href="https://academic-accelerator.com/encyclopedia/the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend">enemy’s enemy</a>. This was a theme that came up regularly in his work (such as <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/homage-to-catalonia">Homage to Catalonia</a>), as he noted the twin dangers of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21337504">fascism and Stalinism</a>, despite them being on opposite sides of the political fence.</p>
<p>Waters’ critique of western politics, however, has calcified to the point of holding positions which can be seen as aligned with elements of the authoritarianism he claims to abhor. In Poland, Krakow city council <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/roger-waters-poland-concerts-canceled-krakow-city-council-ukraine-comments-1235144951/">cancelled Waters’ concerts</a> earlier this year, objecting to his views on Ukraine.</p>
<p>In an <a href="https://www.facebook.com/rogerwaters/posts/pfbid0UZC1eyEkQ5upe4dAcS6JAJMV9SvRwfoL3uNhHoWxz9oiCPQftpnwKfFhArjgqs1Cl">open letter</a> to Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska, Waters accused her husband of caving in to “extreme nationalists [who] have set your country on the path to this disastrous war”. At the <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/pink-floyd-star-roger-waters-addresses-un-at-russias-request-after-denying-incendiary-claims-in-row-with-ex-bandmate-12806682">invitation of Russian diplomats</a>, Waters <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/pink-floyd-star-roger-waters-addresses-un-at-russias-request-after-denying-incendiary-claims-in-row-with-ex-bandmate-12806682">addressed the UN Security Council</a> in February, denouncing violence but minimising Russia’s aggression, alluding to an invasion that was “not unprovoked”, and elsewhere questioning whether Putin is a “bigger gangster than Joe Biden”.</p>
<p>Likewise, for Waters, the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/white-helmets-group-ordinary-syrians-extraordinary/story?id=96971864">White Helmets</a> – a Syrian volunteer operation, opposed to al-Assad but with a focus on medical assistance and rescuing civilians from destroyed buildings – was a “<a href="https://consequence.net/2018/08/roger-waters-white-helmets-social-media/">fake organisation</a>”. The group was tainted, he believed, by the support and training it received from European organisation the <a href="https://www.devex.com/organizations/mayday-rescue-64239">Mayday Rescue Foundation</a> and its founder, former British Army officer <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-56126016">James Le Mesurier</a>.</p>
<p>Waters said Russia’s interventions in Syria, by contrast, were “<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23119144-rogerwaters_jamesball_editedtranscript?responsive=1&sidebar=0&title=1">at the invitation of the Syrian government</a>”, itself a legitimate government “in the absence of any evidence that says otherwise”. Waters has also claimed that al-Assad’s chemical attacks on civilians in Douma were <a href="https://www.newarab.com/opinion/pink-floyds-co-founder-roger-waters-says-white-helmets-fake">faked by his opponents</a>.</p>
<p>The former Pink Floyd singer also argues that Taiwan is part of China. And when challenged by a CNN journalist on Chinese civil rights abuses, Waters <a href="https://www.spin.com/2022/08/roger-waters-russian-china-ukraine-joe-biden-cnn-interview/">shot back</a>: “Bollocks. That’s absolute nonsense!”</p>
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<h2>Veering towards conspiracy theories</h2>
<p>Waters has been <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/roger-waters-michael-gove-keir-starmer-jewish-pink-floyd-b1086284.html">lambasted across party lines</a> from Keir Starmer to Michael Gove – not generally known for their shared opinions – and lays the blame for his touring travails and controversy, among much else, at the feet of the “<a href="https://rogerwaters.com/berliner/">Israeli lobby</a>”.</p>
<p>His difficulty here lies in journeying to the margins of political discourse where elements of the conspiratorially minded left and right share common ground in their opposition to the mainstream, despite their mutual enmity. Charges of antisemitism land more heavily in light of all this recent <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/roger-waters-interview-biden-war-criminal-defends-china-russia-1235123704/">controversial commentary</a> from Waters.</p>
<p>While criticism of Israel is of course not necessarily antisemitic, that doesn’t mean, as he appears to contend, that it can’t be. Waters’ definition of valid criticism of Israel is capacious enough to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/e5rPCRM_89g?feature=share&t=2821">include</a> that it “gave the country to the Tories … and also installed Keir Starmer as the leader of the Labour Party, who is completely controlled by the Israeli lobby”.</p>
<p>Bury South Labour MP Christian Wakeford accused Waters of using the performances to “<a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/roger-waters-manchester-gig-should-be-banned-says-mp-3448591">stoke division</a>”, and asked the AO Arena in Manchester to reconsider hosting the show. In repsonse to the MP’s criticsms, Waters called him a “cripple”, <a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/reviews/roger-waters-controversial-comments-london-concert-review-1235635917/">adding</a> that he was “making shit up because you were told to by your masters in the foreign office in Tel Aviv”.</p>
<p>This could be viewed as carrying echoes of conspiracist tropes focusing on Jewish cabalistic control of the media and economy, dating back to a document called <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/protocols-of-the-elders-of-zion">The Protocols of the Elders of Zion</a>. It was initially produced in pre-revolutionary Russia by supporters of Tsar Nicholas II and re-circulated throughout the 20th and 21st centuries as a purported account of how the Jews plot world domination, despite the document being <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/insider/1920-21-exposing-the-protocols-as-a-fraud.html">exposed as a forgery in 1921</a>. </p>
<p>It’s in the context of Waters’ ossified approach to modern politics, clinging to a hard, unyielding anti-western line, that longstanding elements of his stagecraft have become contentious. And even if it’s somewhat missing the point to focus too tightly on the trenchcoat and machine gun, he seems unable to grasp how he’s largely the author of this condemnation.</p>
<p>He may be right that the origins of his show lie in antifascism, but not in assuming that’s the end of the matter. Waters’ work has frequently combined personal estrangement with sociopolitical concerns, but his current tribulations are a result of drifting from allegorical to specific, and from empathetic to paranoid.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207380/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and from the British Academy. </span></em></p>Waters’ hard and unyielding approach to modern politics has resulted in longstanding elements of his stagecraft becoming contentious.Adam Behr, Senior Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2015722023-07-02T20:02:03Z2023-07-02T20:02:03ZAnna Funder rescues George Orwell’s wife Eileen from being ‘cancelled by the patriarchy’ – and reminds us he’s a sexual predator<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534259/original/file-20230627-21-misl8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Untitled design</span> </figcaption></figure><p>In the summer of 2017, <a href="https://theconversation.com/powers-we-pretend-to-understand-anna-funders-all-that-i-am-7729">Anna Funder</a> found herself “at a moment of peak overload”. Juggling the competing demands of getting her children ready for the new school year, grocery shopping, home maintenance and caring for members of her extended family, Funder felt she had been spiritually drained by the monotonous demands of motherhood. </p>
<p>After stumbling across a copy of Orwell’s collected essays in a secondhand bookshop, she embarked on a project of re-reading his work, hoping his explorations of tyranny would help her liberate herself from the “motherload of wifedom I had taken on”. </p>
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<p><em>Review: Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s invisible life – Anna Funder (Hamish Hamilton)</em></p>
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<p>A few months later, disappointment struck in the form of a derogatory diary entry about his first wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy. In it, he complains of women’s “incorrigible dirtiness & untidiness” and of a “terrible, devouring sexuality” which causes every wife to “consciously [despise] her husband for his lack of virility”. </p>
<p>The accusations about women’s sexuality are somewhat confounding when they come from a man who, as Funder reveals, was himself a sexual predator. But as she observes, they reveal that he “sees women – as wives – in terms of what they do for him, or ‘demand’ of him. Not enough cleaning; too much sex.” </p>
<p>Curious about how Orwell’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/stopping-violence-against-women-starts-with-learning-what-misogyny-really-is-175411">misogyny</a> has been interpreted, Funder consulted a series of biographies written by men, only to find it is perennially excused</p>
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<p>by leaving it out, sympathising with the impulse, trivialising it as a “mood”, denying it as “fiction” or blaming the woman herself. </p>
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<p>In her anger, Funder births another project, moving “from the work to the life, and the man to the wife”. </p>
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<span class="caption">Anna Funder’s book on George Orwell’s first wife, Eileen, was driven by anger.</span>
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<h2>Motherhood and #MeToo</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/wifedom-9780143787112">Wifedom</a> examines Eileen’s life, interrogating the omissions and inaccuracies about her achievements and her partnership with Orwell that pepper the literary and historical records. </p>
<p>It is composed of two narrative strands: the first, set in the present, is in Funder’s voice as she investigates Eileen’s life while also navigating the pressures of motherhood and the revelations of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-metoo-era-a-reckoning-a-revolution-or-something-else-176565">#MeToo</a> movement. </p>
<p>The second is written in the third person and reconstructs scenes from Eileen’s life. Funder reads between the lines of Orwell’s work and the biographies of him to get the measure of Eileen’s contribution to his success. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533461/original/file-20230622-25-ewkww2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533461/original/file-20230622-25-ewkww2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533461/original/file-20230622-25-ewkww2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533461/original/file-20230622-25-ewkww2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533461/original/file-20230622-25-ewkww2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533461/original/file-20230622-25-ewkww2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533461/original/file-20230622-25-ewkww2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533461/original/file-20230622-25-ewkww2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She also draws on a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/dec/10/georgeorwell.classics">cache of letters</a> between Eileen and her best friend Norah Symes, discovered in 2005 after seven major biographies of Orwell had already been written. In her recreations, Funder quotes these letters in italics, foregrounding not only Eileen’s perspective, but also her intelligence, warmth and wit. </p>
<p>While it would be reductive to characterise this book solely as a product of the ongoing #MeToo reckoning, the movement influences Funder’s project in significant ways. As she alighted on the idea of studying Eileen, she found herself having conversations with her children about the media’s reporting of #MeToo stories and reflecting on her own experiences of sexual harassment with a new clarity – “a liberation, like the outing of ghouls”. </p>
<p>Funder also finds herself contemplating how she ended up bearing the lion’s share of work on the home front. </p>
<p>She does not blame her husband, whom she characterises as “emotionally astute” and “deeply engaged with our children”; rather, she acknowledges that while the “individual man can be the loveliest”, the “system will still benefit him without his having to lift a finger or a whip, or change the sheets”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sharing-the-parenting-duties-could-be-key-to-marital-bliss-study-84694">Sharing the parenting duties could be key to marital bliss: study</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Patriarchy: then and now</h2>
<p>Wifedom is a meditation on the insidious nature of patriarchy. Funder draws productive parallels between her own time and Eileen’s – without sacrificing the historical specificity of either. </p>
<p>Reflecting on her own life, Funder realises she </p>
<blockquote>
<p>can count on one hand with fingers to spare the number of heterosexual relationships I know in which the man creates the domestic and other conditions for the woman to enjoy her time in life to an equal extent as she does for him. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This observation captures Eileen’s fate; a talented writer with a masters degree in psychology, she becomes a taken-for-granted helpmeet when she marries Orwell. She types his manuscripts in between looking after their chickens, unblocking the toilet and preparing all their meals. She also deals with their mice infestation, as he finds the rodents too repulsive. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533467/original/file-20230622-21-i0j6uk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533467/original/file-20230622-21-i0j6uk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533467/original/file-20230622-21-i0j6uk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533467/original/file-20230622-21-i0j6uk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533467/original/file-20230622-21-i0j6uk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533467/original/file-20230622-21-i0j6uk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533467/original/file-20230622-21-i0j6uk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533467/original/file-20230622-21-i0j6uk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eileen, a talented writer, typed Orwell’s manuscripts between household chores.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Min An/Pexels</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While Orwell heavily relied on Eileen for his literary output, her labour remains invisible. Funder emphasises this point by examining the silences in Orwell’s <a href="https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9781529032710/">Homage to Catalonia</a>, which she has admired since she was a teenager. </p>
<p>Eileen was also in Spain. She types the observations Orwell sends her from the front and sends him back provisions. She works at the Communist Party’s headquarters, and the information she gleans informs Orwell’s account of the war. When Orwell is shot, she travels to the front to retrieve him, nurses him and organises his medical care.</p>
<p>Orwell, however, barely acknowledges her presence in his account. He refers only a few times to “my wife” – as though she were a tourist lounging in a hotel – and consequently, it is possible to read Homage without realising she was there at all. She is, Funder observes, a negative presence in the book, “like dark matter that can only be apprehended by its effect on the visible world”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-problem-is-that-my-success-seems-to-get-in-his-way-the-fraught-terrain-of-literary-marriages-206190">Friday essay: 'the problem is that my success seems to get in his way' – the fraught terrain of literary marriages</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Orwell as predator</h2>
<p>A more disturbing aspect of Funder’s interrogation of Orwell’s personal life is her revelation of his predatory behaviour. She documents his numerous attempted rapes of female acquaintances, as well as his manipulation of Eileen throughout his infidelities. </p>
<p>In 1940, as Eileen was grieving the death of her brother, Orwell penned a letter to an old crush, a teacher named Brenda who had refused his advances on multiple previous occasions. In it, he attempts to persuade her he has Eileen’s blessing to pursue an affair – a blatant lie. </p>
<p>Funder refutes the claims of several biographers who have argued this was a “clumsy attempt to establish a ménage à trois”. She draws on Eileen’s own letters to demonstrate Eileen despised Orwell’s pursuit of Brenda and wanted no part of it. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533464/original/file-20230622-15-t3hnm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533464/original/file-20230622-15-t3hnm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533464/original/file-20230622-15-t3hnm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533464/original/file-20230622-15-t3hnm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533464/original/file-20230622-15-t3hnm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533464/original/file-20230622-15-t3hnm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1022&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533464/original/file-20230622-15-t3hnm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1022&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533464/original/file-20230622-15-t3hnm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1022&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Orwell.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Funder’s reassessment of Orwell’s writing in relation to his biography reminded me of <a href="https://lithub.com/the-last-essay-i-need-to-write-about-david-foster-wallace/">a recent essay</a> by the academic Mary K. Holland, which reappraises scholarship on David Foster Wallace. Holland contends that prior to the #MeToo movement, the academy was unwilling to consider the obvious link between the misogyny and violence Wallace meted out in real life, and the “rape culture” that “so much of his fiction considers or reproduces”. </p>
<p>In Wifedom, Funder mounts a similar argument against Orwell, shedding new light on his work: though he is renowned for his examinations of power, his writing never considers power relations between the sexes. </p>
<p>Perhaps this is why, despite his commitment to documenting the lives of the impoverished and disempowered, he still felt entitled to purchase sex from a young girl in Morocco (as Funder documents), and remained ignorant of the demands he made on his wife’s time and abilities. </p>
<p>In all likelihood, Eileen recognised Orwell’s gendered blind spot, referring in one letter to his “extraordinary political simplicity”. </p>
<p>This leads to the book’s ironic denouement, in which Funder contends that patriarchy is the ultimate <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink">doublethink</a>: “the whole world was set up to allow men to treat women badly, and still think of themselves as decent people”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-george-orwell-is-everywhere-but-nineteen-eighty-four-is-not-a-reliable-guide-to-contemporary-politics-190909">Friday essay: George Orwell is everywhere, but Nineteen Eighty-Four is not a reliable guide to contemporary politics</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Interrogating Orwell’s legacy</h2>
<p>Funder is clear that she doesn’t want to “cancel” Orwell – though she notes that Eileen “has been cancelled already – by the patriarchy”. </p>
<p>Rather, the value of her project lies in considering their two lives, side by side: “looking for Eileen involved the pleasure of reading Orwell on how power works, and "finding her held the possibility of revealing how it works on women: how a woman can be buried first by domesticity and then by history.”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533469/original/file-20230622-19-i50kr5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533469/original/file-20230622-19-i50kr5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533469/original/file-20230622-19-i50kr5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533469/original/file-20230622-19-i50kr5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533469/original/file-20230622-19-i50kr5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533469/original/file-20230622-19-i50kr5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533469/original/file-20230622-19-i50kr5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533469/original/file-20230622-19-i50kr5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This kind of reckoning is especially urgent at a time when the term “<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-orwellian-mean-anyway-87404">Orwellian</a>” is regularly invoked in discussions about politics. While this descriptor is often used in <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-orwellian-mean-anyway-87404">inaccurate</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/nov/11/reading-group-orwellian-1984">contradictory ways</a>, arguably Orwell’s stature as a political commentator has increased with the ascendancy of <a href="https://theconversation.com/yes-federal-charges-against-a-former-president-are-unprecedented-but-so-is-trumps-political-power-207408">Trump</a> and his imitators.</p>
<p>Funder is the perfect writer to integrate Orwell’s legacy. She, too, has devoted her writing life to the subject of surviving tyranny. First in <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/stasiland-9780143792529">Stasiland</a>, which documented surveillance and repression in East Germany. Then, in her Miles Franklin award-winning novel <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/all-that-i-am-9780143567516">All That I Am</a>, which centred on the strained loyalties of a group of Nazi dissidents. </p>
<p>But Orwell placed himself in extreme situations in order to report on poverty and war. Whereas Funder is searching for a way to understand the experiences she has garnered simply by virtue of existing – as a woman, in a world designed to benefit men.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201572/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Walters does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Anna Funder’s new book, Wifedom, is a meditation on the insidious nature of patriarchy. Funder draws parallels between our #metoo era and the time of George Orwell and his wife Eileen.Amy Walters, PhD candidate, English Literature, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2081702023-06-28T12:59:46Z2023-06-28T12:59:46ZWhat is the difference between nationalism and patriotism?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533816/original/file-20230623-4805-h1p42y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=41%2C6%2C4530%2C2755&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Donald Trump, left, and Harry Truman: Two former presidents who had different ideas about nationalism and patriotism.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donald_Trump_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg">The Conversation, with images from Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During his presidency, Donald Trump said, “We’re putting America first … we’re taking care of ourselves for a change,” and then declared, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lLQ8IEm8PE">I’m a nationalist</a>.” In another <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/25/trump-un-speech-2018-full-text-transcript-840043">speech</a>, he stated that under his watch, the U.S. had “<a href="https://youtu.be/KfVdIKaQzW8?t=1182">embrace[d] the doctrine of patriotism</a>.”</p>
<p>Trump is now running for president again. When he announced his candidacy, he <a href="https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/former-president-trump-announces-2024-presidential-bid-transcript">stated</a> that he “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hugb9fDXTd8">need[s] every patriot on board</a> because this is not just a campaign, this is a quest to save our country.” </p>
<p>One week later he dined in Mar-a-Lago with <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/11/25/trump-nick-fuentes-ye-kanye">Nick Fuentes</a>, a self-described <a href="https://www.tribstar.com/news/local_news/fuentes-i-am-an-american-nationalist/article_57dfaf0e-2751-5039-97e2-2ce832bbf870.html">nationalist</a> who’s been banned from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/nick-fuentes-live-streamer-white-nationalist-suspended-twitter-1608438">for using racist and antisemitic language</a>. </p>
<p>Afterward, Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109405826070401204">confirmed that meeting</a> but did not denounce Fuentes, despite <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kejjJyABP0o">calls for him to do so</a>. </p>
<p>The words <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1193192673429131264">nationalism</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/1044633849572077568">patriotism</a> are sometimes used as synonyms, such as when Trump and his supporters describe his <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1347555316863553542">America First</a> agenda. But many <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/12461">political scientists</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vXXZBEkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">including me</a>, don’t typically see those two terms as equivalent – or even compatible. </p>
<p>There is a difference, and it’s important, not just to scholars but to regular citizens as well.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533517/original/file-20230622-23-ovgndv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A comic depicting Superman talking to people about treating others with respect and dignity." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533517/original/file-20230622-23-ovgndv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533517/original/file-20230622-23-ovgndv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533517/original/file-20230622-23-ovgndv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533517/original/file-20230622-23-ovgndv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533517/original/file-20230622-23-ovgndv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533517/original/file-20230622-23-ovgndv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533517/original/file-20230622-23-ovgndv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An image from 1950, colorized in 2017, shows Superman – a refugee from another planet and a character created by two Jewish immigrants to the U.S. – teaching that patriotism should drive out nationalism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.dc.com/blog/2017/08/25/superman-a-classic-message-restored">DC Comics</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Devotion to a people</h2>
<p>To understand what nationalism is, it’s useful to understand what a nation is – and isn’t. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199599868.001.0001/acref-9780199599868-e-1237">nation</a> is a group of people who share a history, culture, language, religion or some combination thereof.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/country">country</a>, which is sometimes called a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/state-sovereign-political-entity">state</a> in political science terminology, is an <a href="https://www.economist.com/international/2010/04/08/in-quite-a-state">area</a> of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-many-states-and-provinces-are-in-the-world-157847">land</a> that has its own government. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/nation-state">nation-state is a homogeneous political entity</a> mostly comprising a single nation. Nation-states <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/theneweurope/wk18.htm">are rare</a>, because nearly every country is home to more than one national group. One example of a nation-state would be <a href="https://www.mhpbooks.com/books/the-cleanest-race/">North Korea</a>, where almost all residents are ethnic Koreans.</p>
<p>The United States is neither a nation nor a nation-state. Rather, it is a country of <a href="https://www.npr.org/2013/11/11/244527860/forget-the-50-states-u-s-is-really-11-nations-says-author">many different groups of people</a> who have a variety of shared histories, cultures, languages and religions.</p>
<p>Some of those groups are <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/01/28/2022-01789/indian-entities-recognized-by-and-eligible-to-receive-services-from-the-united-states-bureau-of">formally recognized</a> by the federal government, such as the <a href="https://www.navajo-nsn.gov">Navajo Nation</a> and the <a href="https://www.cherokee.org">Cherokee Nation</a>. Similarly, in Canada, the French-speaking <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Quebecois">Québécois</a> <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/house-passes-motion-recognizing-quebecois-as-nation-1.574359">are recognized</a> as being a distinct “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGuLE7zmcqM">nation within a united Canada</a>.” </p>
<p>Nationalism is, per one dictionary definition, “<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nationalism">loyalty and devotion to a nation</a>.” It is a person’s strong affinity for those who share the same history, culture, language or religion. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/527">Scholars</a> understand <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13511610.1990.9968234">nationalism as exclusive</a>, boosting one identity group over – and at times in direct opposition to – others.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/oath-keepers-founder-sentenced-to-18-years-for-seditious-conspiracy-in-lead-up-to-jan-6-insurrection-4-essential-reads-206482">Oath Keepers</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/proud-boys-members-convicted-of-seditious-conspiracy-3-essential-reads-on-the-group-and-right-wing-extremist-white-nationalism-205094">Proud Boys</a> – <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/23/oath-keepers-guilty-seditious-conspiracy-jan-6-00079083">10 of whom</a> were convicted of seditious conspiracy for their role in <a href="https://theconversation.com/jan-6-committee-tackled-unprecedented-attack-with-time-tested-inquiry-195999">the Jan. 6 attack</a> on the U.S. Capitol – are both examples of <a href="https://theconversation.com/white-nationalism-is-a-political-ideology-that-mainstreams-racist-conspiracy-theories-184375">white nationalist</a> groups, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/white-nationalism-born-in-the-usa-is-now-a-global-terror-threat-113825">believe</a> that immigrants and people of color are a threat to their ideals of civilization. </p>
<p>Trump has described the events that took place on Jan. 6, 2021, as having occurred “<a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109401452224192463">Peacefully & Patrioticly</a>”. He has described those who have been imprisoned as “<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-praises-jan-6-rioters-great-patriots-1773808">great patriots</a>” and has said that he would <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-pardoning-extremists-undermines-the-rule-of-law-207272">pardon</a> “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/11/politics/transcript-cnn-town-hall-trump/index.html">a large portion of them</a>” if elected in 2024.</p>
<p>There are many other nationalisms beyond white nationalism. <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-nation-of-islam-a-brief-history-198227">The Nation of Islam</a>, for instance, is an example of a <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/black%20nationalist">Black nationalist</a> group. The <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/profile/nation-islam">Anti-Defamation League</a> and the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/nation-islam">Southern Poverty Law Center</a> have both characterized it as a Black supremacist hate group for its anti-white prejudices.</p>
<p>In addition to white and Black <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02589340500101741">racial nationalisms</a>, there are also <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20032578">ethnic</a> and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26222195">lingustic</a> nationalisms, which typically seek greater autonomy for – and the eventual independence of – certain national groups. Examples include the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/world/canada/Bloc-Quebecois-Nationalism.html">Bloc Québécois</a>, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/24/snp-leader-general-election-win-mandate-independence-push-humza-yousaf">Scottish Nationalist Party</a> and <a href="https://www.partyof.wales/annibyniaeth_i_gymru_welsh_independence">Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales</a>, which are nationalist political parties that respectively advocate for the Québécois of Québéc, the Scots of Scotland and the Welsh of Wales.</p>
<h2>Devotion to a place</h2>
<p>In contrast to nationalism’s loyalty for or devotion to one’s nation, patriotism is, per the same dictionary, “<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/patriotism">love for or devotion to one’s country</a>.” It comes from the word <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/patriot">patriot</a>, which itself can be traced back to the Greek word <a href="https://logeion.uchicago.edu/%CF%80%CE%AC%CF%84%CF%81%CE%B9%CE%BF%CF%82">patrios</a>, which means “of one’s father.” </p>
<p>In other words, patriotism has historically meant a love for and devotion to one’s <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fatherland">fatherland</a>, or country of origin.</p>
<p>Patriotism encompasses devotion to the country as a whole – including all the people who live within it. Nationalism refers to devotion to only one group of people over all others.</p>
<p>An example of <a href="https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/articles/martin-luther-king-jr-model-american-patriot/">patriotism</a> would be Martin Luther King Jr.’s “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety#">I Have a Dream</a>” speech, in which <a href="https://theconversation.com/mlks-vision-of-love-as-a-moral-imperative-still-matters-89946">he</a> recites <a href="https://www.classical-music.com/features/works/my-country-tis-of-thee-lyrics/">the first verse</a> of the patriotic song “<a href="https://bensguide.gpo.gov/j-america-my-country">America (My Country ‘Tis of Thee)</a>.” In his “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2013/04/16/177355381/50-years-later-kings-birmingham-letter-still-resonates">Letter from Birmingham Jail</a>,” King describes “nationalist groups” as being “<a href="https://www.csuchico.edu/iege/_assets/documents/susi-letter-from-birmingham-jail.pdf">made up of people who have lost faith in America</a>.”</p>
<p>George Orwell, the author of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/orwells-ideas-remain-relevant-75-years-after-animal-farm-was-published-165431">Animal Farm</a>” and “<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-orwells-1984-and-how-it-helps-us-understand-tyrannical-power-today-112066">Nineteen Eighty-Four</a>,” describes patriotism as “<a href="https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/">devotion to a particular place</a> and a particular way of life.” </p>
<p>He contrasted that with nationalism, which he describes as “the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests.”</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/smEqnnklfYs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech and other works, Martin Luther King Jr. decried nationalism and encouraged patriotism.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Nationalism vs. patriotism</h2>
<p>Adolf Hitler’s rise in Germany was accomplished by perverting patriotism and embracing nationalism. According to <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-understood-you-may-1958-the-return-of-de-gaulle-and-the-fall-of-frances-fourth-republic-93510">Charles de Gaulle</a>, who led <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Free-French">Free France</a> against Nazi Germany during World War II and later became president of France, “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/quotes/Charles-de-Gaulle-president-of-France">Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first</a>.” </p>
<p>The tragedy of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/5-websites-to-help-educate-about-the-horrors-of-the-holocaust-152702">Holocaust</a> was rooted in the nationalistic belief that certain groups of people were inferior. While Hitler is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/quantifying-the-holocaust-measuring-murder-rates-during-the-nazi-genocide-108984">particularly extreme example</a>, in my own research as a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vXXZBEkAAAAJ&hl=en">human rights scholar</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0219409">I have found</a> that even in contemporary times, countries with nationalist leaders are more likely to have bad human rights records.</p>
<p>After World War II, President Harry Truman signed the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/marshall-plan">Marshall Plan</a>, which would provide postwar aid to Europe. The intent of the program was to help European countries “<a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/special-message-the-congress-the-marshall-plan">break away from the self-defeating actions of narrow nationalism</a>.”</p>
<p>For Truman, putting <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/110537721192978858">America first</a> did not mean <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-foreign-policy-is-still-america-first-what-does-that-mean-exactly-144841">exiting the global stage</a> and sowing division at home with nationalist actions and <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-field-guide-to-trumps-dangerous-rhetoric-139531">rhetoric</a>. Rather, he viewed the “principal concern of the people of the United States” to be “the creation of conditions of enduring peace throughout the world.” For him, patriotically <a href="https://theconversation.com/america-cant-be-first-without-europe-75109">putting the interests of his country first</a> meant fighting against nationalism.</p>
<p>This view is in line with that of French President <a href="https://theconversation.com/president-macron-marches-to-parliamentary-majority-in-france-79245">Emmanuel Macron</a>, who has stated that “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t-QIqsCTr8">patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism</a>.” </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.axios.com/2018/11/11/emmanuel-macron-nationalism-patriotism-donald-trump">Nationalism,” he says, “is a betrayal of patriotism</a>.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208170/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Holzer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nationalism and patriotism are sometimes treated as synonyms, but they have very different meanings.Joshua Holzer, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Westminster CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2069662023-06-11T05:58:48Z2023-06-11T05:58:48ZAnimal Farm has been translated into Shona – why a group of Zimbabwean writers undertook the task<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530850/original/file-20230608-30-g3nm04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alan Hopps/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since independence in 1980, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Zimbabwe/Rhodesia-and-the-UDI">Zimbabwe</a> has in some ways become like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Animal-Farm">Animal Farm</a>. Like the pigs in the classic 1945 novel by English writer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Orwell">George Orwell</a>, the country’s post-liberation leaders have hijacked a revolution that was once rooted in righteous outrage. In Zimbabwe, the revolution was against colonialism and its practices of extraction and exploitation. </p>
<p>The lead characters in Animal Farm have the propensity for evil and the greed for power found in despots throughout history, including former Zimbabwe president <a href="https://theconversation.com/robert-mugabe-as-divisive-in-death-as-he-was-in-life-108103">Robert Mugabe</a>. Zimbabwe’s leaders have also acted for personal gain. They remain in power with no <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/04/zimbabwe-43-years-independence-commemoration-marred-by-rapidly-shrinking-civic-space/">accountability</a> to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabwes-deepening-crisis-time-for-second-government-of-national-unity-122726">suffering</a> of the people they claim to represent. </p>
<p>Animal Farm’s relevance is echoed in celebrated young Zimbabwean author NoViolet Bulawayo’s recent novel <a href="https://theconversation.com/noviolet-bulawayos-new-novel-is-an-instant-zimbabwean-classic-185783">Glory</a>. Her satirical take on Zimbabwe’s 2017 coup and the fall of Mugabe is also narrated through animals. And visual artist <a href="https://zeitzmocaa.museum/artists/admire-kamudzengerere/">Admire Kamudzengerere</a> founded <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjpVCcDZARQ">Animal Farm Artist Residency</a> in Chitungwiza as a space for creative experimentation.</p>
<p>It’s within this context that a group of Zimbabwean writers, led by novelist and lawyer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/nov/13/petina-gappah-zimbabwe-writer-interview">Petina Gappah</a> and poet <a href="https://www.herald.co.zw/wait-is-over-for-muchuri/">Tinashe Muchuri</a>, have translated Animal Farm into <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Shona">Shona</a>, the country’s most widely spoken language. A dozen writers contributed to the translation of <a href="https://houseofbookszim.com/product/chimurenga-chemhuka/">Chimurenga Chemhuka</a> (Animal Revolution) over five years.</p>
<p>It’s clear to me, as a <a href="https://www.st-annes.ox.ac.uk/cpt_people/mushakavanhu-dr-tinashe/">scholar</a> of Zimbabwean literature, that too few great books are available in the country’s indigenous languages. This matters particularly because there are few bookshops and libraries where young people can access good writing. But Zimbabwe’s writers are taking matters into their own hands. </p>
<h2>The translation project</h2>
<p>Translating Animal Farm into Shona makes perfect sense. Historically, Shona novelists have used animal imagery to conjure up worlds of tradition and custom, and also to examine human foibles. Great Shona writers – such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Solomon-M-Mutswairo">Solomon Mutswairo</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Patrick-Chakaipa">Patrick Chakaipa</a> and more recently <a href="https://munyori.org/2022/04/interview-with-ignatius-mabasa/">Ignatius Mabasa</a> – have written books that use allegory to respond to a range of crises in Zimbabwe. (Allegory is a literary device that uses hidden meaning to speak to political situations – such as using pigs instead of people in Animal Farm.) </p>
<p>Gappah kickstarted the <a href="https://pentransmissions.com/2015/10/22/on-translating-orwells-animal-farm/">translation project</a> in a private post on Facebook in 2015:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A group of friends and I thought it would be fun to bring the novel to new readers in all the languages spoken in Zimbabwe. This is important to us because Zimbabwe has been isolated so much in recent years, and translation is one way to bring other cultures and peoples closer to your own.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530914/original/file-20230608-28-9rmwf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover featuring an illustration of the imprint of a pig's hoof in blood." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530914/original/file-20230608-28-9rmwf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530914/original/file-20230608-28-9rmwf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530914/original/file-20230608-28-9rmwf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530914/original/file-20230608-28-9rmwf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530914/original/file-20230608-28-9rmwf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530914/original/file-20230608-28-9rmwf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530914/original/file-20230608-28-9rmwf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The House of Books</span></span>
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<p>Eight years later, Chimurenga Chemhuka has come to life. It’s a big achievement, considering that publishing has not been performing well in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabwes-economy-is-collapsing-why-mnangagwa-doesnt-have-the-answers-104960">dire Zimbabwean economy</a>. Gappah and her friends have ambitions to translate and publish Animal Farm in all indigenous languages taught in Zimbabwe’s schools. </p>
<h2>Chimurenga Chemhuka</h2>
<p>Though Chimurenga Chemhuka is mainly in standard Shona, its characters speak a medley of different Shona dialects – such as chiKaranga, chiZezuru, chiManyika – plus a smattering of contemporary slang. It’s a prismatic translation in one text. As leading UK translation theorist Matthew Reynolds <a href="https://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0206/ch6.xhtml">explains</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>To translate is to remake, not only in a new language with its different nuances and ways of putting words together, but in a new culture where readers are likely to be attracted by different themes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The use of dialects activates the book in a comical way that also leaves it open to different interpretations and connections. For example, Zimbabwe’s president <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-mnangagwa-usher-in-a-new-democracy-the-view-from-zimbabwe-88023">Emmerson Mnangagwa</a>, who does not have the same rhetorical gifts as his predecessor, has always tried to distinguish himself with his use of chiKaranga, a dominant dialect of Shona. He adopts a popular wailing Pentecostal style that rises and falls, raising laughter and dust among the rented crowds who attend his rallies.</p>
<p>The title, Chimurenga Chemhuka, is poignant and a direct reference to Zimbabwe’s <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/DC/renov82.10/renov82.10.pdf">liberation war</a>. Chemhuka (animal) Chimurenga (revolution) is not a literal translation of Animal Farm, but here the writers take liberties to connect the book to the country’s larger struggles for independence, commonly known as Chimurenga. </p>
<h2>Why this matters</h2>
<p>This translation project is a significant event in Shona literature. </p>
<p>It’s done by an eclectic group of writers who are passionate about language and literature. They use Orwell’s book and its satiric commentary as a way to creatively express themselves collectively. If this was a choir, the choristers Gappah and Muchuri do a good job of leading a harmonious ensemble.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/noviolet-bulawayos-new-novel-is-an-instant-zimbabwean-classic-185783">NoViolet Bulawayo’s new novel is an instant Zimbabwean classic</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This is also the first of a series of Shona translations from <a href="https://houseofbookszim.com/">House of Books</a>, a new publishing house in Zimbabwe. The book is being promoted via social media platforms, where it is generating conversation about the need for more Zimbabwean translations of classic literature.</p>
<p>Translation was a major activity in Zimbabwe in the 1980s. It was a way for the newly emergent nation to reintegrate into the pan-African intellectual circuit. As Zimbabwe again reels from political and economic oppression, the translation of Animal Farm reveals to the country that what it’s going through is not new. It has happened before, and it will happen again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206966/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tinashe Mushakavanhu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Novelist Petina Gappah’s call for translators on Facebook has resulted in the publication of Chimurenga Chemhuka.Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Junior Research Fellow, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2055032023-05-22T11:56:11Z2023-05-22T11:56:11ZMRI scans and AI technology really could read what we’re thinking. The implications are terrifying<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526548/original/file-20230516-31797-kzjslp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C0%2C5074%2C2874&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">MRI scans use strong magnetic fields and radio waves to produce detailed images of the brain.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/computer-screen-showing-mri-ct-image-1197120001">Gorodenkoff / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the first time, researchers have managed to use GPT1, precursor to the AI chatbot ChatGPT, to translate MRI imagery into text in an effort <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-023-01304-%209.epdf">to understand what someone is thinking</a>.</p>
<p>This recent breakthrough allowed researchers at the University of Texas at Austin to “read” someone’s thoughts as a continuous flow of text, based on what they were listening to, imagining or watching.</p>
<p>It raises significant concerns for privacy, freedom of thought, and even the freedom to dream without interference. Our laws are not equipped to deal with the widespread commercial use of mind-reading technology – freedom of speech law does not extend to the protection of our thoughts.</p>
<p>Participants in the Texas study were asked to listen to audiobooks for 16 hours while inside an MRI scanner. At the same time, a computer “learnt” how to associate their brain activity from the MRI with what they were listening to. Once trained, the decoder could generate text from someone’s thoughts while they listened to a new story, or imagined a story of their own.</p>
<p>According to the researchers, the process was labour intensive and the computer only managed to get the gist of what someone was thinking. However, the findings still represent a significant breakthrough in the field of brain-machine interfaces that, up to now, have relied on invasive medical implants. Previous non-invasive devices could only decipher a handful of words or images.</p>
<p>Here’s an example of what one of the subjects was listening to (from an audiobook):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I got up from the air mattress and pressed my face against the glass of the bedroom window, expecting to see eyes staring back at me but instead finding only darkness.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And here’s what the computer “read” from the subject’s brain activity:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I just continued to walk up to the window and open the glass I stood on my toes and peered out I didn’t see anything and looked up again I saw nothing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The study participants had to cooperate to both train and apply the decoder, so that the privacy of their thoughts was maintained. However, the researchers warn that “future developments might enable decoders to bypass these requirements”. In other words, mind-reading technology could one day be applied to people against their will.</p>
<p>Future research may also speed up the training and decoding process. While it took 16 hours to train the machine to read what someone was thinking in the current version, this will significantly decrease in future updates. And as we have seen with other AI applications, the decoder is also likely to get more accurate over time.</p>
<p>There’s another reason this represents a step-change. Researchers have been working for decades on brain-machine interfaces in a race to create mind-reading technologies that can perceive someone’s thoughts and turn them into text or images. But typically, this research has focused on medical implants, with the focus on helping the disabled speak their thoughts. </p>
<p>Neuralink, the neurotechnology company founded by Elon Musk, is <a href="https://neuralink.com/approach/">developing a medical implant</a> that can “let you control a computer or mobile device anywhere you go”. But the need to undergo brain surgery to have a device implanted in you is likely to remain a barrier to the use of such technology. </p>
<p>The improvements in accuracy of this new non-invasive technology could make it a gamechanger, however. For the first time, mind-reading technology looks viable by combining two technologies that are readily available – albeit with a hefty price tag. MRI machines currently cost anywhere between US$150,000 and US$1 million (£120,000 and £800,000).</p>
<h2>Legal and ethical ramifications</h2>
<p>Data privacy law currently does not consider thought as a form of data. We need new laws that prevent the emergence of thought crime, thought data breaches, and even one day, perhaps, the implantation or manipulation of thought. Going from reading thought to implanting it may take a long time yet, but both require pre-emptive regulation and oversight.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Open-plan office" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526564/original/file-20230516-21-f36ehs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526564/original/file-20230516-21-f36ehs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526564/original/file-20230516-21-f36ehs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526564/original/file-20230516-21-f36ehs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526564/original/file-20230516-21-f36ehs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526564/original/file-20230516-21-f36ehs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526564/original/file-20230516-21-f36ehs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Misuse of the technology could allow employers to exert new levels of control over workers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/interior-busy-modern-open-plan-office-633468953">Monkey Business Images / Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Researchers from the University of Oxford <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-69277-3_8">are arguing for</a> a legal right to mental integrity, which they describe as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A right against significant, non-consensual interference with one’s mind. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Others are beginning to defend a new human right to <a href="https://academic.oup.com/hrlr/article/22/4/ngac028/6809071">freedom of thought</a>. This would extend beyond traditional definitions of free speech, to protect our ability to ponder, wonder and dream.</p>
<p>A world without regulation could become dystopian very quickly. Imagine a boss, teacher or state official being able to invade your private thoughts – or worse, being able to change and manipulate them. </p>
<p>We are already seeing <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10648-020-09565-7">eye-scanning technologies being deployed</a> in classrooms to track students’ eye movements during lessons, to tell if they’re paying attention. What happens when mind-reading technologies are next? </p>
<p>Similarly, what happens in the workplace when employees are no longer allowed to think about dinner, or anything outside of work? The level of abusive control of workers could exceed anything previously imagined.</p>
<p>George Orwell wrote convincingly of the dangers of “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime">Thoughtcrime</a>”, where the state makes it a crime to merely think rebellious thoughts about an authoritarian regime. The plot of Nineteen Eighty-Four, however, was based on state officials reading body language, diaries or other external indications of what someone was thinking.</p>
<p>With new mind-reading technology, Orwell’s novel would become very short indeed – perhaps even as short as a single sentence:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Winston Smith thought to himself: “Down with Big Brother” – following which, he was arrested and executed.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205503/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Krook receives funding from the UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Hub. </span></em></p>Brain scans have been used to interpret thoughts, but how far can this technology go?Joshua Krook, Research Fellow in Responsible Artificial Intelligence, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1998352023-02-24T12:13:31Z2023-02-24T12:13:31ZDystopian games: how contemporary stories critique capitalism through deadly competition<p>If our nightmares change, what does that tell us about our waking lives? <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-we-living-in-a-dystopia-136908">Dystopian stories</a>, from novels and films to games, have often been considered a pessimistic reflection on the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0725513619888664">direction society</a> is going in.</p>
<p>Classic dystopias usually offer a vision of a totalitarian state, equipped with an apparatus of repression and propaganda, for instance, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nineteen-Eighty-four">1984</a> by George Orwell or <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Handmaids-Tale-by-Atwood">The Handmaid’s Tale</a> by Margaret Atwood. Beyond the external threat of authoritarian and violent control, these fictions also offer dystopian visions of how individuals can be corrupted, indoctrinated and transformed. </p>
<p>These stories were responding to 20th-century experiences of state authoritarianism, from fascism to Stalinism and beyond. It is understandable given this history that dystopias have largely expressed our anxieties and fears about the state. </p>
<p>Yet, around the turn of the millennium writers of dystopias increasingly turned their attention to critiquing capitalism. These stories presented fictional worlds where protagonists compete in deadly <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17499755221143835">games</a>.</p>
<h2>The game of life?</h2>
<p>This sub-genre of dystopia features elimination contests where there can be only one winner. The scenarios might seem extreme or absurd but are apt satires of living within a capitalist system. </p>
<p>The games in these dystopian worlds tend to be excruciatingly cruel, with human life often wagered on their outcome.</p>
<p>Watching protagonists grapple with strategic challenges, endure pain and frustration, work together or undermine each other and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat reminds us of our <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0038026117728620">own struggles</a>. It reminds us how our fate often depends on our performance in life.</p>
<p>Even if we are not in mortal danger, our lives depend upon competition.</p>
<p>In educational institutions, we strive for top marks. In the labour market, we compete for jobs. On social media, we vie for attention and approval. Even in love and friendship, it seems the contemporary world is awash with rivalry. </p>
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<p>Of course, this is not human nature or common to all societies, but is a result of a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/33788">hyper-competitive mindset or culture</a> cultivated under contemporary capitalism. Essentially, these visions of dystopian games offer a critique of the intensification of capitalism, wherein every decision is made with the market in mind first. </p>
<p>Dystopias exaggerate what they satirise to make their point – consider two of the most popular and influential cases: <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44987307">The Hunger Games</a> and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10126902221107468">Squid Game</a>.</p>
<p>Set in a futuristic authoritarian regime, the Hunger Games are a sadistic propaganda operation whereby the “Capitol” pits teenage “tributes” from subjugated districts against each other in a televised bloodbath. The prize is a life of comparative luxury, although winners are often traumatised by their own victory. </p>
<p>While outlandish, it resonates with young people, perhaps reflecting their experiences on social media or even the growing trend for reality TV as a means of <a href="https://pure.roehampton.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/celebrity-social-mobility-and-the-future-of-reality-tv-reprint">social mobility</a>. It also reflects the wider capitalist system where the rich get richer and the poor stay poor; social mobility is only possible for the chosen few, the exceptional. </p>
<p>Squid Game depicts a fight to the death orchestrated by a shadowy criminal organisation with billionaire backers where contestants compete in deadly versions of children’s games. Four hundred and fifty-six desperate or indebted people in contemporary South Korea are enticed into participating, and only one will survive. This surreal scenario reflects the crisis of personal <a href="https://theconversation.com/squid-game-the-real-debt-crisis-shaking-south-korea-that-inspired-the-hit-tv-show-169401">debt in South Korea</a> and beyond, and the ethics of winner-takes-all in contemporary capitalism.</p>
<figure>
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<p>In each, we follow protagonists who are often faced with terrible moral conundrums as they fight to survive. We sympathise with the Hunger Game’s Katniss Everdeen’s struggle and cheer her on as she forms alliances with weaker players. We root for Squid Game’s Seong Gi-Hun’s team in a lethal version of tug-of-war but become ambivalent when he uses an older contestant’s failing memory against him. </p>
<h2>Bloody spectacles</h2>
<p>Strikingly, both of these contests are a spectacle for an audience. </p>
<p>The Hunger Games are televised propaganda for a totalitarian regime, while sadistic billionaires watch the Squid Game from a booth. This plays upon the perpetual visibility of modern life on social media. But also makes us complicit as <a href="https://dspace.allegheny.edu/handle/10456/48115">viewers who enjoy</a> watching bloody contests. </p>
<p>Within the drama, the play of artifice and authenticity is another game. </p>
<p>We see Katniss stage a love story to ensure her survival. Seong Gi-Hun eventually realises that his apparent ally in the Squid Game, the older man he used, is actually (spoiler alert) one of the organisers of this tormenting tournament. This game-playing, full of falsehoods and suspicion, within these spectacles, might well reflect our own struggles with constant <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/16/9808">impression management</a> amid the compulsive visibility of social media.</p>
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<p>While these dystopian visions are extremely dark, they are warnings of the direction that society is going or analyses of dynamics that are coming to dominate our world but are not inevitable. Interestingly that Squid Game’s popularity has led to it being adapted into <a href="https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/squid-game-reality-competition-series-casting-call">game show</a> where “456 players will compete to win the life-changing reward of $4.56 million (£3.78 million)”. </p>
<p>These dystopian stories do offer hope, however. The capacity of the protagonists to play these games through cooperation rather than competition, care rather than cruelty, provides a utopian counterpoint – one that we might follow in our own lives. Refusing to play the game or playing it differently is not a trivial gesture, our lives and our future depend on it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199835/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Boland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bloody games where there can be only winner critique the ‘winner takes all’ mentality fostered under capitalism.Tom Boland, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University College CorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1972672023-01-31T19:31:26Z2023-01-31T19:31:26ZGeorge Santos: A democracy can’t easily penalize lies by politicians<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505662/original/file-20230120-8189-npl0d8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C17%2C5973%2C3970&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">George Santos, in the middle, lied his way to winning election to Congress, where he took the oath of office on Jan. 7, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXCongress/5e8adfe786f4483295cda7d93dcf20c8/photo?Query=George%20Santos&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=104&currentItemNo=15">AP Photo/Alex Brandon</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>George Santos is not the first politician to have lied, but <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/01/the-everything-guide-to-george-santoss-lies.html">the fables he told to get elected</a> to Congress may be in a class by themselves. Historian Sean Wilentz remarked that while embellishments happen, Santos’ lies are different – “<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/24/23569138/george-santos-scandal-lies">there is no example like it” in American history, Wilentz told Vox in a late-January, 2023, story</a>.</p>
<p>Columnist <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-george-santos-lies-matter-new-york-house-gop-integrity-deception-fraud-voters-trust-11672347204">Peggy Noonan wrote</a> that Santos was “a stone cold liar who effectively committed election fraud.” </p>
<p>And now Santos has taken the dramatic step of removing himself temporarily from the committees he’s been assigned to: the House Small Business Committee and the Science, Space and Technology Committee. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/31/santos-fabrications-committee-assignments-republicans/">Washington Post reports</a> Santos told his GOP colleagues that he would be a “distraction” until cleared in several probes of his lies.</p>
<p>While Santos’ lies got some attention from local media, they did not become widely known until <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/19/nyregion/george-santos-ny-republicans.html">The New York Times published an exposé</a> after his election. </p>
<p>Santos’ lies may have gotten him into hot water with the voters who put him in the House, and a few of his colleagues, including the New York <a href="https://people.com/politics/new-york-republicans-call-on-george-santos-to-resign/">GOP, want him to resign</a>. <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/george-santos-federal-investigation/">CBS News reported</a> that federal investigators are looking at Santos’ finances and financial disclosures.</p>
<p>But the bulk of Santos’ misrepresentations may be protected by the <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/">First Amendment</a>. The U.S. Supreme Court has concluded that lies enjoy First Amendment protection – not because of their value, but because the government cannot be trusted with the power to regulate lies. </p>
<p>In other words, lies are protected by the First Amendment to safeguard democracy. </p>
<p>So how can unwitting voters be protected from sending a fraud to Congress? </p>
<p>Any attempt to craft a law aimed at the lies in politics will run into practical enforcement problems. And attempts to regulate such lies could collide with a 2012 Supreme Court case <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2011/11-210">United States v. Alvarez</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505664/original/file-20230120-12-33u2r3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large, columned white building at the top of a grand, white set of stairs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505664/original/file-20230120-12-33u2r3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505664/original/file-20230120-12-33u2r3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505664/original/file-20230120-12-33u2r3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505664/original/file-20230120-12-33u2r3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505664/original/file-20230120-12-33u2r3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505664/original/file-20230120-12-33u2r3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505664/original/file-20230120-12-33u2r3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that some false statements are ‘inevitable if there is to be open and vigorous expression of views.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SupremeCourtDisabilitiesEducation/c46b6b0bf6ab45a4b6600360efe3083c/photo?Query=U.S.%20Supreme%20Court&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=8325&currentItemNo=19">AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lies and the First Amendment</h2>
<p>Xavier Alvarez was a fabulist and a member of a public water board who <a href="https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/facts-and-case-summary-us-v-alvarez">lied about having received the Congressional Medal of Honor</a> in a public meeting. He was charged in 2007 with violating the <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/s1998">Stolen Valor Act</a>, which made it a federal crime to lie about having received a military medal. </p>
<p>The Supreme Court rejected the government’s argument that lies should not be protected by the First Amendment. The court concluded that lies are protected by the First Amendment unless there is a legally recognized harm, such as defamation or fraud, associated with the lie. So the Stolen Valor Act was struck down as an unconstitutional restriction on speech. The court pointed out that some false statements are “inevitable if there is to be open and vigorous expression of views in public and private conversation.” </p>
<p>Crucially, the court feared that the power to criminalize lies could damage American democracy. The court reasoned that unless the First Amendment limits the power of the government to criminalize lies, the government could establish an “endless list of subjects about which false statements are punishable.” </p>
<p>Justice Anthony Kennedy, <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/567/709/#tab-opinion-1970529">who wrote the majority opinion</a> in Alvarez, illustrated this danger by citing <a href="https://www.george-orwell.org/1984">George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984</a>,” in which a totalitarian government relied on a Ministry of Truth to criminalize dissent. Our constitutional tradition, he wrote, “stands against the idea that we need” a Ministry of Truth.</p>
<h2>Lies, politics and social media</h2>
<p>George Santos, unlike Xavier Alvarez, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2023/01/18/george-santos-mom-wasnt-in-new-york-on-911-report-says-heres-the-full-list-of-his-lies/?sh=7e6598a46ce6">lied during an election campaign</a>.</p>
<p>In Alvarez, the Supreme Court expressed concern about laws criminalizing lies in politics. It warned that the Stolen Valor Act applied to “political contexts, where although such lies are more likely to cause harm,” the risk that prosecutors would bring charges for ideological reasons was also high. </p>
<p>The court believed that the marketplace of ideas was a more effective and less dangerous mechanism for policing lies, particularly in politics. Politicians and journalists have the incentives and the resources to examine the records of candidates such as Santos to uncover and expose falsehoods. </p>
<p>The story of George Santos, though, is a cautionary tale for those who hold an idealized view of how the marketplace of ideas operates in contemporary American politics. </p>
<p>Democracy has not had a long run when measured against the course of human history. From the founding of the American republic in the late 18th century <a href="https://www.pennpress.org/9780812250848/democracy-and-truth/">until the advent of the modern era</a>, there was a rough division of labor. Citizens selected leaders, and experts played a critical gatekeeping role, mediating the flow of information. </p>
<p>New information technologies have largely <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691180908/republic">displaced the role of experts</a>. Everyone now claims to be an expert who can decide for themselves whether COVID-19 vaccines are effective or who really won the 2020 presidential election. These technologies <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1113702">have also destroyed the economic model</a> that once sustained local newspapers. </p>
<p>Thus, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/small-local-paper-uncovered-and-reported-george-santos-scandal-before-november-election">although one local newspaper did report on Santos’ misrepresentations</a>, his election is evidence that the loss of news reporting jobs has damaged America’s democracy. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505665/original/file-20230120-14-rrx667.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A piece of newspaper, burning up" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505665/original/file-20230120-14-rrx667.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505665/original/file-20230120-14-rrx667.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505665/original/file-20230120-14-rrx667.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505665/original/file-20230120-14-rrx667.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505665/original/file-20230120-14-rrx667.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505665/original/file-20230120-14-rrx667.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505665/original/file-20230120-14-rrx667.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">With the news business in serious decline, citizens don’t get the information they need to be informed voters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/burning-headlines-as-newspaper-catches-fire-royalty-free-image/1396098618?phrase=journalism%20decline&adppopup=true">iStock / Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lies that harm democracy</h2>
<p>The election of George Santos illustrates the challenges facing American democracy. The First Amendment was written in an era when government censorship was the principal danger to self-government. Today, politicians and ordinary citizens can harness <a href="https://constitutionalstudies.wisc.edu/index.php/cs/article/view/73">new information technologies to spread misinformation and deepen polarization</a>. A weakened news media will fail to police those assertions, or a partisan news media will amplify them. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=aIWyIH8AAAAJ&hl=en">scholar of constitutional law, comparative constitutionalism, democracy and authoritarianism</a>, I believe that Justice Kennedy’s Alvarez opinion relied on a flawed understanding of the dangers facing democracy. He maintained that government regulation of speech is a greater threat to democracy than are lies. Laws that targeted lies would have to survive the most exacting scrutiny – which is nearly always fatal to government regulation of speech.</p>
<p><a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/567/709/">Justice Stephen Breyer’s concurring opinion</a> argued that a different test should be used. Courts, Breyer said, should assess any speech-related harm that might flow from the law as well as the importance of the government objective and whether the law furthers that objective. This is known as intermediate scrutiny or proportionality analysis. It is a form of analysis that is widely used by <a href="https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/books/302/">constitutional courts in other democracies</a>. </p>
<p>Intermediate scrutiny or proportionality analysis does not treat all government regulations of speech as presumptively unconstitutional. It forces courts to balance the value of the speech against the justifications for the law in question. That is the right test, Justice Breyer concluded, when assessing laws that penalize “false statements about easily verifiable facts.”</p>
<p>The two approaches will lead to different results when governments seek to regulate lies. Even proposed, narrowly written laws aimed at factual misrepresentations by politicians about <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/congressmans-santos-bill-aims-ban-obvious-candidates-who-lie-1770285">their records</a> or <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/in-testimony-wa-gov-inslee-says-bill-on-lying-about-election-results-written-to-protect-the-first-amendment/">about who won an election</a> might not survive the high degree of protection afforded lies in the United States.</p>
<p>Intermediate scrutiny or proportionality analysis, on the other hand, will likely enable some government regulation of lies – including those of the next George Santos – to survive legal challenge.</p>
<p>Democracies have a better long-term survival track record than dictatorships because they can and do <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691178134/the-confidence-trap">evolve to deal with new dangers</a>. The success of America’s experiment in self-government may well hinge, I believe, on whether the country’s democracy can evolve to deal with new information technologies that help spread <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393357424">falsehoods that undermine democracy</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197267/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Miguel Schor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When candidates can get elected to Congress based on a mountain of lies they’ve told, is it time to reconsider whether such lies are protected by the First Amendment?Miguel Schor, Professor of Law and Associate Director of the Drake University Constitutional Law Center, Drake UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1909092022-10-20T19:04:39Z2022-10-20T19:04:39ZFriday essay: George Orwell is everywhere, but Nineteen Eighty-Four is not a reliable guide to contemporary politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485229/original/file-20220919-66827-beee7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C1%2C659%2C304&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Eric Blair, aka George Orwell, from his Metropolitan Police file c.1940.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives UK</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In January 2017, Donald Trump’s advisor Kellyanne Conway was quizzed on White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s false claims about the number of attendees at the president’s inauguration. When pressed on why Spicer would “utter a provable falsehood”, Conway said that Spicer was offering “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/meet-the-press-70-years/wh-spokesman-gave-alternative-facts-inauguration-crowd-n710466">alternative facts</a>”. </p>
<p>Her wording was widely characterised as “Orwellian”. Everywhere from Slate to the New York Times to USA Today, journalists were linking the new administration to George Orwell’s dystopian fiction. Less than a week after Conway’s claim, the sales of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/books/1984-george-orwell-donald-trump.html">gone up an estimated 9,500%</a>. </p>
<p>In a serious case of “I know you are but what am I?”, Republicans have gotten in on the act, accusing the left of being the fulfilment of Orwell’s dark prophesy. In April this year, for instance, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted: “Historically, was there ever a despotic regime that didn’t have the equivalent of a Ministry of Truth?” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1520030951862067200"}"></div></p>
<p>Almost everyone in every quarter sees Orwellian undertones in the manoeuvrings of their opponents. Like Elvis, Orwell has been spotted everywhere.</p>
<p>But we should be suspicious, not simply because the designation is thrown around so freely and is plastic enough to fit almost all political phenomena indifferently, but because one of the legacies of Nineteen Eighty-Four itself is to leave us with a more finely tuned sense of what such propaganda looks like. Orwellian strategies are harder to propagate because of, well, the overwhelming success of Nineteen Eighty-Four. </p>
<h2>The Orwellian paradox</h2>
<p>Some historical nuance is required. Orwell was responding to mid-twentieth century political regimes – Stalinist Russia, in particular. He was ringing the alarm bells on a new phenomenon: state control had moved beyond speech to thought and perception. Winston Smith, the protagonist of Nineteen Eighty-Four, reflects:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485786/original/file-20220921-22-sikp9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485786/original/file-20220921-22-sikp9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485786/original/file-20220921-22-sikp9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485786/original/file-20220921-22-sikp9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485786/original/file-20220921-22-sikp9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485786/original/file-20220921-22-sikp9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1121&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485786/original/file-20220921-22-sikp9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1121&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485786/original/file-20220921-22-sikp9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1121&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is a paradox here. </p>
<p>Propaganda is a mode of communication – pervasive, insistent, controlled. Orwell shows it flooding the airwaves, invading every workspace and living room through the screens on which the image of Big Brother is ever-present. Yet the goal of this kind of propaganda is to move beyond the phase of control through language to a regime of thought control where such communication has become redundant.</p>
<p>The world of Big Brother is austere in every way – colourless, devoid of all entertainments and sensory pleasures – so language itself is subject to the principle of reduction and elimination. The Party officials in charge of Newspeak are in the business of “cutting language down to the bone”. They are destroying scores of words every day so that “thoughtcrime” will ultimately become impossible, because there will be no means of articulating it, even inside the confines of your own mind.</p>
<p>Thought is already being suppressed in the novel through an embargo on logic and evidence, which starts with a simple reversal of anything that might be regarded as an established truth. This means, conversely, that the regime of Big Brother is threatened by any and every expression of reality-based knowledge. And so: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Big Brother’s propaganda is thus a self-eliminating program, working constantly and assiduously to make itself redundant. Eventually, there will be no words to protest with, or even to think with; there will be no perceptions to express and no realities to intrude upon the counterfactual world the Party is creating.</p>
<h2>The counter-Orwellian paradox</h2>
<p>The principles of <em>glasnost</em> (openness) and <em>perestroika</em> (restructuring), which began to take hold in Soviet culture from the end of the “real” year 1984, served to dismantle the regime that prevailed in the USSR for much of the 20th century. Alternatives became possible again; enquiry and conjecture were licensed; inventiveness was set free.</p>
<p>And here is the counter-Orwellian paradox. Under the new policy of openness, propaganda could thrive again. For what is propaganda if not a system of alternatives, as Kellyanne Conway so astutely grasped? </p>
<p>The principle here is not to force one alternative on a population. By rendering <em>any</em> alternative as <em>a priori</em> plausible, this form of propaganda casts doubt on “official” accounts. All <em>they</em> can offer is a version of truth, one that will necessarily reflect their <em>own agendas.</em></p>
<p>In February this year, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Kiselyov">Dmitri Kiselev</a>, a fast-talking Russian version of Fox News commentator <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Hannity">Sean Hannity</a> and a prime-time host with the Kremlin’s official media outlet <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rossiya_Segodnya">Rossiya Segonya</a>, stated this outright: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Objectivity is a myth that is proposed and imposed on us. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Similarly, in 2017, Fox News’ version of Dmitri Kiselev, Sean Hannity, went on CBS and told Ted Koppel: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I don’t pretend that I’m fair and balanced and objective. You do. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>When the program went to air, Hannity blasted CBS and called it “fake news”.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485782/original/file-20220921-26-mal6o3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485782/original/file-20220921-26-mal6o3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485782/original/file-20220921-26-mal6o3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485782/original/file-20220921-26-mal6o3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485782/original/file-20220921-26-mal6o3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485782/original/file-20220921-26-mal6o3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485782/original/file-20220921-26-mal6o3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485782/original/file-20220921-26-mal6o3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Russian theorist Alexander Dugin, author of The Fourth Political Theory.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mehdi Bolourian/Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If we want to understand what is going on here, Orwell is not our guide. We would do better to turn to the writings of Russian political theorist <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/23/who-is-russian-ultranationalist-alexander-dugin">Alexander Dugin</a>. </p>
<p>Dugin is an ideologue who aligns himself with Vladimir Putin’s visionary sense of Russian destiny. While he dismisses the suggestion that he is “Putin’s brain”, he is the most influential analyst of the cultural environment Putin has sought to create.</p>
<p>In his book <a href="https://arktos.com/product/the-fourth-political-theory/">The Fourth Political Theory</a>, Dugin makes the case for a new political direction, one that moves away from the modernist regimes of Marxism and fascism, whose extremes of ideological conformity he calls “uninteresting” and “worthless”. The literalism of such regimes of control, he says, makes them “entirely useless”.</p>
<p>Without making direct reference to Nineteen Eighty-Four, Dugin’s critique at times echoes the debates at the core of Orwell’s novel. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Party official O'Brien makes an extended doctrinal statement. He foresees a world with no need for art, literature or science, a world where curiosity and all forms of “enjoyment of the process of life” are eliminated. Such a world would never endure, protests Winston Smith:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It would have no vitality. It would disintegrate. It would commit suicide. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Dugin would no doubt take Winston’s side in this exchange. He proposes a cultural model that is much more flexible, cunning and resourceful than anything O’Brien and his masters might envisage.</p>
<p>The Fourth Political Theory draws its “dark inspiration” from postmodernism, an ethos Dugin despises, but uses as a Trojan horse to penetrate the defences of the world of liberalism (Dugin’s anathema). All the pleasures and enjoyments banished from the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four come surging back.</p>
<p>“I do not really understand why certain people, when confronted with the concept of the Fourth Political Theory,” Dugin writes, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>do not immediately rush to open a bottle of champagne, and do not start dancing and rejoicing, celebrating the discovery of new possibilities. After all, this is a kind of a philosophical New Year – an exciting leap into the unknown.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In this brave new world – which is not Aldous Huxley’s any more than it is Orwell’s – “nothing is true and everything is possible”. </p>
<p>The journalist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pomerantsev">Peter Pomerantsev</a>, a more congenial guide for those who find Dugin’s new ideology hard to stomach, uses this phrase as the title of <a href="https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/peter-pomerantsev/nothing-is-true-and-everything-is-possible/9781610396004/">his book</a> on the propaganda culture surrounding Russian television, where “Everything is PR” is a declared principle.</p>
<p>The “postmodern” influence here is, more specifically, the influence of French theorist <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/baudrillard/">Jean Baudrillard</a>, who proposed that the “real” was no longer accessible in a world where layers of image replication – “simulacra” – had evolved into an autonomous pseudo-reality. This is the world in which a television celebrity becomes president and the presidency becomes a celebrity media game. </p>
<p>In such a world, propaganda thrives and manipulation is rife. With no shared or objective reality, the individual subject of liberalism can gain no traction. According to Dugin, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If we lose our identity, we will also lose alterity, the capacity for “otherness”, and the ability to distinguish between self and not-self, and consequently to assume the existence of any alternative viewpoint. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The image here is not one of a strong difference being asserted, but of a fragile and slender one under threat; and the threat is real. As alterity is lost, the obsession with creating antagonists increases, as if it were a mode of survival. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485783/original/file-20220921-13-jx7muq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485783/original/file-20220921-13-jx7muq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485783/original/file-20220921-13-jx7muq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485783/original/file-20220921-13-jx7muq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485783/original/file-20220921-13-jx7muq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485783/original/file-20220921-13-jx7muq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485783/original/file-20220921-13-jx7muq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jean Baudrillard lecturing at European Graduate School, Saas-Fee, Switzerland, June 2004.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Mirroring</h2>
<p>One of the key insights of the French-American cultural theorist <a href="https://mimetictheory.com/who-is-rene-girard/">René Girard</a> is that adversaries are often involved in an intense and escalating mirroring. They increasingly come to reflect each others’ logics, strategies, and rationales. That this state of affairs can invariably only be seen outside the viewpoint of antagonists (who see between themselves all sorts of radical differences) is of little import.</p>
<p>In the parallel cases of the US and Russia, we should look beyond the trivialities and psychopathologies of two men who have had toilets made out of gold for them, who brag about their wealth but evade questions about it, who view women as ornaments, who obsess over the smallest criticisms, and whose “strong man” bluster is always in the service of some nostalgia about a mythical era. </p>
<p>Putin and Trump have lavished each other with praise: Putin has described Trump as a “brilliant, talented person”; Trump has called Putin “a strong leader […] a powerful leader”. But the sincerest flattery, as we know, appears as imitation.</p>
<p>As Russian television has embraced the world of images, with all its extravagance and glamour and duplicity, it has become more like Fox News, and vice versa. When Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine, the news on Russian state media was editorially committed to official Kremlin positions. One of its methods was to echo Fox News. In February, a prime-time overview of the news of the week – presented by Kiselev – featured an opening monologue from <a href="https://www.fox.com/tucker-carlson-tonight/">Tucker Carlson’s Fox program</a>.</p>
<p>The situation in America since Trump was voted out of office has, if anything, become more dire. As evidence unfolds of his involvement in the January 6 coup attempt and his <a href="https://theconversation.com/fbis-mar-a-lago-search-warrant-affidavit-reveals-how-trump-may-have-compromised-national-security-a-legal-expert-answers-5-key-questions-189500">appropriation of top secret documents</a> as his private property, the legal case against him is fraught with obstacles created by the propaganda enterprise he continues to lead.</p>
<p>What should be clear cases of right and wrong under the US Constitution, and of guilt under law, have become a contest over truth in a hall of mirrors. Every accusation prompts an equal and equivalent counter-accusation. The confusion thickens with the strategy of the pre-emptive strike: whatever Trump has done wrong, he has already accused his opponents of doing just that.</p>
<p>With the prospects of a MAGA dominated election looming, no one can predict the consequences, but it is clear that American democracy is fighting for its life in a political environment that may be damaged beyond hope of recovery.</p>
<p>We need to entertain the idea that Orwell’s success in recognising the propaganda of his day might have incurred a cost – namely, that we are now too confident that we know what propaganda is. Good propaganda is precisely that because it is hard to pick; it rarely wears a neon sign around its neck. Enforced subscription to the Party’s messages has been replaced by voluntary consumption of the Kool Aid. The French philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/simone-weil/">Simone Weil</a> once said that “truth is a need of the soul”. But we are often now satisfied with a more Trumpian, Twitterian logic: “A lot of people agree with me […] a lot of people are saying”.</p>
<p>It is not that nothing of the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four remains, or that the novel does not serve as a reminder of what a certain kind of political control can look like. There are, no doubt, statements by Trump and Putin that are, in some sense, “Orwellian”. Regimes with Orwellian characteristics still exist – like Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, for example, which is known for its compulsory slogans (“Assad or we Burn the Country”) and for torturing those who subvert them. </p>
<p>But large parts of the world now have fewer uses for the kinds of ideological strong-arming depicted in Orwell’s novel. And this is one of the reasons propaganda is harder to track. If our capacity to detect propaganda only surfaces in relation to what we oppose, we are all the more likely to respond in kind. In a post-Orwellian world, we are producers as well as consumers of the inflated rhetoric, sensational imagery and crazed dramaturgies promoted by those who are all too conscious of what they are doing.</p>
<p>As the philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/williams-bernard/">Bernard Williams</a> contended 20 years ago, we live in an uncomfortable era. On the one hand, we have a heightened sensitivity about being fooled; on the other hand, we are living with a general scepticism of whether anything at all might answer to “the truth”. We are deeply committed to something we don’t even know whether we believe. </p>
<p>How this tension will – or might – be sorted out is not something that will be resolved by philosophers or social theorists. It will be taken up and lived out in that increasingly murky domain that we still call, with less confidence than ever, “politics”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190909/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In today’s world, propaganda thrives and manipulation is rife, but in ways that Orwell never envisioned.Chris Fleming, Associate Professor in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney UniversityJane Goodall, Emeritus Professor, Writing and Society Research Centre, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1857832022-07-27T14:52:14Z2022-07-27T14:52:14ZNoViolet Bulawayo’s new novel is an instant Zimbabwean classic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475654/original/file-20220722-234-kbs6yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Noviolet Bulawayo, Zimbabwean writer.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Leonardo Cendamo/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Zimbabwean author <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/mar/19/noviolet-bulawayo-animal-farm-style-allegory-important-hope-zimbabwe-orwell-glory">NoViolet Bulawayo</a>’s new novel <a href="https://novioletbulawayo.com/books/glory/">Glory</a> – <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/prize-years/2022">longlisted</a> for the Booker Prize 2022 – animals take on human characteristics. Through this she explores what happens when an authoritarian regime implodes, using characters who are horses, pigs, dogs, cows, cats, chickens, crocodiles, birds and butterflies. </p>
<p>Bulawayo’s celebrated first novel, <a href="https://novioletbulawayo.com/books/we-need-new-names/">We Need New Names</a>, was a coming-of-age story about the escapades of a Zimbabwean girl named Darling who ends up living in America. Its hallmarks are accentuated in this new work: the troubled real world of class struggles, psychological dualities, colonial and postcolonial histories, war and the dog-eat-dog politics of contemporary Africa.</p>
<p>Glory is set in a kingdom called Jidada, which could be <a href="https://theconversation.com/robert-gabriel-mugabe-a-man-whose-list-of-failures-is-legion-121596">Robert Mugabe</a>’s Zimbabwe, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Idi-Amin">Idi Amin</a>’s Uganda, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hastings-Kamuzu-Banda">Hastings Banda</a>’s Malawi, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mobutu-Sese-Seko">Mobutu Sese Seko</a>’s Zaire, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/12/1/the-hypocrisy-of-emmerson-mnangagwa">Emmerson Mnangagwa</a>’s Zimbabwe or any other authoritarian regime in Africa, for there are many. The tropes Bulawayo makes fun of are so recognisable and familiar. </p>
<p>Perhaps as memorable as the names in her first novel (Bastard, Godknows) are those of these animal characters (Comrade Nevermiss Nzinga, General Judas Goodness Reza). There is also a Father of the Nation, Sisters of the Disappeared and Defenders of the Revolution, Seat of Power and the Chosen. And there’s the Soldiers of Christ Prophetic Church of Churches.</p>
<p>In fact, there is something almost playful about this book. When politics becomes a farce, it only requires a virtuoso like Bulawayo to marshal the faux pas into a memorable fictional narrative. </p>
<p>The novel fictionalises the real politics of Zimbabwe, from the removal of Mugabe to the rise to power of his former vice-president, Mnangagwa, in 2017 and the years since, during which Zimbabwe’s economy has suffered and the political promises of the “second republic” have gone unfulfilled. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475655/original/file-20220722-18-90zoy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover in bright red and green with black animals illustrated - a horse, cow, dog and a pig on a yellow moon with the words 'GLORY'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475655/original/file-20220722-18-90zoy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475655/original/file-20220722-18-90zoy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475655/original/file-20220722-18-90zoy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475655/original/file-20220722-18-90zoy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475655/original/file-20220722-18-90zoy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475655/original/file-20220722-18-90zoy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475655/original/file-20220722-18-90zoy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chatto & Windus/Penguin Books</span></span>
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<p>But in order to transcend the particular, the novel is allegoric, capturing the essence of the matter as told by a bold, vivid chorus of animal voices that helps us see our human world more clearly. </p>
<p>In Jidada, the tyrannical Old Horse is ousted in a coup after a 40-year rule. At first there is excitement about the change that will come. But Tuvius Delight Shasha (a former vice-president) leads the country into despair. Destiny Lozikeyi Khumalo, a goat who returns to Jidada after a decade away, becomes a chronicler of her nation’s history and an advocate for its future. </p>
<h2>Humour as resistance</h2>
<p>In an interview in the immediate aftermath of the Zimbabwe <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2017/nov/15/zimbabwe-army-control-harare-coup-robert-mugabe-live">coup d’etat</a> in 2017, Bulawayo talked about attempting to write about the fall of <a href="https://theconversation.com/robert-mugabe-as-divisive-in-death-as-he-was-in-life-108103">Mugabe</a> in nonfiction but <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/mar/19/noviolet-bulawayo-animal-farm-style-allegory-important-hope-zimbabwe-orwell-glory">abandoning that effort</a>. She found the novel to be a better form for political satire.</p>
<p>Bulawayo’s writing is distinctive. There is a lyricism to her prose, a poetics of language that mesmerises and surprises. This gives her fiction an applied, intense focus. </p>
<p>Translating a present-day political and cultural milieu is tricky. The political language of contemporary Zimbabwe is oppositional, underpinned in historically deep-seated ethnic “for or against” binaries. By refusing to limit her language, Bulawayo shows the shallowness and historical ignorance behind political power in her utopian African country. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-orwells-1984-and-how-it-helps-us-understand-tyrannical-power-today-112066">Guide to the classics: Orwell's 1984 and how it helps us understand tyrannical power today</a>
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<p>Bulawayo also knows how to use language to good effect by deploying irony and comedy. Her use of humour in the novel is a form of political resistance that splinters the make-believe world of an out-of-touch political class.</p>
<h2>Massacres</h2>
<p>Glory is an unforgettable book that goes beyond the obvious comparison to its inspiration, the UK author George Orwell’s 1945 classic <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Animal-Farm">Animal Farm</a>. His book reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and provides a strong critique against <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Stalinism">Stalinism</a>.</p>
<p>Glory has a lively rhetorical idiom; it is full of colour and vigour. As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/books/review/noviolet-bulawayo-glory.html">one reviewer</a> wrote: “Bulawayo is really out-Orwelling Orwell.” Both authors reference the disarray and traumatic conditions of the world in a distinct and powerful way. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-artists-have-preserved-the-memory-of-zimbabwes-1980s-massacres-143847">How artists have preserved the memory of Zimbabwe's 1980s massacres</a>
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<p>Bulawayo’s novel is also an epic that narrates the misdeeds and violent adventures of the past history of Jidada, such as the time of “Gukurahundi” when the rulers tortured, raped and executed the animals. The Gukurahundi was a <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-artists-have-preserved-the-memory-of-zimbabwes-1980s-massacres-143847">genocide</a> that took place in Zimbabwe between 1983 and 1987 when more than 20,000 people were massacred in Matebeleland.</p>
<h2>A global story</h2>
<p>The challenge for Bulawayo, or any writer for that matter, was how to write about a coup still in progress that was described as <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-11-20-zimbabwe-when-is-a-coup-not-a-coup/">a-coup-not-a-coup</a>. How could one write about the events that started when Mugabe was overthrown with the promise of new Zimbabwe that is yet to come?</p>
<p>The end of his reign was a festival of dancing and singing for a generation that knew nothing else but his brutality. Young people posed for Instagram photos with friendly-looking gun-wielding soldiers. They welcomed back a disgraced former vice-president who – like Tuvius Delight Shasha – became the new “Ruler of the Nation and Veteran of the Liberation War, the Greatest Leader of Jidada, Enemy of Corruption, Opener for Business, the Inventor of the Scarf of the Nation, the Survivor of All Assassination Attempts…”</p>
<p>It’s a particular challenge to write about regimes that enforce everything with violence. And yet Bulawayo’s vibrant satire succeeds in telling a political parable that also reflects the times. </p>
<p>Glory is a tour de force. It is not a story about endings but about unravellings. It is not a book about the past, but a book about the present and the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185783/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tinashe Mushakavanhu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Playing out in an animal kingdom, Glory is a devastating political commentary on Zimbabwe today.Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Junior Research Fellow, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1788652022-03-14T19:10:26Z2022-03-14T19:10:26ZPutin’s brazen manipulation of language is a perfect example of Orwellian doublespeak<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451646/original/file-20220311-19-l9l85z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C29%2C6562%2C4177&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Russian President Vladimir Putin uses words to mean the opposite of what they really mean.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/russian-president-vladimir-putin-visits-the-national-space-news-photo/1238803793?adppopup=true">Sergei Guneyev/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’ve been paying attention to how Russian President Vladimir Putin talks about the war in Ukraine, you may have noticed a pattern. Putin often uses words to mean exactly the opposite of what they normally do.</p>
<p>He labels acts of war “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/21/ukraine-putin-decide-recognition-breakaway-states-today">peacekeeping duties</a>.” </p>
<p>He claims to be engaging in “<a href="https://theconversation.com/putins-claim-to-rid-ukraine-of-nazis-is-especially-absurd-given-its-history-177959">denazification</a>” of Ukraine while seeking to overthrow or even kill Ukraine’s Jewish president, who is the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. </p>
<p>He <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/23/us/politics/putin-ukraine-nuclear-weapons.html">claims</a> that Ukraine is plotting to create nuclear weapons, while the greatest current threat of nuclear war <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/01/1083696555/russia-ukraine-war-putin-nuclear-escalation-risk">appears to be Putin himself</a>.</p>
<p>Putin’s brazen manipulation of language is drawing attention. Kira Rudik, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, recently <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/03/01/kira-rudik-intv-ukraine-parliament-putin-negotiations-tsr-vpx.cnn">said</a> of Putin in a CNN interview:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“When he says, ‘I want peace,’ this means, ‘I’m gathering my troops to kill you.’ If he says, ‘It’s not my troops,’ he means ‘It’s my troops and I’m gathering them.’ And if he says, ‘OK, I’m retreating,’ this means ‘I’m regrouping and gathering more troops to kill you.’”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As a <a href="https://clasprofiles.wayne.edu/profile/hf1190">philosophy professor who studies the British author George Orwell</a>, I am reminded by Rudik’s comments about Putin of another set of claims: “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/18/arts/ministry-truth-had-three-slogans-war-peace-freedom-slavery-ignorance-strength.html">War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength</a>.” These are the words etched onto the side of the building for the government agency called the “Ministry of Truth” in Orwell’s dystopian novel “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/326569/1984-by-george-orwell-with-a-foreword-by-thomas-pynchon/">1984</a>,” published in 1949.</p>
<p>Orwell uses this feature of the novel to draw attention to how totalitarian regimes – like the book’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nineteen-Eighty-four#:%7E:text=The%20book%20is%20set%20in,to%20its%20leader%2C%20Big%20Brother.">fictional state of Oceania</a> – perversely warp language to gain and retain political power. Orwell’s keen understanding of this phenomenon was the result of having witnessed it himself.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451647/original/file-20220311-21-1v20fio.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A destroyed multistory building, hit by bombs, with debris spread around it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451647/original/file-20220311-21-1v20fio.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451647/original/file-20220311-21-1v20fio.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451647/original/file-20220311-21-1v20fio.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451647/original/file-20220311-21-1v20fio.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451647/original/file-20220311-21-1v20fio.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451647/original/file-20220311-21-1v20fio.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451647/original/file-20220311-21-1v20fio.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">This bombed school building in Vasylkiv, Ukraine, is the result of what Putin has called a ‘special military operation,’ not a ‘war.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/secondary-school-building-seen-destroyed-by-russian-news-photo/1239017115?adppopup=true">Mykhaylo Palinchak/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Lies more frightening than bombs</h2>
<p>In grappling with Putin’s lies and spin, it’s helpful to look at what previous thinkers and writers, like Orwell, have said about the relationship between language and political power. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/biography/">Orwell</a>, an Englishman who lived from 1903 to 1950, experienced war, imperialism and poverty during the first half of his life. These experiences led Orwell to identify as a socialist and member of the British political left. </p>
<p>It might seem inevitable, then, that Orwell would have favorably viewed <a href="https://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre1967101800">Soviet Communism</a>, a leading force on the political left in Europe at the time. But this was not so.</p>
<p>Instead, Orwell believed that Soviet Communism <a href="https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/">shared the same defects</a> as Nazi Germany. <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674332607">Both were totalitarian states</a> where the desire for total power and control crowded out any room for truth, individuality or freedom. Orwell did not think Soviet Communism was truly socialist, but rather that it only had a socialist façade. </p>
<p>At age 33, Orwell served <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/133146/spain-orwell-never-saw">as a volunteer soldier in the Spanish Civil War</a>. He fought with a small militia as part of a larger left-leaning coalition that was trying to stop an insurrection from Spain’s Nationalist right. This left-leaning coalition was receiving military support from the Soviet Union. </p>
<p>But the small militia Orwell was fighting with ultimately became a target of Soviet propagandists, who leveled <a href="https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/looking-back-on-the-spanish-war/">a range of accusations against the militia</a>, including that its members were spies for the other side. This was a byproduct of the Soviet Union’s attempts to use its involvement in Spain as a way of gaining political power.</p>
<p>Orwell observed how the militia he had fought with was maligned in the European press as part of this Soviet smear campaign. He explained in his book “<a href="https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/homage-to-catalonia/9780547416175">Homage to Catalonia</a>” that this smear campaign included telling demonstrable lies about concrete facts. This experience deeply troubled Orwell. </p>
<p>He <a href="https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/looking-back-on-the-spanish-war/">later reflected on this experience</a>, writing that he was frightened by the “feeling that the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world.” That prospect, he claimed, frightened him “much more than bombs.”</p>
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<span class="caption">George Orwell, who said he was frightened that ‘the very concept of objective truth’ was ‘fading out of the world.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/eric-arthur-blair-better-known-by-his-pen-name-george-news-photo/1354450505?adppopup=true">Pictures From History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Language shapes politics – and vice versa</h2>
<p>Such fears influenced much of Orwell’s most influential writing, including his novel “<a href="https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/books-by-orwell/nineteen-eighty-four/">1984</a>” and his essay “<a href="https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/politics-and-the-english-language//">Politics and the English Language</a>.” </p>
<p>In that essay, Orwell reflects on the <a href="https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2021/12/17/george-orwell/">relationship between language, thought and politics</a>. For Orwell, language influences thought, which in turn influences politics. But politics also influences thought, which in turn influences language. Thus, Orwell – like Putin – saw how language shapes politics and vice versa. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/politics-and-the-english-language/">Orwell argues in the essay</a> that if one writes well, “one can think more clearly,” and in turn that “to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration,” which I believe meant to him that a political order could recover from destructive political influences like totalitarianism. This makes good writing a political task. </p>
<p>Orwell’s desire to avoid bad writing is not the desire to defend rigid rules of grammar. Rather, Orwell’s goal is for language users “to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way about.” Communicating clearly and precisely requires conscious thought. It takes work.</p>
<p>But just as language can illuminate thought and regenerate politics, so too language can be used to obscure thought and degenerate politics. </p>
<p>Putin sees this clearly and seeks to use this to his advantage. </p>
<h2>‘Doublethink,’ ‘doublespeak’</h2>
<p>Orwell warned against the kind of abuses of language Putin commits, writing that “<a href="https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/politics-and-the-english-language/">if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought</a>.”</p>
<p>Orwell explored what mutual corruption of language and politics <a href="https://theconversation.com/orwells-ideas-remain-relevant-75-years-after-animal-farm-was-published-165431">in a totalitarian regime</a> looks like in his dystopian “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/326569/1984-by-george-orwell-with-a-foreword-by-thomas-pynchon/">1984</a>.” In the world of “1984,” the only crime is “thoughtcrime.” The ruling class seeks to eliminate the possibility of thoughtcrime by eliminating the language needed to have the thoughts they had criminalized – which included any thought that would undermine the party’s totalitarian control. Limit language and you limit thought, or so the theory goes. Thus, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/04/world/europe/russia-censorship-media-crackdown.html">the Russian Parliament passed, and Putin has signed</a>, a law that could result in criminal charges for using the Russian word for “war” to describe the Ukraine war. </p>
<p>Orwell also uses “1984” to explore what happens when communication conforms to the desires of political power instead of demonstrable fact. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-150ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>The result is “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/326569/1984-by-george-orwell-with-a-foreword-by-thomas-pynchon/">doublethink,” which occurs when a fractured mind simultaneously accepts two contradictory beliefs as true</a>. The slogans “War is peace,” “Freedom is slavery” and “Ignorance is strength” are paradigmatic examples. This Orwellian idea has given rise to the concept of <a href="https://canadafreepress.com/article/orwells-doublespeak-the-language-of-the-left">doublespeak</a>, which occurs when one uses language to obscure meaning to manipulate others.</p>
<p>Doublespeak is a tool in the arsenal of tyranny. It is one of Putin’s weapons of choice, as it is for many authoritarians and would-be authoritarians around the world. As Orwell warned: “Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178865/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Satta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Putin often uses words to mean exactly the opposite of what they normally do – a practice diagnosed by political author George Orwell as ‘doublespeak,’ or the language of totalitarians.Mark Satta, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1678942021-10-08T03:36:25Z2021-10-08T03:36:25ZFake news and propaganda machines: new theatre production pulls Animal Farm into the now<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425375/original/file-20211008-21-r9zpvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=479%2C107%2C1453%2C1396&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel J Grant/Black Swan State Theatre Company</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Animal Farm, written by Van Badham and directed by Emily McLean, Black Swan State Theatre Company.</em></p>
<p>In 1937 George Orwell witnessed a boy whipping a horse. This was a catalyst for his novel <a href="https://theconversation.com/orwells-ideas-remain-relevant-75-years-after-animal-farm-was-published-165431">Animal Farm</a>. Published in 1945, it remains a potent political satire. </p>
<p>A story about the days and months following an animal revolt on a run-of-the-mill English farm, Orwell’s book is an allegory for Stalinist USSR where the ideals of communism were crushed by factionalism, power mongering and a propaganda machine in overdrive. </p>
<p>Severe, harsh and fascist: this is the reality of the overworked and underfed animals of Mr Jones’ Manor Farm. And so the animals rebel, ousting Farmer Jones, establishing Animalism and changing the name to Animal Farm. Still, no creature comforts are afforded the animals. </p>
<p>Except for the pigs – the new power brokers – nothing changes. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/orwells-ideas-remain-relevant-75-years-after-animal-farm-was-published-165431">Orwell's ideas remain relevant 75 years after 'Animal Farm' was published</a>
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<h2>A contemporary farce</h2>
<p>This new production adheres closely to Orwell’s text while simultaneously brimming with contemporary references, including Trumpisms (“Make Animal Farm Great”), tweets, Fox-influenced “Fux News” and a poet pig as a Sia lookalike. </p>
<p>In contrast to the playfulness and farce in Van Badham’s script, Fiona Bruce’s stark set of scaffolding and black corrugated tin suggests a more sinister world. Together with Karen Cook’s chilly lighting design the set is effectively unnerving. Crowd control barriers suggest political rallies or, more disturbingly, the corralling of animals for slaughter. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425377/original/file-20211008-15-x0xtft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Screen reads 'Fux news: all animals are equal'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425377/original/file-20211008-15-x0xtft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425377/original/file-20211008-15-x0xtft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425377/original/file-20211008-15-x0xtft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425377/original/file-20211008-15-x0xtft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425377/original/file-20211008-15-x0xtft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425377/original/file-20211008-15-x0xtft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425377/original/file-20211008-15-x0xtft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The production is brimming with contemporary references.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel J Grant/Black Swan State Theatre Company</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The only colour in the animals’ world is from the massive cinema screen. It dazzles with a pastiche of specially created videos, stock footage and images. </p>
<p>We see in all his power and glory the lead pig Napoleon, the supreme leader played with a nod to Trump by Alison van Reeken. Speaking from the Oval Office, he is resplendent in his all-too-human clothes. </p>
<p>There are appearances from the leader’s press secretary (Squealer) who seems to be channelling Sarah Huckabee Sanders and is played with cheeky irreverence by Megan Wilding as she defends her leader and warns of the proliferation of fake news. </p>
<p>The images just keep on coming, sometimes at such a dizzying rate there is no time to think. This is key to maintaining power. Keep the masses mindlessly occupied and crucially unaware of their oppression. </p>
<p>Distort the truth, brand opposing viewpoints as fake news and lay the propaganda on thick. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-world-should-be-worried-about-the-rise-of-strongman-politics-100165">Why the world should be worried about the rise of strongman politics</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Sensitive performances</h2>
<p>Just three actors take on 16 roles. They are the powerhouse of this production. The skill and stamina of the actors (Andrea Gibbs, van Reeken and Wilding) demand audience attention. Immense pleasure is simply had by observing how quickly and seamlessly they transition from one character to another, embodying both animals and humans. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425378/original/file-20211008-13-1lermig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three women dressed as farm animals." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425378/original/file-20211008-13-1lermig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425378/original/file-20211008-13-1lermig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425378/original/file-20211008-13-1lermig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425378/original/file-20211008-13-1lermig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425378/original/file-20211008-13-1lermig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425378/original/file-20211008-13-1lermig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425378/original/file-20211008-13-1lermig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Between them, the actors take on 16 characters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel J Grant/Black Swan State Theatre Company</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Gibbs’ opening monologue as Old Major is a particular standout. He is a wise boar on his last four legs, now confined to a wheelchair. </p>
<p>This scene could have easily slipped into comedy. For starters, there’s an actor with a pig’s snout and corkscrew tail, evoking Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech as he recalls his own dream of a world void of humans where all animals are free. But Gibbs plays it with dignity and force. </p>
<p>At the end of this speech, Old Major stands to proclaim the tenets of Animalism, among them: “Whatever goes on two legs is an enemy […] And in fighting against men we must never resemble them.” </p>
<p>But there he is, Old Major struggling with all his might to stand, humanlike, on two legs. A terrible omen of what is to come; we know the revolution is doomed to fail. </p>
<h2>Slick and fast</h2>
<p>Director Emily McLean smoothly orchestrates the shifts between stage and screen, choreographing the numerous entrances and exits with all the precision farce demands.</p>
<p>The performance is slick and fast: you need to strap yourself in. But there are times when you just want the production to slow right down and land. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425379/original/file-20211008-22-cyx5lq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in coveralls with a pig's nose." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425379/original/file-20211008-22-cyx5lq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425379/original/file-20211008-22-cyx5lq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425379/original/file-20211008-22-cyx5lq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425379/original/file-20211008-22-cyx5lq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425379/original/file-20211008-22-cyx5lq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425379/original/file-20211008-22-cyx5lq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425379/original/file-20211008-22-cyx5lq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andrea Gibbs’s opening monologue is a particular standout.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel J Grant/Black Swan State Theatre Company</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I wanted to savour moments, space to allow for key events to impact. There were instances I simply needed time to process information, or make sense of who was who – especially given the actors were playing multiple roles. </p>
<p>Adapting a novel for the stage has its challenges. One of the biggest is how to deal with exposition, and unfortunately there were times the play was bogged down by too many words, when what the audience wanted was action and interaction between characters. </p>
<p>Perhaps casting more actors would have achieved this capacity to create more scenes: three actors good, a couple more better.</p>
<p><em>Animal Farm is at the Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre of Western Australia, until 24 October.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167894/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Trenos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>George Orwell’s 1945 novel is given a playful contemporary adaptation by Black Swan State Theatre Company.Helen Trenos, Lecturer (Theatre & Creative Arts), Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1654312021-08-12T12:26:36Z2021-08-12T12:26:36ZOrwell’s ideas remain relevant 75 years after ‘Animal Farm’ was published<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415532/original/file-20210810-27-1ph6862.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=65%2C28%2C2617%2C1920&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">George Orwell's writings have left a lasting imprint on American thought and culture.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/schriftsteller-grossbritannienan-seiner-schreibmaschine-news-photo/541450111?adppopup=true">ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Seventy-five years ago, in August 1946, George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” was published in the United States. It was a huge success, <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/philly/opinion/currents/20150824_70-year-old__Animal_Farm__is_still_worth_a_read.html">with over a half-million copies sold in its first year</a>. “Animal Farm” was followed three years later by an even bigger success: Orwell’s dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” </p>
<p>In the years since, Orwell’s writing has left an indelible mark on American thought and culture. Sales of “<a href="https://money.cnn.com/2013/06/12/news/1984-nsa-snowden/">Animal Farm” and “Nineteen Eighty-Four” jumped</a> in 2013 after the whistleblower Edward Snowden <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance">leaked confidential National Security Agency</a> documents. And “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/books/1984-george-orwell-donald-trump.html">Nineteen Eighty-Four” rose to the top of Amazon’s best-sellers list</a> after Donald Trump’s Presidential Inauguration in 2017.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://clasprofiles.wayne.edu/profile/hf1190">philosophy professor</a>, I’m interested in the continuing relevance of Orwell’s ideas, including those on totalitarianism and socialism.</p>
<h2>Early career</h2>
<p><a href="https://sutherlandhousebooks.square.site/product/george-orwell-a-life/4">George Orwell</a> was the pen name of Eric Blair. Born in 1903 in colonial India, Blair later moved to England, where he attended elite schools on scholarships. After finishing school, he joined the British civil service, working in Burma, now Myanmar. At age 24, Orwell returned to England to become a writer.</p>
<p>During the 1930s, Orwell had modest success as an essayist, journalist and novelist. He also <a href="https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/books-by-orwell/homage-to-catalonia/">served as a volunteer soldier</a> with a left-wing militia group that fought on behalf of the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. During the conflict, Orwell experienced how propaganda could shape political narratives through observing inaccurate reporting of events he experienced firsthand.</p>
<p>Orwell <a href="https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/why-i-write/">later summarized</a> the purpose of his writing from roughly the Spanish Civil War onward: “Every line of serious work I have written since 1936 has been, directly or indirectly, <em>against</em> totalitarianism and <em>for</em> democratic Socialism.” </p>
<p>Orwell did not specify in that passage what he meant by either totalitarianism or democratic socialism, but some of his other works clarify how he understood those terms.</p>
<h2>What is totalitarianism?</h2>
<p>For Orwell, totalitarianism was a political order focused on power and control. The totalitarian attitude is exemplified by the antagonist, O'Brien, in “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” The fictional O'Brien is a powerful government official who uses torture and manipulation to gain power over the thoughts and actions of the protagonist, Winston Smith. Significantly, O'Brien treats his desire for power as an end in itself. O'Brien represents power for power’s sake.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415534/original/file-20210810-23-s4p5q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A copy of George Orwell's novel '1984' is displayed at The Last Bookstore on January 25, 2017, in Los Angeles." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415534/original/file-20210810-23-s4p5q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415534/original/file-20210810-23-s4p5q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415534/original/file-20210810-23-s4p5q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415534/original/file-20210810-23-s4p5q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415534/original/file-20210810-23-s4p5q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415534/original/file-20210810-23-s4p5q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415534/original/file-20210810-23-s4p5q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (‘1984’) surged to the top of Amazon.com’s best-sellers list after Donald Trump’s Presidential Inauguration in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/copy-of-george-orwells-novel-1984-is-displayed-at-the-last-news-photo/632692742?adppopup=true">Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Much of Orwell’s keenest insights concern what totalitarianism is incompatible with. In his 1941 essay “<a href="https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-lion-and-the-unicorn-socialism-and-the-english-genius/">The Lion and the Unicorn</a>,” Orwell writes of “The totalitarian idea that there is no such thing as law, there is only power … .” In other words, laws can limit a ruler’s power. Totalitarianism seeks to obliterate the limits of law through the uninhibited exercise of power. </p>
<p>Similarly, in his 1942 essay “<a href="https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/looking-back-on-the-spanish-war/">Looking Back on the Spanish War</a>,” Orwell argues that totalitarianism must deny that there are neutral facts and objective truth. Orwell identifies liberty and truth as “safeguards” against totalitarianism. The exercise of liberty and the recognition of truth are actions incompatible with the total centralized control that totalitarianism requires.</p>
<p>Orwell understood that totalitarianism could be found on the political right and left. For Orwell, both Nazism and Communism were totalitarian.</p>
<p>Orwell’s work, in my view, challenges us to resist permitting leaders to engage in totalitarian behavior, regardless of political affiliation. It also reminds us that some of our best tools for resisting totalitarianism are to tell truths and to preserve liberty. </p>
<h2>What is democratic socialism?</h2>
<p>In his 1937 book “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/20/orwell-wigan-pier-75-years">The Road to Wigan Pier</a>,” Orwell writes that socialism means “justice and liberty.” The justice he refers to goes beyond mere economic justice. It also includes social and political justice. </p>
<p>Orwell elaborates on what he means by socialism in “<a href="https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-lion-and-the-unicorn-socialism-and-the-english-genius/">The Lion and the Unicorn</a>.” According to him, socialism requires “approximate equality of incomes (it need be no more than approximate), political democracy, and abolition of all hereditary privileges, especially in education.”</p>
<p>In fleshing out what he means by “approximate equality of incomes,” Orwell later says in the same essay that income equality shouldn’t be greater than a ratio of about 10 to 1. In its modern-day interpretation, this suggests Orwell could find it ethical for a CEO to make 10 times more than their employees, but not to make 300 times more, <a href="https://aflcio.org/press/releases/average-sp-500-company-ceo-worker-pay-ratio-rises-299-1-2020">as the average CEO in the United States does today</a>.</p>
<p>But in describing socialism, Orwell discusses more than economic inequality. Orwell’s writings indicate that his preferred conception of socialism also requires “political democracy.” As <a href="https://www.english.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-david-dwan#/">scholar David Dwan</a> has noted, Orwell distinguished “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/liberty-equality-and-humbug-9780198738527?cc=us&lang=en&">two concepts of democracy</a>.” The first concept refers to political power resting with the common people. The second is about having classical liberal freedoms, like freedom of thought. Both notions of democracy seem relevant to what Orwell means by democratic socialism. For Orwell, democratic socialism is a political order that provides social and economic equality while also preserving robust personal freedom. </p>
<p>I believe Orwell’s description of democratic socialism and his recognition that there are various forms socialism can take remain important today given that American political dialogue about socialism often overlooks much of the nuance Orwell brings to the subject. For example, Americans <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/do-you-know-difference-between-communist-and-socialist-a6708086.html">often confuse socialism with communism</a>. Orwell helps clarify the difference between these terms.</p>
<p>With <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/02/07/6-facts-about-economic-inequality-in-the-u-s/">high levels of economic inequality</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/new-study-says-trump-has-dangerously-undermined-truth-with-attacks-on-news-media/2020/04/15/4152f81c-7f2d-11ea-9040-68981f488eed_story.html">political assaults on truth</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/totalitarian-ideologies-never-die-not-even-in-america/2017/11/03/3d39648e-c09c-11e7-959c-fe2b598d8c00_story.html">renewed concerns about totalitarianism</a>, Orwell’s ideas remain as relevant now as they were 75 years ago.</p>
<p>[<em>Explore the intersection of faith, politics, arts and culture.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-explore">Sign up for This Week in Religion.</a>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165431/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Satta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” was an instant success when it was first published. His writings on totalitarianism and socialism continue to be relevant today.Mark Satta, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1516362021-02-01T09:12:40Z2021-02-01T09:12:40ZArtificial intelligence must not be allowed to replace the imperfection of human empathy<p>At the heart of the development of AI appears to be a search for perfection. And it could be just as dangerous to humanity as the one that came from philosophical and pseudoscientific ideas of the 19th and early 20th centuries and led to the horrors of colonialism, world war and the Holocaust. Instead of a human ruling “master race”, we could end up with a machine one.</p>
<p>If this seems extreme, consider the anti-human perfectionism that is already central to the labour market. Here, AI technology is the next step in the premise of maximum productivity that replaced individual craftmanship with the factory production line. These massive changes in productivity and the way we work created opportunities and threats that are now set to be compounded by a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-could-lead-to-a-dark-future-125897">fourth industrial revolution</a>” in which AI further replaces human workers.</p>
<p>Several <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54622189">recent research papers</a> predict that, within a decade, automation will replace half of the current jobs. So, at least in this transition to a new digitised economy, many people will lose their livelihoods. Even if we assume that this new industrial revolution will engender a new workforce that is able to navigate and command this data-dominated world, we will still have to face major socioeconomic problems. The disruptions will be immense and need to be scrutinised. </p>
<p>The ultimate aim of AI, even narrow AI which handles very specific tasks, is to outdo and perfect every human cognitive function. Eventually, machine-learning systems may well be programmed to be better than humans at everything. </p>
<p>What they may never develop, however, is the human touch – empathy, love, hate or any of the other self-conscious emotions that make us human. That’s unless we ascribe these sentiments to them, which is what <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jwt-speak-easy-study-people-fantasised-about-alexa-2017-4?r=DE&IR=T">some of us are already doing</a> with our “Alexas” and “Siris”. </p>
<h2>Productivity vs. human touch</h2>
<p>The obsession with perfection and “hyper-efficiency” has had a profound impact on human relations, even human reproduction, as people live their lives in cloistered, virtual realities of their own making. For instance, several US and China-based companies have produced robotic dolls that are selling out fast as substitute partners. </p>
<p>One man in China even <a href="https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201811/13/WS5bea3605a310eff3032884ca.html">married his cyber-doll</a>, while <a href="https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/relationships/sex/french-woman-wants-to-marry-a-robot-as-expert-predicts-sex-robots-to-become-preferable-to-humans/news-story/fa40fc51a55564627589e80d3a527059">a woman in France</a> “married” a “robo-man”, advertising her love story as a form of “robo-sexuality” and campaigning to legalise her marriage. “I’m really and totally happy,” she said. “Our relationship will get better and better as technology evolves.” There <a href="https://www.buzzworthy.com/meet-men-married-robots/">seems to be</a> high demand for robot wives and husbands all over the world. </p>
<p>In the perfectly productive world, humans would be accounted as worthless, certainly in terms of productivity but also in terms of our feeble humanity. Unless we jettison this perfectionist attitude towards life that positions productivity and “material growth” above sustainability and individual happiness, AI research could be another chain in the history of self-defeating human inventions.</p>
<p>Already we are witnessing discrimination in algorithmic calculations. Recently, a popular <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/14/time-to-properly-socialise-hate-speech-ai-chatbot-pulled-from-facebook">South Korean chatbot named Lee Luda was taken offline</a>. “She” was modelled after the persona of a 20-year-old female university student and was removed from Facebook messenger after using hate speech towards LGBT people.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1350502933725544450"}"></div></p>
<p>Meanwhile, automated weapons programmed to kill are carrying maxims such as “productivity” and “efficiency” into battle. As a result, war has become more sustainable. The proliferation of drone warfare is a very vivid example of these new forms of conflict. They create a virtual reality that is almost absent from our grasp.</p>
<p>But it would be comical to depict AI as an inevitable Orwellian nightmare of an army of super-intelligent “Terminators” whose mission is to erase the human race. Such dystopian predictions are too crude to capture the nitty gritty of artificial intelligence, and its impact on our everyday existence. </p>
<p>Societies can benefit from AI if it is developed with sustainable economic development and human security in mind. The confluence of power and AI which is pursuing, for example, <a href="https://theconversation.com/facial-recognition-is-spreading-faster-than-you-realise-132047">systems of control and surveillance</a>, should not substitute for the promise of a humanised AI that puts machine learning technology in the service of humans and not the other way around. </p>
<p>To that end, the AI-human interfaces that are quickly opening up in prisons, healthcare, government, social security and border control, for example, must be regulated to favour ethics and human security over institutional efficiency. The social sciences and humanities have a <a href="https://theconversation.com/singularity-how-governments-can-halt-the-rise-of-unfriendly-unstoppable-super-ai-121999">lot to say</a> about such issues. </p>
<p>One thing to be cheerful about is the likelihood that AI will never be a substitute for human philosophy and intellectuality. To be a philosopher, after all, requires empathy, an understanding of humanity, and our innate emotions and motives. If we can programme our machines to understand such ethical standards, then AI research has the capacity to improve our lives which should be the ultimate aim of any technological advance. </p>
<p>But if AI research yields a new ideology centred around the notion of perfectionism and maximum productivity, then it will be a destructive force that will lead to more wars, more famines and more social and economic distress, especially for the poor. At this juncture of global history, this choice is still ours.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151636/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arshin Adib-Moghaddam is the convenor of a new module, Artificial Intelligence and Human Security, at SOAS: details are here: <a href="https://www.soas.ac.uk/courseunits/15PPOH048.html">https://www.soas.ac.uk/courseunits/15PPOH048.html</a></span></em></p>The revolution in AI harbours dangers for humanity – here’s why.Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, Professor in Global Thought and Comparative Philosophies, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1527332021-01-11T16:57:24Z2021-01-11T16:57:24ZHow an obscure 1909 novella that foretold the internet can guide us through the latest lockdown<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377998/original/file-20210111-13-1ufkout.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=506%2C0%2C7166%2C5003&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-daughter-home-having-video-conference-1709286283">Jacob Lund/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For most people the latest national lockdown means uncertainty: precarious jobs and incomes, concerns about the safety of loved ones, and – for many parents – the difficulty of combining work with childcare. It also sends us back to a peculiarly confined world unimaginable one year ago – one in which we have come to rely heavily on the internet for work, shopping, leisure and communication with our family and friends. A world where contact with others could have lethal consequences and where venturing outside our homes has become, in some cases, against the law and subject to serious penalties. </p>
<p>How can literature guide us in this strange new world? E.M. Forster’s short story <a href="http://self.gutenberg.org/wplbn0000627598-the-machine-stops-by-forster-e-m-.aspx">The Machine Stops</a> (1909) presents an uncannily similar world to our own.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Cover of paperback novel The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378093/original/file-20210111-13-p4do9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378093/original/file-20210111-13-p4do9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378093/original/file-20210111-13-p4do9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378093/original/file-20210111-13-p4do9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378093/original/file-20210111-13-p4do9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378093/original/file-20210111-13-p4do9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378093/original/file-20210111-13-p4do9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dystopian fantasy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">WLM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is set in an unspecified future, where Earth has become inhospitable. Human beings live deep beneath the surface in cramped hexagonal chambers. Each person lives alone, yet on the face of it few are unhappy. </p>
<p>A vast, global Machine connects everyone through video communication – a little like Zoom or WhatsApp which have become so important during lockdown. Each day passes from one virtual meeting or lecture to another, the passage of time indicated only by the dimming of artificial light. People can also mute themselves if they wish (they seem to be untroubled by the “you’re still muted” problem).</p>
<p>An Alexa-like monitor supplies everything they might require at the push of a button: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There were buttons and switches everywhere – buttons to call for food, for music, for clothing. There was the hot-bath button … (t)here was the cold-bath button. There was the button that produced literature, and there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends. The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The narrative follows the encounter of Vashti and Kuno, a mother and son who live on opposite sides of the world, and their uncomfortable attempt to meet in person at Kuno’s request. Kuno is worried about their helpless reliance on this machine. Some have even come to worship it, lovingly poring the pages of the one book still in circulation, the Book of the Machine, which provides an instantaneous answer to any question (sound familiar?) </p>
<p>For many, like Vashti, leaving home is a terrifying experience. Compared to the Machine’s soothing comforts, sunlight appals. Nature is misshapen. Skin-to-skin contact is shocking and sinister. Vashti swallows mood-numbing medication, (a “tabloid”) to cope with the stress of direct experience. Then one day, Kuno asks: what if the Machine stops?</p>
<h2>Venturing outside</h2>
<p>Bored and disenchanted, Kuno decides to find an exit. In a gesture of romantic if doomed defiance – anticipating that of Bernard Marx and Winston Smith in Aldous Huxley’s 1932 Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1949 Nineteen Eighty-Four – he briefly makes it outside to the surface of the Earth, with its still-beautiful forests, mountains, sunsets, seas - and people. This direct encounter with nature electrifies him.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Large green field with path running through it in Glastonbury, UK" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377999/original/file-20210111-19-1u7a15y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377999/original/file-20210111-19-1u7a15y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377999/original/file-20210111-19-1u7a15y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377999/original/file-20210111-19-1u7a15y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377999/original/file-20210111-19-1u7a15y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377999/original/file-20210111-19-1u7a15y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377999/original/file-20210111-19-1u7a15y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Machine Stops is a reminder of the value of finding a point of escape and enjoyment of the natural world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/glastonbury-uk-december-30-2019-tourists-1661253727">Marco Fine/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is not easy. In a move not unlike dragging yourself out of the house to start a new lockdown exercise regime, he first clambers out of his cosy room but is soon overcome with exhaustion. But he keeps going. Slowly, he climbs up level after level of identical pods, never encountering another person nor meeting any opposition from the Machine (for who would want to leave?) </p>
<p>Finally, he reaches a disused lift shaft to the surface. Outside, he collapses into a grassy hollow, blinded by sunlight for the first time. He discovers there are others out there, the “Homeless”, people who want to think, feel and find meaning in their lives by their own design, without surrendering their freedom to the Machine. </p>
<p>Sensing an escapee, the tentacles of the Machine grab Kuno and pull him back under. But he is transformed. He persuades Vashti to leave her pod and travel around the world to meet him, in person at last, to tell her all about it. Later, when the Machine unexpectedly breaks down, plunging the world into chaos, Kuno and Vashti reunite one last time. If there is hope, Kuno says, it lies in leaving the Machine behind.</p>
<p>The Machine Stops is a reminder of the value of finding a point of escape and enjoyment of the natural world during the tough months ahead. For Kuno, life under the Machine has “robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation”. </p>
<p>As we look ahead to a time after COVID-19, The Machine Stops asks us to think about how we recover the qualities that make us human. It also asks us to think about the political consequences of long-term reliance on a handful of unaccountable internet platforms, without leaving our homes or interacting with people who might differ in their outlooks to us. </p>
<p>When we cede control in exchange for convenience, cosy echo chambers and comfortingly familiar illusions, bad things follow.</p>
<h2>After the pandemic</h2>
<p>Let’s not overstate all the similarities. Forster’s is a world without work, whereas our machines seem to have us working all hours. Everyone has adequate shelter and food. The problem lies less with the Machine than the masses, willingly distracted by an artificial shadowplay of disinformation and instant gratification. </p>
<p>But these strange and unsettling visions ask of us one thing: what kind of world might we want to live in after the COVID-19 era?</p>
<p>How might we eventually overcome the (understandable) fear of touch? How might we cherish and protect our endangered natural world? How, despite the growing ubiquity of AI and automation, might we bring under control the internet monopolies that attempt to meet our every need and desire and restore the civic, communal and embodied life that preceded it? </p>
<p>One thing is clear: only us human beings, with our messy emotions and complexity, can do that dreaming and that rebuilding together, democratically.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152733/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dan Taylor is a member of the Labour Party.</span></em></p>With the third national lockdown under way, how can E.M. Forster’s neglected masterpiece help us survive the next few months?Dan Taylor, Lecturer in Social and Political Thought, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1402682020-06-10T17:28:09Z2020-06-10T17:28:09ZDebate: Smile, you’re under surveillance!<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340272/original/file-20200608-176542-hvq05.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=116%2C76%2C1246%2C637&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The icon of Houseparty, a "user-friendly" application that rose in popularity during the Covid-19 lockdown.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Will history remember the Covid-19 pandemic as a moment during which citizens gave up their civil rights for health reasons?</p>
<p>Two elements can be used together to exert pressure on citizens: the first is fear, as used by Big Brother. The second is entertainment, as used by Big Mother. This draws from the field of psychoanalytical theory in which the father or big brother enforce the law, while the mother nurtures in the large sense of the term (food) and also entertains.</p>
<h2>Toward generalised surveillance</h2>
<p>In a way, data surveillance is already omnipresent. Who can still believe that our conversations remain private, no matter the medium or the proclaimed protections?</p>
<p>Police in Morocco <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-morocco-idUSKBN2162DI">arrested a dozen people</a> who posted Covid-19-related information on social media which the authorities considered to be “fake news”. In Hungary, at least <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/hungary-critics-silenced-in-social-media-arrests-as-eu-debates-orbans-powers/ar-BB144qYc">three people were arrested</a> for having criticised on social media the handling of the pandemic by Victor Orban. This action could cost them five years in prison thanks to an emergency measure adopted on March 30 to deal with the pandemic. In Turkey, one can be punished with three years in prison for spreading what are portrayed as falsehoods. The Ministries of Truth have a plethora of candidates: any questioning of the state’s version of the situation is already considered to be conspirational.</p>
<p>The lockdown pushed what had previously been considered a niche category of technology, conferencing software, into the mainstream. While Zoom had just 10 million users in 2019, it’s currently one of the most downloaded applications on the planet, with <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-zoom-idUSKBN21K1C7">200 million users in March 2020</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337573/original/file-20200526-106853-1eeju5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337573/original/file-20200526-106853-1eeju5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337573/original/file-20200526-106853-1eeju5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337573/original/file-20200526-106853-1eeju5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337573/original/file-20200526-106853-1eeju5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337573/original/file-20200526-106853-1eeju5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337573/original/file-20200526-106853-1eeju5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Video conferencing on Zoom, the most downloaded application for work meetings during containment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The application is everywhere, including use by numerous universities for classes and meetings. At the end of March 2020, however, we learned that <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/03/31/lawsuit-claims-zoom-illegally-shared-user-data-with-facebook/">Zoom sent users’ data to Facebook without their consent</a>, even if they were not on Facebook themselves.</p>
<p>In its <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200331221522/https:/www.houseparty.com/privacy/">privacy policy statement published on March 25</a>, the application Houseparty declared that it was:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“free to use the content of any communications submitted by you via the Services, including any ideas, inventions, concepts, techniques, or know-how disclosed therein, for any purpose including developing, manufacturing, and/or marketing goods or Services.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Suzanne Vergnolle, a law doctoral student specialising in the protection of personal data, called our attention to an <a href="https://www.francetvinfo.fr/internet/securite-sur-internet/donnees-personnelles-pourquoi-faut-il-se-mefier-des-applications-de-visioconference-zoom-et-houseparty_3896389.html">article that noted</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“If you are a company, for example, and you wish to share secret information, you should know that Houseparty and Zoom have access to your conversations.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Worse, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/03/zoom-privacy-law-enforcement-technology-yuan">Zoom does not encrypt free calls</a> and Houseparty conversations are <a href="https://www.web24.news/u/2020/03/why-you-should-use-the-houseparty-app-with-care.html">not encrypted at all</a>.</p>
<p>Finally, we all know the role of geolocalisation used to keep tabs on the virus in many countries. The Chinese government monitored individual smartphones and uses <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/02/china-brings-in-mandatory-facial-recognition-for-mobile-phone-users">facial recognition tools on a massive scale</a>. Mobile applications, used everywhere around the world, let users know who may be infected in their circle of acquaintances.</p>
<h2>Applying “sub-veillance”</h2>
<p>How is it possible to get entire populations to accept these measures? The secret is to convince people to submit freely.</p>
<p>Rather than speaking of sur-veillance, one invokes the principle of <a href="https://www.multitudes.net/de-la-sousveillance/">“sub-veillance”</a> in which the individual is not actively watched but followed by digital traces, in a discreet way – it’s both immaterial and omnipresent. In George Orwell’s classic novel, <em>1984</em>, published in 1949, he did not explain how Big Brother came to power or how that society came about, although he described it in great detail. In many ways we have already gone far beyond some surveillance characteristics described by Orwell.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337571/original/file-20200526-106823-n8wons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=90%2C120%2C3935%2C2897&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337571/original/file-20200526-106823-n8wons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337571/original/file-20200526-106823-n8wons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337571/original/file-20200526-106823-n8wons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337571/original/file-20200526-106823-n8wons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337571/original/file-20200526-106823-n8wons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337571/original/file-20200526-106823-n8wons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Statue of George Orwell in front of BBC House, London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Statue_of_George_Orwell_%282018%29.jpg">Ben Sutherland/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, Orwell did not predict the portable screen, or freely consented submission, although he did invoke the idea of a video surveillance device, called a “telescreen”, which is very similar to our connected screens. Nor did he predict that each individual would consent to general surveillance through a small mobile screen for which, on top of everything, they would have to pay.</p>
<h2>Big Mother: Distract into servitude</h2>
<p>What Orwell did not anticipate was that today’s equivalent of the telescreen, the smartphone, has become widespread because has been designed to be fun to use. Users are pleased, distracted and let down their guards.</p>
<p>In another famous dystopia, Aldous Huxley’s <em>Brave New World</em>, citizens take the drug “soma”, which weakens their resistance. In the novel, soma is portrayed to be a simple medicine, but is in fact a synthetic drug that plunges users into a paradisiac slumber.</p>
<p>Digital devices today seem to combine the soma of <em>Brave New World</em> and the telescreen of <em>1984</em>. A modern-day adolescent spends nearly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/11/03/teens-spend-nearly-nine-hours-every-day-consuming-media/">nine hours every day playing with a screen</a>, with no serious or educational benefit. The digital device has become an extension of oneself, an artificial limb. To continue using its functions, which are practical – and above all fun – people must give up a little bit of freedom, and the payoff between benefit and risk is that using applications compensate for the intrusions into one’s private life.</p>
<p>Digital devices also do provide real entertainment while taking away from classroom knowledge and difficulties. A <a href="https://www.placedeslibraires.fr/livre/9782376872924-la-nouvelle-religion-du-numerique-le-numerique-est-il-ecologique-florence-rodhain/">five-year study</a> we conducted among post-secondary school students in France indicated that they spend 61 out of 90 classroom minutes having fun with the tablets distributed to them by their universities. Only 20% of their time on these devices had any relationship with class material.</p>
<p>On social networks, each “like” that a user’s posts receive releases an immediate <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brain-wise/201209/why-were-all-addicted-texts-twitter-and-google">dose of dopamine</a>, as can be clearly seen with users hooked up to an MRI. Huxley saw it coming.</p>
<h2>Big Brother: Scare them into obedience</h2>
<p>World powers have used the language of war to fight against Covid-19, including <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/03/france-paris-emmanuel-macron-coronavirus-covid19/608200/">French president Emmanuel Macron</a>. Wartime is a time for exceptional unilateral decisions, and lets authorities behave in ways that would be unthinkable during peacetime. Every war is also a war on civil liberties. </p>
<p>When it comes to digital surveillance, however, the exception becomes the rule. The video surveillance market received a gift on September 11, 2001, when it was given an official boost in the name of the “war on terror” even before it became the norm and was globally adopted.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.vie-publique.fr/rapport/32126-livre-blanc-sur-la-securite-publique">2011 white paper on public safety</a> published by France’s Interior Ministry, popular resistance to new technologies that could be considered intrusive was specifically evoked:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“[The] use of nanotechnologies combined notably with geolocalisation can raise fears as to the protection of individual freedoms.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>How could the Interior Ministry overcome resistance against electronic surveillance? The answer can be found in the same white paper:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“[There] is no doubt that a significant feeling of ‘threat’ (be it terrorist or economic) contributes to a more favourable perception of the use of new technologies within society.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One cannot ignore the fact that this method works, as we have seen since 2001. When governments use technology under the cover of war, citizens more easily accept it.</p>
<h2>Voluntary servitude</h2>
<p>Fear of terrorism, fear of illness: this feeling is maintained using doubt and a continual barrage of well-chosen information.</p>
<p>Entertainment, like fear, leads to a form of voluntary servitude that also uses the <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674504578">narcissistic pleasure offered by social media</a>.</p>
<p>An often-cited line attributed to Benjamin Franklin states “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”. While often used when discussing questions of technology and surveillance, the subject was in actuality a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famous-liberty-safety-quote-lost-its-context-in-21st-century">tax dispute concerning defence spending</a>. In the current context, however, that many of us are willing to exchange our liberty for a little entertainment seems foolish indeed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140268/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Florence Rodhain ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>In the current health crisis, authorities use our need for security and private firms our desire for entertainment to encourage us to give up our civil rights.Florence Rodhain, Maître de Conférences HDR en Systèmes d'Information, Université de MontpellierLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1391512020-05-21T14:13:30Z2020-05-21T14:13:30ZHow George Orwell justified killing German civilians in the second world war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336747/original/file-20200521-102657-bqzg6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C12%2C2043%2C1915&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Eric Blair (better known as George Orwell) in characteristic pose.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>During the second world war, Britain’s national daily newspapers usually supported the government’s portrayal of the national war effort as flawlessly heroic. This was a just war – and supported as such even by many Britons who, until 1940, had supported pacifist organisations such as the Peace Pledge Union. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://spartacus-educational.com/Jtribune.htm">Tribune</a>, the weekly newspaper founded by wealthy Labour MPs Sir Stafford Cripps and George Strauss and edited by Aneurin Bevan, was bolder. Promoting itself as “Fresh and Fearless” Tribune relished controversy. In September 1943, it celebrated the recruitment of an expert controversialist as its literary editor: George Orwell.</p>
<p>Orwell soon seized upon a topic the wartime coalition had worked assiduously to conceal: the deliberate killing of German civilians in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/area_bombing_01.shtml">colossal RAF raids on German cities</a>. His pretext was the publication by Vera Brittain, the feminist and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3346044">pre-war pacifist</a>, of <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/635875?mobileUi=0&">Seed of Chaos</a>, her pungent denunciation of obliteration bombing. Supporting her case with eyewitness accounts by neutral Swiss and Swedish newspaper correspondents, Brittain recounted tales of corpses “all over streets and even in the tree-tops” and women “demented after the raids, crying continuously for their lost children”.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336751/original/file-20200521-102657-1tl5muy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336751/original/file-20200521-102657-1tl5muy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336751/original/file-20200521-102657-1tl5muy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336751/original/file-20200521-102657-1tl5muy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336751/original/file-20200521-102657-1tl5muy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336751/original/file-20200521-102657-1tl5muy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336751/original/file-20200521-102657-1tl5muy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336751/original/file-20200521-102657-1tl5muy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Influential voice for Pacifism: Vera Brittain.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Detecting sanctimony, Orwell attacked head on with a piece entitled “<a href="http://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/tribune/AsIPlease19440519.html">As I Please</a>”. There was, he wrote, “something very distasteful in accepting war as an instrument and at the same time wanting to dodge responsibility for its more obviously barbarous features”. </p>
<p>Talk of “limiting or humanising” total war was “sheer humbug”, Orwell insisted. Warming to his theme, he condemned Brittain’s “parrot cry” against “killing women and children” and insisted: “It is probably better to kill a cross section of the population than to kill only the young men.” If allied raids had killed 1.2 million German civilians, “that loss of life has probably harmed the German race somewhat less than a corresponding loss on the Russian front”.</p>
<p>Tribune’s readers were not unanimous in their support for Orwell. A flow of critical letters arrived but the literary editor did not budge. He “did not feel that mere killing is all important”. There was, he suggested, a moral case for killing German civilians. It brought home the nature of modern war and might make such conflict less likely.</p>
<h2>Hard truths</h2>
<p>Orwell’s stance was in stark opposition to government policy. This was to pretend that civilian deaths were rare collateral damage in raids meticulously targeted at German industrial and military infrastructure. In fact, Orwell’s defence challenged the Air Ministry as directly as Brittain’s moral outrage. Orwell recognised that area bombing was intended to cause mass civilian casualties and routinely did so.</p>
<p>Military historian and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Nuremberg-Raid-30-31-March-1944/product-reviews/1844158756?pageNumber=2">author Martin Middlebrook</a> describes the British government’s statements about area bombing between 1942 and 1945 as “a three-year period of deceit on the British public and world opinion”. The areas attacked were “nearly always city centres or densely populated residential areas”. Britain had invested vast resources to build a fleet of heavy, four-engine bombers among which the Avro Lancaster was king. Mass raids against cities including Cologne, Essen and Hamburg soon demonstrated that the Lancaster’s brave, vulnerable crews could not hit targets with any precision.</p>
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<p>Air Marshall Sir Arthur Harris pleaded with the prime minister to admit that raids involved <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2PWLDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT395&lpg=PT395&dq=Sir+Arthur+Harris+That+aim+is+the+destruction+of+German+cities,+the+killing+of+German+workers+and+the+disruption+of+civilised+community+life+throughout+Germany&source=bl&ots=A3tlr9Qbbr&sig=ACfU3U1jI9XFI4_Obj0EPhHf1kJGKnc14Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwix2ZbB_MTpAhWHfMAKHRHnA9EQ6AEwDnoECC0QAQ#v=onepage&q=Sir%20Arthur%20Harris%20That%20aim%20is%20the%20destruction%20of%20German%20cities%2C%20the%20killing%20of%20German%20workers%20and%20the%20disruption%20of%20civilised%20community%20life%20throughout%20Germany&f=false">the deliberate murder of civilians</a>. In October 1943, he wrote to Churchill’s friend, the air minister Archibald Sinclair, demanding bombing tactics be “unambiguously and publicly stated”, writing:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>That aim is the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers and the disruption of civilised community life throughout Germany.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Harris wanted ministers to tell the public that the deaths of women and children were not a “byproduct of attempts to hit factories”. Such slaughter was one of the “accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy”.</p>
<p>Even when the Associated Press described Allied raids on Dresden as deliberate “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EK8eK2xPCycC&pg=PA144&lpg=PA144&dq=Associated+Press+described+Allied+raids+on+Dresden+as+deliberate+%22terror+bombing%22&source=bl&ots=Xy9C1LdOqg&sig=ACfU3U1KiTHlZR_O6hb8_pl68lZwXRmu8A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjrj5Dc_MTpAhVSilwKHQxuBbAQ6AEwBXoECDIQAQ#v=onepage&q=Associated%20Press%20described%20Allied%20raids%20on%20Dresden%20as%20deliberate%20%22terror%20bombing%22&f=false">terror bombing</a>”, the government continued to deploy bland euphemisms. By recognising that RAF Bomber Command killed civilians as a conscious act of policy, Orwell and Tribune were playing with fire. They were not censored or condemned because it suited ministers to tolerate dissent in small circulation weekly titles. Such robust debate burnished Britain’s democratic credentials and reassured her American allies.</p>
<h2>The last word</h2>
<p>Brittain was not reassured. Writer <a href="https://orwellsociety.com/author/richard-westwood/">Richard Westwood has shown</a> that she resented Orwell’s attacks so intensely that she would revisit their dispute years after his death in order to “win her argument with Orwell in retrospect and when he could not respond”. This she attempted in <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/vera-brittain-5/testament-of-experience-2/">Testament of Experience</a> by quoting selectively from a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/may/08/secondworldwar.germany">report Orwell sent from Germany for The Observer</a> in April 1945.</p>
<p>Brittain suggests he retracted his support for obliteration bombing. In fact, Orwell described damage done by allied bombs and argued that the Allies should not impose harsh reparations. A punitive approach would leave Germans dependent on international aid. He did not apologise for the RAF’s work. Instead, he repeated his defence that “a bomb kills a cross-section of the population whereas the men killed in battle are exactly the ones the community can least afford to lose”.</p>
<p>Orwell’s candour about area bombing was a robust example of dissenting wartime journalism. It demonstrated Tribune’s editorial courage and that the wartime coalition understood it could not reconcile defence of democracy with suppression of free speech. </p>
<p>Brittain was wrong to misrepresent him. His work illustrates how intelligent publications with thoughtful readers upheld Britain’s democratic tradition in wartime. Such journalism was not restricted to the left. The Spectator and The Economist played comparable roles on this and other subjects.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Tim Luckhurst will deliver his online lecture to the Centre for Modern Conflicts and Cultures via Zoom between 4pm and 5 pm on Tuesday, June 2, 2020. To attend <a href="https://durhamuniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SHQvMXATTEupiAnA96mCxA">please register here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139151/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Luckhurst has received research funding from News UK and Ireland Ltd. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a member of the Society of Editors and the Free Speech Union. </span></em></p>When two of Britain’s most influential voices clashed over allied bombing of Germany, Orwell took an unusual line.Tim Luckhurst, Principal of South College, Durham University. He is a newspaper historian and an academic member of the University's Centre for Modern Conflicts and Cultures., Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1369082020-04-29T12:11:14Z2020-04-29T12:11:14ZAre we living in a dystopia?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330857/original/file-20200427-145503-so76k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">State police officers during a "Reopen Virginia" rally around Capitol Square in Richmond on April 22, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/state-police-officers-monitor-activity-during-a-reopen-news-photo/1210663121?adppopup=true">Getty/Ryan M. Kelly / AFP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dystopian fiction is hot. Sales of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/326569/1984-by-george-orwell-with-a-foreword-by-thomas-pynchon/">George Orwell’s “1984”</a> and Margaret <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/6125/the-handmaids-tale-by-margaret-atwood/">Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”</a> have <a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/02/dystopian-fiction-why-we-read/">skyrocketed</a> since 2016. Young adult dystopias – for example, <a href="https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/books/hunger-games-the-by-suzanne-collins/">Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games,”</a> <a href="https://veronicarothbooks.com/books/divergent/">Veronica Roth’s “Divergent,”</a> <a href="https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/The-Giver/9780547345901">Lois Lowry’s classic, “The Giver”</a> – were best-sellers even before. </p>
<p>And with COVID-19, dystopias featuring diseases have taken on new life. Netflix reports <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/outbreak-movie-top-10-netflix-titles-movies-pandemic-tv-series-coronavirus/">a spike in popularity</a> for “Outbreak,” “12 Monkeys” and <a href="http://blog.dvd.netflix.com/new-dvd-releases/4-virus-related-films-to-watch-in-the-time-of-covid-19">others</a>. </p>
<p>Does this popularity signal that people think they live in a dystopia now? Haunting images of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/23/world/coronavirus-great-empty.html">empty city squares</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/coronavirus-wild-animals-wales-goats-barcelona-boars-brazil-turtles/2020/04/14/30057b2c-7a71-11ea-b6ff-597f170df8f8_story.html">wild animals roaming streets</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/business/economy/coronavirus-food-banks.html">miles-long food pantry lines</a> certainly suggest this. </p>
<p>We want to offer another view. “Dystopia” is a powerful but overused term. It is not a synonym for a terrible time. </p>
<p>The question for us as <a href="http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jnBSYuwAAAAJ&hl=en">political</a> <a href="http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LWLkiYMAAAAJ&hl=en">scientists</a> is not whether things are bad (they are), but how governments act. A government’s poor handling of a crisis, while maddening and sometimes disastrous, does not constitute dystopia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Today’s empty city streets capture the feeling of a dystopian time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/empty-city-coronavirus?agreements=pa:77130&family=editorial&locations=61907&phrase=empty%20city%20coronavirus&sort=newest#license">Getty/Roy Rochlin</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Legitimate coercion</h2>
<p>As we argue in our book, “<a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/survive-and-resist/9780231188913">Survive and Resist: the Definitive Guide to Dystopian Politics</a>,” the definition of dystopia is political.</p>
<p>Dystopia is not a real place; it is a warning, usually about something bad the government is doing or something good it is failing to do. Actual dystopias are fictional, but real-life governments can be “dystopian” – as in, looking a lot like the fiction. </p>
<p>Defining a dystopia starts with establishing the characteristics of good governance. A good government protects its citizens in a noncoercive way. It is the body best positioned to prepare for and guard against <a href="https://la.curbed.com/2018/4/17/17244978/lucy-jones-book-earthquake-flood">natural</a> and human-made horrors. </p>
<p>Good governments use what’s called “<a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a228/d1aceec6ea2cadf1c41d2319793dd0ca9d30.pdf">legitimate coercion</a>,” legal force to <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legitimacy/">which citizens agree</a> to keep order and <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691174556/read-my-lips">provide services</a> like roads, schools and national security. Think of legitimate coercion as your willingness to stop at a red light, knowing it’s better for you and others in the long run. </p>
<p>No government is perfect, but there are ways of judging the imperfection. Good governments (those least imperfect) include a strong core of <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/Methodology_Proof1.pdf">democratic elements</a> to check the powerful and create <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Development_as_Freedom/Qm8HtpFHYecC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=amartya%20sen%20development%20as%20freedom&pg=PR4&printsec=frontcover">accountability.</a> They also include constitutional and judicial measures to check the power of the majority. This setup acknowledges the need for government but evidences <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Federalist-Anti-Federalist-Papers/dp/1495446697">healthy skepticism</a> of giving too much power to any one person or body. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=EWbOLZcXugsC&lpg=PA1&ots=G0KJZqipPn&dq=federalism%20democracy%20devolution&lr&pg=PR4#v=onepage&q&f=false">Federalism</a>, the division of power between national and subnational governments, is a further check. It has proved useful lately, with <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/13/politics/states-band-together-reopening-plans/index.html">state governors and mayors</a> emerging as strong political players during COVID-19.</p>
<h2>Three kinds of dystopias</h2>
<p>Bad governments lack checks and balances, and rule in the interest of the rulers rather than the people. <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0058%3Abook%3D3">Citizens</a> can’t participate in their own governance. But dystopian governments are a special kind of bad; they use illegitimate coercion like force, threats and the “disappearing” of dissidents to stay in power. </p>
<p>Our book catalogs three major dystopia types, based on the presence – or absence – of a functioning state and how much power it has. </p>
<p>There are, as in Orwell’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/1984-George-Orwell-ebook/dp/B003JTHWKU/ref=sr_1_1?crid=6FALM24842SX&dchild=1&keywords=orwell+1984&qid=1586894038&s=books&sprefix=orwell+%2Cstripbooks%2C142&sr=1-1">“1984,”</a> overly powerful governments that infringe on individual lives and liberties. These are authoritarian states, run by dictators or powerful groups, like a single party or corporate-governance entity. Examples of these governments abound, including <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/20/syria-torture-opposition-regime-defector/">Assad’s murderously repressive regime in Syria</a> and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm5pE_BDtCc">silencing of dissent</a> and <a href="https://cpj.org/data/killed/europe/russia/?status=Killed&motiveConfirmed%5B%5D=Confirmed&type%5B%5D=Journalist&cc_fips%5B%5D=RS&start_year=1992&end_year=2020&group_by=location">journalism</a> in Russia. </p>
<p>The great danger of these is, as our country’s Founding Fathers knew quite well, too much power on the part of any one person or group limits the options and autonomy of the masses. </p>
<p>Then there are dystopic states that seem nonauthoritarian but still take away basic human rights through market forces; we call these “capitocracies.” Individual workers and consumers are often exploited by the political-industrial complex, and the environment and other public goods suffer. A great fictional example is <a href="https://www.pixar.com/feature-films/walle">Wall-E</a> by Pixar (2008), in which the U.S. president is also CEO of “Buy ‘N Large,” a multinational corporation controlling the economy. </p>
<p>There are not perfect real-life examples of this, but elements are visible in the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/republic-samsung">chaebol</a> – <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/south-koreas-chaebol-challenge">family business</a> – power in South Korea, and in various manifestations of corporate political power in the U.S, including <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/12/05/tracking-deregulation-in-the-trump-era/">deregulation</a>, corporate <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/575125/corporations-are-not-people-by-jeffrey-d-clements/">personhood</a> status and big-company <a href="https://time.com/5814076/coronavirus-stimulus-bill-corporate-bailout/">bailouts</a>.</p>
<p>Lastly there are state-of-nature dystopias, usually resulting from the collapse of a failed government. The resulting territory reverts to a primitive feudalism, ungoverned except for small tribal-held fiefdoms where individual dictators rule with impunity. The Citadel versus Gastown in the stunning 2015 movie <a href="https://www.warnerbros.com/movies/mad-max-fury-road/">“Mad Max: Fury Road”</a> is a good fictional depiction. A real-life example was seen in the once barely governed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/23/somalia-no-longer-a-failed-state-just-a-fragile-one-says-un">Somalia</a>, where, for almost 20 years until 2012, as a U.N. official described it, “armed warlords (were) fighting each other on a clan basis.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fiction best describes dystopia – as in this reference to the landmark dystopian novel, ‘1984,’ by George Orwell.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/graffiti-1984-is-now-titel-of-the-novel-1984-by-george-news-photo/545003371?adppopup=true">Getty/Schöning/ullstein bild</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fiction and real life</h2>
<p>Indeed, political dystopia is often easier to see using the lens of fiction, which exaggerates behaviors, trends and patterns to make them more visible. </p>
<p>But behind the fiction there is always a real-world correlate. Orwell had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/books/review/dorian-lynskey-ministry-of-truth-1984.html">Stalin, Franco and Hitler</a> very much in mind when writing “1984.” </p>
<p>Atwood, whom literary critics call the “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/margaret-atwood-the-prophet-of-dystopia">prophet of dystopia</a>,” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/15/margaret-atwood-interview-english-pen-pinter-prize">recently defined dystopia</a> as when “[W]arlords and demagogues take over, some people forget that all people are people, enemies are created, vilified and dehumanized, minorities are persecuted, and human rights as such are shoved to the wall.” </p>
<p>Some of this may be, as Atwood <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/15/margaret-atwood-interview-english-pen-pinter-prize">added</a>, the “cusp of where we are living now.” </p>
<p>But the U.S. is not a dystopia. It still has functioning democratic institutions. Many in the U.S. fight against dehumanization and persecution of minorities. Courts are adjudicating cases. Legislatures are passing bills. Congress has not <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-nominations/trump-threatens-to-adjourn-u-s-congress-idUSKCN21X3GI">adjourned</a>, nor has the fundamental right of habeas corpus – the protection against illegal detention by the state – (yet) been <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/21/doj-coronavirus-emergency-powers-140023">suspended</a>. </p>
<h2>Crisis as opportunity</h2>
<p>And still. One frequent warning is that a major crisis can cover for the rolling back of democracy and curtailing of freedoms. In Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a medical crisis is the pretext for suspending the Constitution. </p>
<p>In real life, too, crises facilitate authoritarian backsliding. In Hungary the pandemic has sped democracy’s unraveling. The legislature gave strongman Prime Minister Viktor Orban the power to <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/understanding-hungarys-authoritarian-response-pandemic">rule by sole decree indefinitely</a>, the lower courts are suspended and free speech is restricted. </p>
<p>Similar dangers exist in any number of countries where democratic institutions are frayed or fragile; leaders with authoritarian tendencies may be tempted to leverage the crisis to consolidate power.</p>
<p>But there are also positive signs for democracy. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sign ‘We are in this together’ is written in chalk on the sidewalk in front of NYU Langone Medical Center during the coronavirus pandemic on April 22, 2020 in New York City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sign-we-are-in-this-together-is-written-in-chalk-on-the-news-photo/1220487757?adppopup=true">Getty/John Lamparski</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/3/30/21199785/homemade-coronavirus-masks-n95-ppe">People are coming together</a> in ways that didn’t seem possible just a few months ago. This <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/ct-ptb-vu-face-shields-st-0416-20200413-zyreuxfwqfajhirqlql2khhpj4-story.html">social capital</a> is an <a href="http://robertdputnam.com/bowling-alone/social-capital-primer/">important element</a> in a democracy. </p>
<p>Ordinary people are performing incredible acts of kindness and generosity – from <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/17/us/coronavirus-student-volunteers-grocery-shop-elderly-iyw-trnd/index.html">shopping for neighbors</a> to <a href="https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2020/03/17/son-serenades-mom-during-coronavirus-lockdown-harmony-brentwood-tennessee-nursing-home/5065211002/">serenading residents at a nursing home</a> to a <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/3/30/21199785/homemade-coronavirus-masks-n95-ppe">mass movement to sew facemasks</a>. </p>
<p>In politics, Wisconsin primary voters risked their lives to exercise their right to vote during the height of the pandemic. <a href="https://wisconsinexaminer.com/brief/voters-sue-legislature-leaders-and-wec-demanding-april-7-revote/">Citizens</a> and <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/14/time-essence-after-wisconsin-fiasco-150-civil-rights-groups-urge-congress-protect">civil society</a> are pushing federal and state governments to ensure election safety and integrity in the remaining primaries and the November election.</p>
<p>Despite the eerie silence in public spaces, despite the preventable deaths that should weigh heavily on the consciences of public officials, even despite the authoritarian tendencies of too many leaders, the U.S. is not a dystopia – yet. </p>
<p>Overuse clouds the word’s meaning. Fictional dystopias warn of preventable futures; those warnings can help avert the actual demise of democracy.</p>
<p>[<em>Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-facts">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.</a>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136908/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>‘Dystopia’ is a term that’s gained popularity during the coronavirus pandemic. But it’s not a synonym for ‘a bad time,’ and a government’s poor handling of a crisis does not constitute dystopia.Shauna Shames, Associate Professor, Rutgers UniversityAmy Atchison, Associate Professor of Political Science & International Relations, Valparaiso UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1363282020-04-23T16:03:44Z2020-04-23T16:03:44ZDystopian story ‘Ready Player One’ has tips for life after coronavirus<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328864/original/file-20200419-152581-103htgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C649%2C1387%2C861&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wade Watts becomes a better global citizen when he reconnects to the real world in Ernest Cline's novel 'Ready Player One.' Tye Sheridan stars as Watts in Steven Spielberg's film adaptation. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(2018 edition of 'Ready Player One'/Penguin Random House)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dystopian fiction seems so alluring during the coronavirus pandemic. As we eagerly await a return to normalcy, many say <a href="https://twitter.com/theJagmeetSingh/status/1251219595689672704">we can aspire to do better</a> — whether we are talking about <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/business/economy/coronavirus-economy-survey.html">wealth distribution</a> or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/apr/15/scientists-confirm-dramatic-melting-greenland-ice-sheet">global warming</a>. What <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/15/books-to-read-while-quarantined-coronavirus">dystopian fiction</a> does especially well is to show how we can do more than simply repeat. </p>
<p>Steven Spielberg’s <em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1677720/">Ready Player One</a></em> (2018), an adaptation of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/209887/ready-player-one-movie-tie-in-by-ernest-cline/">Ernest Cline’s bestselling novel</a> of the same title (2011), is a case in point. Set in 2045 in the city of Columbus, Ohio, it speaks of a world that has weathered corn syrup droughts and bandit riots. </p>
<p>People have now resorted to outliving rather than fixing the world’s problems. Accordingly, a virtual reality game known as the OASIS has become a refuge for many, including the central protagonist Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan).</p>
<p>Small wonder that the OASIS is so appealing. Within its walls, Spielberg pays homage to many aspects of popular culture. The video game Minecraft (2009) is a possible setting, and throughout the film, viewers watch <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094862/">Chucky</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0129167/">the Iron Giant</a> and <a href="https://www.criterion.com/films/29348-godzilla-vs-mechagodzilla">Mechagodzilla</a> in battle.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328868/original/file-20200419-152571-5t78hl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328868/original/file-20200419-152571-5t78hl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328868/original/file-20200419-152571-5t78hl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328868/original/file-20200419-152571-5t78hl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328868/original/file-20200419-152571-5t78hl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328868/original/file-20200419-152571-5t78hl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328868/original/file-20200419-152571-5t78hl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Iron Giant goes to battle in ‘Ready Player One.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Warner Bros.)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Refuge of virtual reality</h2>
<p>Entire plot sequences incorporate existing popular characters, music and stories. In a nod to Superman, Watts dons Clark Kent glasses to conceal his identity. And in a sequence worthy of the film’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d-BPKxwbls">2019 Academy Award nomination for Achievement in Visual Effects</a>, Watts and his romantic interest Samantha Cook (Olivia Cooke) dance to the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” (1977). </p>
<p>The central conflict in <em>Ready Player One</em> arises when James Halliday (Mark Rylance), one of the OASIS’s creators, dies and leaves behind a seemingly impossible quest. The prize is his extensive fortune and total control over the OASIS. Watts’ competitors include the Innovative Online Industries (IOI), a loyalty centre that seeks to take over the OASIS.</p>
<p>The IOI is shown to be exploitative. Samantha’s father, we learn, borrowed gaming gear, built up debt and moved into the IOI in hopes to repay it, only to fall ill and die. Samantha stands to follow his example and her debt has already exceeded 23,000 credits.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EempLMvh_EQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Wade and Samantha dance to the Bee Gees’ ‘Stayin’ Alive’ in ‘Ready Player One.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Inequalities</h2>
<p>What distinguishes the film — and its source material — is its exploration of how we negotiate with a social order rife with inequalities. This theme is particularly timely: COVID-19 has made apparent, for instance, the links between <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-makes-inequality-a-public-health-issue/">inequality and public health</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/intellect/fm/2018/00000009/00000003/art00013;jsessionid=1fe2iahwms6o9.x-ic-live-02">In the novel</a>, the IOI’s corporate police arrest Wade, and he is marshalled out of his apartment complex and into a transport truck. As the vehicle moves, he peers out of its window and absorbs the changes that have befallen the world:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“<a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=J8ahqXjUhAAC&pg=PA276&lpg=PA276&dq=A+thick+film+of+neglect+still+covered+everything+in+sight.+The+streets,+the+buildings,+the+people.+Even+the+snow+seemed+dirty.+It+drifted+down+in+gray+flakes,+like+ash+after+a+volcanic+eruption&source=bl&ots=UTSjORO025&sig=ACfU3U2I0rXtBQcyzuYrc-Q2qeMulvFqrA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjw37ydu_XoAhWRbc0KHVWEBnwQ6AEwAHoECBAQKA#v=onepage&q&f=false">A thick film of neglect</a> still covered everything in sight …. The number of homeless people seemed to have increased drastically. Tents and cardboard shelters lined the streets, and the public parks I saw seemed to have been converted into refugee camps.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The key term here is neglect. Wade is not alone in having forsaken the world. The virtual universe of the OASIS may have provided a convenient refuge. But choosing to escape the world’s realities has contributed to a dramatic rise in social and economic inequalities.</p>
<h2>Taking constructive steps</h2>
<p>Both Cline’s novel and Spielberg’s film trace Watts’ growth into a better global citizen and his reconnection to the real world, so that his triumph can entail more than the regeneration of a flawed system. Spielberg expands on the novel by exploring what Watts does with his new-found wealth and power.</p>
<p>Watts shares his gains with his friends and together they take constructive steps towards improving both the OASIS and the wider world: they employ Halliday’s friend Ogden (Simon Pegg) as a non-exclusive consultant. They also ban loyalty centres from accessing the OASIS and switch off the virtual world on Tuesdays and Thursdays to encourage people to spend more time in the real world.</p>
<p>All of these actions seem commendable and they reveal how different Watts and his friends are to Halliday. Yet the film also exposes paradoxes inherent in fixing a broken system with its very tools. </p>
<p>In a recent article on the novel that I wrote with James Munday, a mathematics and statistics undergraduate student, we argue that any major <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00144940.2019.1667745">change Wade makes to the OASIS, such as closing it for extended periods, demands that he and his fellow shareholders take on a substantial loss</a>: their power is contingent upon the OASIS after all. But Wade seeks a more selfless and heroic win: creating a system that answers the needs of the many. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329773/original/file-20200422-47832-1pzxuvf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329773/original/file-20200422-47832-1pzxuvf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329773/original/file-20200422-47832-1pzxuvf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329773/original/file-20200422-47832-1pzxuvf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329773/original/file-20200422-47832-1pzxuvf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329773/original/file-20200422-47832-1pzxuvf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329773/original/file-20200422-47832-1pzxuvf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Steven Spielberg and Ernest Cline at the Warner Bros. ‘Ready Player One’ panel at Comic-Con International in July 2017, in San Diego, Calif.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Imagining new worlds</h2>
<p>What Spielberg does especially well is to show the importance of imagining the world in new ways — and the temptation and problems with rebuilding a broken one in its own image. </p>
<p>In this, Spielberg harks back to a long genealogy of dystopian fiction, a genre invested in world building. The problems that Watts faces are anticipated, for instance, in George Orwell’s <em><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/124976/animal-farm-by-george-orwell/">Animal Farm</a></em> (1945), where we find an exploitative social system replaced by one even more so because it is more efficient. </p>
<p>Recently, Gregory Claeys provided us with an interdisciplinary map of the genre in his illuminating study <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/dystopia-9780198785682?cc=ca&lang=en&"><em>Dystopia: A Natural History</em></a>. In a <a href="https://blog.oup.com/2016/12/dystopian-times-brexit-trump/">short essay</a>, he draws connections between the fears that we feel in these times of uncertainty to the genre’s central concerns.</p>
<p>As we collectively meditate on the world’s problems, why not imagine better worlds?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136328/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Ue has held the prestigious Frederick Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship.</span></em></p>The bestselling novel turned film exposes paradoxes of fixing a broken system with its own tools. As we collectively meditate on the world’s problems, why not imagine better worlds?Tom Ue, Adjunct Professor, Department of English, Dalhousie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1169402019-06-12T11:31:44Z2019-06-12T11:31:44ZWhat Orwell’s ‘1984’ tells us about today’s world, 70 years after it was published<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278699/original/file-20190610-52785-m9oejz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The dominant reading of George Orwell's dystopian novel, "1984" has been that it was a dire prediction of what could be. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Denis_C%C3%B4t%C3%A9_l%27%C3%A9crivain_lisant_%221984%22_de_George_Orwell.jpg#filehistory">Denis Hamel Côté</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Seventy years ago, Eric Blair, writing under a pseudonym George Orwell, published “1984,” now generally considered <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/19/legacy-george-orwell-nineteen-eighty-four">a classic of dystopian fiction</a>. </p>
<p>The novel tells the story of Winston Smith, a hapless middle-aged bureaucrat who lives in Oceania, where he is governed by constant surveillance. Even though there are no laws, there is a police force, the “Thought Police,” and the constant reminders, on posters, that “Big Brother Is Watching You.” </p>
<p>Smith works at the Ministry of Truth, and his job is to rewrite the reports in newspapers of the past to conform with the present reality. Smith lives in a constant state of uncertainty; he is not sure the year is in fact 1984. </p>
<p>Although the official account is that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, Smith is quite sure he remembers that just a few years ago they had been at war with Eastasia, who has now been proclaimed their constant and loyal <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=FTHnGZeroUoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=George+Orwell+1984+Annotated&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjohJSI2c3iAhU0JzQIHTEhAcQQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=George%20Orwell%201984%20Annotated&f=false">ally</a>. The society portrayed in “1984” is one in which social control is exercised through disinformation and surveillance. </p>
<p>As a scholar of <a href="https://washington.academia.edu/StephenGroening">television and screen culture</a>, I argue that the techniques and technologies described in the novel are very much present in today’s world.</p>
<h2>‘1984’ as history</h2>
<p>One of the key technologies of surveillance in the novel is the “telescreen,” a device very much like our own television. </p>
<p>The telescreen displays a single channel of news, propaganda and wellness programming. It differs from our own television in two crucial respects: It is impossible to turn off and the screen also watches its viewers. </p>
<p>The telescreen is television and surveillance camera in one. In the novel, the character Smith is never sure if he is being actively monitored through the telescreen.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278700/original/file-20190610-52739-r85r9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278700/original/file-20190610-52739-r85r9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278700/original/file-20190610-52739-r85r9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278700/original/file-20190610-52739-r85r9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278700/original/file-20190610-52739-r85r9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278700/original/file-20190610-52739-r85r9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278700/original/file-20190610-52739-r85r9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A publicity photo on the set of the CBS anthology television series ‘Studio One’ depicts a presentation of George Orwell’s ‘1984.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/1984_Norma_Crane_Eddie_Albert_Studio_One_1953.jpg">CBS Television</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Orwell’s telescreen was based in the technologies of television pioneered prior to World War II and could hardly be seen as science fiction. In the 1930s Germany had a working videophone system in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3815277">place</a>, and television programs were already being broadcast in parts of the United States, Great Britain and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/107769900608300307">France</a>. </p>
<h2>Past, present and future</h2>
<p>The dominant reading of “1984” has been that it was a dire prediction of what could be. In the words of Italian essayist <a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5856/umberto-eco-the-art-of-fiction-no-197-umberto-eco">Umberto Eco,</a> “at least three-quarters of what Orwell narrates is not negative utopia, but <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=u7wTAQAAIAAJ&dq=umberto+eco+apocalypse&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=orwell">history</a>.” </p>
<p>Additionally, scholars have also remarked how clearly “1984” describes the present. </p>
<p>In 1949, when the novel was written, Americans watched on average four and a half hours of television a day; in 2009, almost twice <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/when-did-tv-watching-peak/561464/">that</a>. In 2017, television watching was slightly down, to eight hours, more time than we spent <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/166553/less-recommended-amount-sleep.aspx">asleep</a>. </p>
<p>In the U.S. the information transmitted over television screens came to constitute a dominant portion of people’s social and psychological lives. </p>
<h2>‘1984’ as present day</h2>
<p>In the year 1984, however, there was much self-congratulatory coverage in the U.S. that the dystopia of the novel had not been realized. But media studies scholar <a href="https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty/Mark_Crispin_Miller">Mark Miller</a> argued how the famous slogan from the book, “Big Brother Is Watching You” had been turned to “Big Brother is you, watching” <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41398748">television</a>. </p>
<p>Miller argued that television in the United States teaches a different kind of conformity than that portrayed in the novel. In the novel, the telescreen is used to produce conformity to the Party. In Miller’s argument, television produces conformity to a system of rapacious consumption – through advertising as well as a focus on the rich and famous. It also promotes endless productivity, through messages regarding the meaning of success and the virtues of hard <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41398748">work</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278706/original/file-20190610-52776-ggwbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278706/original/file-20190610-52776-ggwbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278706/original/file-20190610-52776-ggwbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278706/original/file-20190610-52776-ggwbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278706/original/file-20190610-52776-ggwbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278706/original/file-20190610-52776-ggwbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278706/original/file-20190610-52776-ggwbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Television has a profound effect on its viewers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/closeup-couple-watching-film-on-television-609057623?src=zdrh94jCvhy7l1P7g_-ANw-1-56">Andrey_Popov</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many viewers conform by measuring themselves against what they see on television, such as dress, relationships and conduct. In Miller’s words, television has “set the standard of habitual self-scrutiny.” </p>
<p>The kind of paranoid worry possessed by Smith in the novel – that any false move or false thought will bring the thought police – instead manifests in television viewers that Miller describes as an “inert watchfulness.” In other words, viewers watch themselves to make sure they conform to those others they see on the screen. </p>
<p>This inert watchfulness can exist because television allows viewers to watch strangers without being seen. Scholar <a href="https://cola.unh.edu/person/joshua-meyrowitz">Joshua Meyrowitz</a> has shown that the kinds of programming which dominate U.S television – news, sitcoms, dramas – have normalized looking into the private lives of <a href="http://ann.sagepub.com/content/625/1/32">others</a>. </p>
<h2>Controlling behavior</h2>
<p>Alongside the steady rise of “reality TV,” beginning in the ‘60s with “Candid Camera,” “An American Family,” “Real People,” “Cops” and “The Real World,” television has also contributed to the acceptance of a kind of video surveillance. </p>
<p>For example, it might seem just clever marketing that one of the longest-running and most popular reality television shows in the world is entitled “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/152747640200300307">Big Brother</a>.” The show’s nod to the novel invokes the kind of benevolent surveillance that “Big Brother” was meant to signify: “We are watching you and we will take care of you.” </p>
<p>But Big Brother, as a reality show, is also an experiment in controlling and modifying behavior. By asking participants to put their private lives on display, shows such as “Big Brother” encourage self-scrutiny and behaving according to perceived social norms or roles that challenge those perceived <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/152747640200300305">norms</a>.</p>
<p>The stress of performing 24/7 on “Big Brother” has led the show to employ a team of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/152747640200300305">psychologists</a>.</p>
<p>Television scholar <a href="https://tisch.nyu.edu/about/directory/cinema-studies/92884091">Anna McCarthy</a> and others have shown that the origins of reality television can be traced back to social psychology and behavioral experiments in the aftermath of World War II, which were designed to better control people. </p>
<p>Yale University psychologist <a href="https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/stanley-milgram">Stanley Milgram</a>, for example, was influenced by “Candid Camera.” </p>
<p>In the “Candid Camera” show, cameras were concealed in places where they could film people in unusual situations. Milgram was fascinated with “Candid Camera,” and he used a similar model for his experiments – his participants were not aware that they were being watched or that it was part of an <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=4_W19oHGzZQC&lpg=PA40&dq=reality%20tv%20stanley%20milgram&pg=PA23#v=onepage&q=reality%20tv%20stanley%20milgram&f=false">experiment</a>. </p>
<p>Like many others in the aftermath of World War II, Milgram was interested in what could compel large numbers of people to “follow orders” and participate in genocidal acts. His “obedience experiments” found that a high proportion of participants obeyed instructions from an established authority figure to harm another person, even if <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1964-03472-001">reluctantly</a>.</p>
<p>While contemporary reality TV shows do not order participants to directly harm each other, they are often set up as a small-scale social experiment that often involves intense competition or even cruelty.</p>
<h2>Surveillance in daily life</h2>
<p>And, just like in the novel, ubiquitous video surveillance is already here.</p>
<p>Closed-circuit television exist in virtually every area of American life, from <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/02/surveillance-watching-you/">transportation hubs and networks</a>, to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/world/europe/25surveillance.html">schools</a>, <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/business/cameras-that-guess-your-age-and-sex-coming-to-store-shelves-20190423/">supermarkets</a>, <a href="https://www.videosurveillance.com/hospital.asp">hospitals</a> and <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/3000272/nypd-microsoft-launch-all-seeing-domain-awareness-system-real-time-cctv-license-plate-monito">public sidewalks</a>, not to mention law enforcement <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/some-us-police-departments-dump-body-camera-programs-amid-high-costs/2019/01/21/991f0e66-03ad-11e9-b6a9-0aa5c2fcc9e4_story.html?utm_term=.9d250eb105c5">officers</a> and their <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/how-license-plate-readers-have-helped-police-and-lenders-target-the-poor/479436/">vehicles</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278703/original/file-20190610-52767-hph7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278703/original/file-20190610-52767-hph7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278703/original/file-20190610-52767-hph7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278703/original/file-20190610-52767-hph7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278703/original/file-20190610-52767-hph7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278703/original/file-20190610-52767-hph7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278703/original/file-20190610-52767-hph7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Video surveillance is part of our modern-day lives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/safety-private-property-modern-technology-safeguard-566594038?src=2Y2pSj-hKKf03p04kjOCoQ-1-6">Africa Studio</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Surveillance footage from these cameras is repurposed as the raw material of television, mostly in the news but also in shows like “America’s Most Wanted,” “Right This Minute” and others. Many viewers unquestioningly accept this practice as <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TtXin4BBii0C&pg=PA15&dq=reality+squared+fetveit&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwju7a3Pw9_iAhVLjp4KHQkYACcQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=reality%20squared%20fetveit&f=false">legitimate</a>. </p>
<h2>The friendly face of surveillance</h2>
<p>Reality television is the friendly face of surveillance. It helps viewers think that surveillance happens only to those who choose it or to those who are criminals. In fact, it is part of a culture of widespread television use, which has brought about what Norwegian criminologist <a href="https://prabook.com/web/thomas.mathiesen/474581">Thomas Mathiesen</a> called the “viewer society” – in which the many watch the few.</p>
<p>For Mathiesen, the viewer society is merely <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480697001002003">the other side</a> of the surveillance society – described so aptly in Orwell’s novel – where a few watch the many. </p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116940/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Groening does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the year 1984, there was self-congratulatory coverage that the dystopia of the novel had not been realized. However, an expert argues that the technologies described in the novel are here and watching us.Stephen Groening, Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Studies, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1120662019-04-29T20:14:22Z2019-04-29T20:14:22ZGuide to the classics: Orwell’s 1984 and how it helps us understand tyrannical power today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265796/original/file-20190326-36256-lkfv0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Written as the Cold War became entrenched, 1984 was meant as a warning on the nature of state power. Understanding this power is even more important today.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/792558856?size=huge_jpg">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As novel-openers go, they don’t come much better than this one in George Orwell’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40961427-1984?from_search=true">Nineteen Eighty-Four</a>. See how the unexpected “striking thirteen” runs powerfully into the beginnings of characterisation and world-building in just two arresting sentences. </p>
<p>Orwell knew that words could both grip the attention and change the mind. He wrote the book as the Cold War was becoming entrenched, and it was meant as an explicit warning on the nature of state power at that time. </p>
<p>The book still sells by the thousands, and is read by students who are compelled to do so. But it can be read voluntarily and profitably, and it can tell us a lot about contemporary politics and power, from Donald Trump to Facebook.</p>
<h2>A world of ‘doublespeak’</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261590/original/file-20190301-22837-18ddz8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261590/original/file-20190301-22837-18ddz8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261590/original/file-20190301-22837-18ddz8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=997&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261590/original/file-20190301-22837-18ddz8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=997&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261590/original/file-20190301-22837-18ddz8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=997&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261590/original/file-20190301-22837-18ddz8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1252&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261590/original/file-20190301-22837-18ddz8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1252&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261590/original/file-20190301-22837-18ddz8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1252&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/936221.Nineteen_Eighty_Four">Goodreads</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nineteen Eighty-Four became an instant classic when published in 1949. People could see in it a world that could easily become a reality. The memory of Nazi dictatorship was still fresh, the Soviet Union had erected the Iron Curtain, and the USA had the atomic bomb. </p>
<p>The novel’s setting is a dystopian Britain, which has become a part of Oceania, a region in perpetual war with the other super-regions of Eurasia and Eastasia. Oppression, surveillance and control are facts of life in a society ruled by the Party and its four Ministries of Truth, Peace, Plenty and Love.</p>
<p>It is a world of “doublespeak” where things are the opposite of what they appear; there is no truth, only lies – only war and only privation. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-orwellian-mean-anyway-87404">What does 'Orwellian' mean, anyway?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>One of Orwell’s innovations is to introduce us to a new political lexicon, a “Newspeak” where he shows how words can be used and abused as a form of power. Words like “Thoughtcrime”, where it is illegal to have thoughts that are in opposition to the Party; or “unperson”, meaning someone who has been executed by the Party (e.g. for Thoughtcrime) will have all record of his or her existence erased. </p>
<p>Not only do we use many of these words today, but the manipulative function that Orwell described is still intact. For example, when Kellyanne Conway, advisor to US president Donald Trump, stated in 2017 that the Administration has its own “alternative facts”, she was indulging in “doublethink”: an attempted psychological control of reality through words.</p>
<p>Nineteen Eighty-Four <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/books/1984-george-orwell-donald-trump.html">became an Amazon bestseller</a> following the election of Trump and the airing of this interview.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VSrEEDQgFc8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Kellyanne Conway explains the Trump adminstration’s ‘alternative facts’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Within the corridors of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, though, there’s a tiny flickering of real love that develops between protagonist Winston and co-worker Julia. They share unlawful thoughts about other possible ways of living and thinking, based upon vague and unreliable memories of a time before world wars and Big Brother and the Party.</p>
<p>But through its immense powers of surveillance and the efforts of the Thought Police, Big Brother knows everything, and soon the lovers are suspects. Winston is arrested and brought before O’Brien, the novel’s antagonist and a Party heavyweight who is openly cynical about the power structure of society. For him power is a zero-sum equation: if you don’t use it to keep others down, they will use it similarly against you. </p>
<p>There is much drama, suspense and even horror in Orwell’s book. He wrote about what he saw around him, but filtered it with an acute sensitivity to the innate fragility of civilisation. In 1943, when the plot-lines of Nineteen Eighty-Four were probably gestating in his head, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/467180.George_Orwell">Orwell wrote</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Either power politics must yield to common decency, or the world must go spiralling down into a nightmare into which we can already catch some dim glimpses.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>1984 goes digital</h2>
<p>These days, a lot of power politics circulates online. Orwell, who worked for the BBC during the war, was sensitive to the power of communications. What he calls the “telescreen” is essentially a surveillance device that “received and transmitted simultaneously”.</p>
<p>He writes of the device that “any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover […] he could be seen as well as heard”. Remind you of anything? Alexa or Siri and their ilk may be fads, but the technology now exists; and so then does a new kind of power. </p>
<p>Such power is contingent and shifting and does not always reside with governments.</p>
<p>Donald Trump wields a new digital power through Twitter and Facebook and can “speak to his base” whenever he’s angry, bored or overcome by impulse. But through ownership of new digital technologies, new actors – data corporations – have acquired old powers. These are the powers to manipulate, surveil, and influence millions of people through access to their data.</p>
<p>And their power in turn can be leeched by hackers, state-sponsored or independent. The complexity of political power today means we need to be more attuned to its changing forms, to more effectively strategise and resist.</p>
<p>Orwell’s “common decency” reference may now sound rather quaint. But its very absence in social media is a problem. </p>
<p>The algorithms that Twitter, Facebook and Google insert into our communications act essentially as “manipulation engines” that can cause division, favour extreme views, and set groups of people against each other.</p>
<p>Divide-and-rule is not their intention – getting you online in order to sell your data to advertisers is – but that is the effect, and democratic politics is the worse for it.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-political-engagement-on-social-media-can-drive-people-to-extremes-44903">How political engagement on social media can drive people to extremes</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Understanding the nature of political power is even more important today than when Orwell wrote. Oppression and manipulation were “simpler” and more brutal then; today, social control and its sources are more opaque.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261591/original/file-20190301-22837-h0f4a8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261591/original/file-20190301-22837-h0f4a8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261591/original/file-20190301-22837-h0f4a8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261591/original/file-20190301-22837-h0f4a8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261591/original/file-20190301-22837-h0f4a8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261591/original/file-20190301-22837-h0f4a8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261591/original/file-20190301-22837-h0f4a8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261591/original/file-20190301-22837-h0f4a8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Orwell in 1943.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_Orwell_press_photo.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Orwell’s imperishable value as a writer is that he provides a template on the character of political power that tells us that we cannot be complacent, cannot leave it to government to fix, and cannot leave it to fate and hope for the best.</p>
<p>Things did not turn out so well for Winston Smith. Pushed to the limit by torture and brainwashing, he betrays Julia. And in his abject state he convinces himself, finally, of the rightness of the Party: “He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”</p>
<p>The story ends there. But for Orwell the writer and activist, the struggle for Truth, Peace, Plenty and Love was only beginning.</p>
<p>Today, Nineteen Eighty-Four comes across not as a warning that the actual world of Winston and Julia and O'Brien is in danger of becoming reality. Rather, its true value is that it teaches us that power and tyranny are made possible through the use of words and how they are mediated.</p>
<p>If we understand power in this way, especially in our digital world, then unlike Winston, we will have a better chance to fight it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112066/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Hassan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>George Orwell’s dystopian classic can tell us a lot about contemporary politics and power, from Donald Trump to Facebook.Robert Hassan, Professor, School of Culture and Communication, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1141652019-03-25T06:19:10Z2019-03-25T06:19:10ZA skilful and stirring one-man treatment of George Orwell’s Animal Farm<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265507/original/file-20190325-36270-1gzaj00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Renato Musolino is the beating heart of a new production of Animal Farm.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Hartley</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Animal Farm, State Theatre Company of South Australia</em></p>
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<p>In a new one-man production, Renato Musolino brings George Orwell’s classic novella <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/170448.Animal_Farm">Animal Farm</a> to life. A searing solo piece, the play showcases not only the talents of Musolino as a performer, but also its director Geordie Brookman.</p>
<p>Written as an allegorical critique of the 1917 Russian Revolution and the subsequent Stalinist era, Orwell’s novella details the rebellion of animals on Manor Farm against the cruel farmer Mr Jones. What follows is the establishment of a new order, an animal utopia in which all animals are equal. The animals collaboratively develop a new philosophy, “animalism” which consists of seven commandments aiming to instil a sense of pride and empowerment. </p>
<p>This initially egalitarian society slowly and hauntingly evolves, or rather devolves, into a system not much better than before the rebellion. A sense of unease and foreboding loomed over the production as we watched, helpless and passive, the insidious rise of the leader Napoleon and his class of pigs as rulers of the farm.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265509/original/file-20190325-36283-1q4gk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265509/original/file-20190325-36283-1q4gk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265509/original/file-20190325-36283-1q4gk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265509/original/file-20190325-36283-1q4gk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265509/original/file-20190325-36283-1q4gk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265509/original/file-20190325-36283-1q4gk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265509/original/file-20190325-36283-1q4gk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265509/original/file-20190325-36283-1q4gk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Musolino switches from narration to monologue and dialogue, voicing the many characters of Animal Farm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Hartley</span></span>
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<p>Musolino’s performance, the beating heart of this production, had the opening night audience transfixed. Switching from narration to monologue and dialogue, he portrayed the many and varied members of this new society with impressive vocal and physical transformations. </p>
<p>The pigs were characterised not only by snorts of laughter and squeals of delight in the face of other animals’ misery, but also by Musolino’s tensed and contorted hands, forming trotters. </p>
<p>The bleating banality of the sheep, the slow but deliberate philosophising of the committed workhorse, and the grumpy quips from the old donkey, along with the folk-tale lyricism of the narration, created a clear and consummate symphony of voices.</p>
<p>Musolino’s transitions between characters were quick but seamless. Thanks to the actor’s piercing sincerity and skill as a storyteller, the pace and dramatic tension of the story was never lost – a risk when so much falls to just one performer.</p>
<p>A well-structured adaptation from Brookman, the outgoing Artistic Director, ensured that Orwell’s created world – one not so far from our own – and its injustices, betrayals and exploitations, were orchestrated for maximum impact. The journey of Boxer the horse was particularly heartbreaking, crystallising the cruelty, exploitation and ruthlessness of this new society.</p>
<p>One of the most effective ways Napoleon and the pigs disempower the other animals is by taking away their means of communication. Leading up to the revolution, the pigs teach themselves how to read and write while only offering a cursory education to the other animals. </p>
<p>It is the pigs’ literacy that affords them the most power to change the rules. This quite literally occurs throughout the play, as the commandments painted on the side of the barn are amended to suit their needs. For example, “no animal shall kill another animal” eventually becomes “no animal shall kill another animal without cause”. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265510/original/file-20190325-36270-1kiufr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265510/original/file-20190325-36270-1kiufr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265510/original/file-20190325-36270-1kiufr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265510/original/file-20190325-36270-1kiufr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265510/original/file-20190325-36270-1kiufr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265510/original/file-20190325-36270-1kiufr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265510/original/file-20190325-36270-1kiufr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265510/original/file-20190325-36270-1kiufr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A mixture of straight lines and softer lighting was used in the production.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Hartley</span></span>
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<p>The set, designed by Bianka Kennedy, consisted of an ominous black structure, not unlike an open coffin, tombstone or even a geometric Venus flytrap, which could close at any moment, swallowing us all. This limited space allowed for a concentrated focus on Musolino’s performance. </p>
<p>Straight lines informed the approach of lighting designer Alexander Ramsay on the structure itself, juxtaposed nicely with the softer lighting used to frame Musolino in quieter moments. </p>
<p>Andrew Howard’s soundscape, haunting but never overpowering, amplified the work’s dark intensity. The production, thanks no doubt to Brookman’s skilful direction, is technically explosive, intense and consistent with the work’s thematic concerns. </p>
<p>This is a production not to be seen, but experienced. It moved me to tears, stirring a seething rage within me. Such was the power of Orwell’s, Brookman’s and Musolino’s combined storytelling. </p>
<p>A cathartic production in the purest sense, Animal Farm evoked fear, pity, empathy, anger and recognition as the exploitation of power played out once more. The words “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” rang in our ears long after leaving the theatre. </p>
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<p><em><a href="http://statetheatrecompany.com.au/shows/animal-farm/">Animal Farm</a> is playing at the State Theatre Company of South Australia until March 30.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114165/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Harper Campbell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An impressive solo performance of Orwell’s classic novella by Renato Musolino portrays a world not so far from our own.Lisa Harper Campbell, Lecturer in Drama, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/987382018-06-28T14:34:39Z2018-06-28T14:34:39ZFrom alternative facts to tender age shelters – how euphemisms become political weapons of mass distraction<p>The recent images of children in cages provided yet another reason to throw your head into your hands over America’s inhumane treatment of immigrants. So – for most of us – it was a great relief to hear that Donald Trump eventually gave into pressure and signed an executive order to stop enforcing the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/20/babies-and-toddlers-sent-to-tender-age-shelters-under-trump-separations">laws mandating the separation of children</a> from their parents. But there are still many hundreds of young people detained in the euphemistically termed “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/shortcuts/2018/jun/20/tender-age-shelters-a-new-way-to-describe-the-kidnapping-of-children">tender age shelters</a>” – in reality, prisons for children and toddlers. </p>
<p>Who comes up with these terms? They are not fooling anyone – especially as “tender” and “shelters” have completely different meanings to what is, in fact, the enforced separation of children who are then held in cages. That’s the trouble with euphemisms – they can enrich language, but in the hands of politicians they can be strategically used to mislead and disguise brutal practices, concepts and ideas. Euphemisms – or what are known in some quarters as “<a href="https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/weasel-words.html">weasel words</a>” – are used to conceal the truth of unpalatable situations or practises so that they are easier for the public to accept. </p>
<p>Who can forget “collateral damage” – or rather the incidental deaths and injuries of unintended and non-combatant victims? The euphemism - from the Latin word <em>collateralis</em>, which means “together with” – was adopted by the US military in the mid-20th century to describe the unintentional deaths that occurred “together with” the targeting of legitimate targets. The term was <a href="https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/97000.html">first used in the 1961 article</a> “Dispersal, Deterrence, and Damage” by Nobel Prize-winning economist D.C. Schelling. He argued that weapons could be designed and deployed in such a way as to avoid collateral damage and thus control the war.</p>
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<h2>Aristotelian ‘logos’</h2>
<p>Historically, euphemisms are part of the rhetorical speech styles (from the Greek <em>rhêtorikê</em>) associated with the oratory skills necessary for political speeches, where persuasion is primarily the intended effect. Rhetoric can be defined as the “art of discourse” or, more precisely, the “art of persuasive discourse”. It is the ability to persuade an audience mostly through linguistic strategies.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225118/original/file-20180627-112607-y0hxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225118/original/file-20180627-112607-y0hxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225118/original/file-20180627-112607-y0hxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225118/original/file-20180627-112607-y0hxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225118/original/file-20180627-112607-y0hxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225118/original/file-20180627-112607-y0hxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225118/original/file-20180627-112607-y0hxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Bust of Aristotle: Roman copy after a Greek bronze original by Lysippos.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>This style of speaking dates back to classical times and to Aristotle and his concept of “logos” or how audiences are persuaded by the reasoning contained in an argument conveyed by the speech. “Logos” represents what Aristotle called one of the three “modes of proof” – along with “ethos” (which relates to the speaker’s personality and the audience believing that the speaker is trustworthy and honest) and “pathos” (where persuasion is evoked through emotions, brought on by engagement and empathy). </p>
<h2>Newspeak</h2>
<p>According to Orwell in <a href="http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit">his 1946 essay</a> “Politics and the English Language”, the use of euphemisms also helps to avoid the mental images that more direct language would conjure up. Take, for example, the ambiguous language of “doublethink” and “newspeak” in Orwell’s dystopian 1948 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called <em>pacification</em> … Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Euphemisms are not just limited to politician-speak, they are very much part of everyday communication and can be found in abundance when dealing with taboo subjects. They help us to politely navigate our way around talk of death, sex, sexual orientation and genitalia. Expressions such as “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9248.1990.tb00566.x">economical with the truth</a> (read "lies”) and “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-2337,00.html">tired and emotional</a>” (read “drunk”) are now so embedded into our vernacular that no-one pauses to think twice about these indirect word choices. But, for politicians, weasel words are an integral part of the rhetorical toolkit – a style of spoken or written language that functions to persuade.</p>
<h2>Alternative facts</h2>
<p>It didn’t take long for the Trump administration to wheel out one of the more ridiculous euphemisms of recent times. The day after Trump’s inauguration, the counsellor to the US president, Kellyanne Conway, came up with the much-derided “alternative facts” to counter accusations that the then White House press secretary Sean Spicer had lied about the crowd size at Trump’s inauguration. </p>
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<p>Politicians of all stripes quickly come to realise how useful it can be to soften the impact of unpopular actions with some carefully chosen weasel words. Former UK prime minister Tony Blair was a great user of euphemisms in his political discourse. Many examples can be found in his interviews and speeches in 2003 to justify the Second Gulf War on Iraq, for example. He spoke of the “liberation of Iraq” (meaning occupation), “peace-keeping” (meaning war) and these could only be achieved by “removing Saddam” (meaning his death rather than forcing him from a position of power).</p>
<p>A decade earlier, the slaughter, torture and imprisonment of Bosnian Muslims in Serbia was described as “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/ethnic-cleansing">ethnic cleansing</a>” when there is nothing purifying about these war crimes. </p>
<p>The US government’s “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11723189">enhanced interrogation techniques</a>” is another example of strategic word choices to disguise systematic torture. When he was US president, Barack Obama tended to avoid using the word “war”, preferring to use words such as “effort”, “process”, “fight” and “campaign” to describe the military action against ISIS, Iraq and Syria as it lessens the violence that war connotes.</p>
<p>Euphemisms have become part of political discourse that intentionally obscures, misleads or distracts audiences from unpleasant truths. Unfortunately, this is what politicians do with language and this is how they win support for otherwise unpalatable policies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98738/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marina Lambrou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Why don’t politicians just say what they mean? Because we might not like it.Marina Lambrou, Associate Professor in English Language and Linguistics, Kingston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/898502018-01-11T00:11:24Z2018-01-11T00:11:24Z‘Shithole countries’: Trump uses the rhetoric of dictators<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201744/original/file-20180112-101486-1l854ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A day after Donald Trump met with Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, he told lawmakers the U.S. should have more immigrants from places like Norway and not "shithole" countries like Haiti.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>George Orwell warns us in his dystopian novel 1984 that authoritarianism begins with language. In the novel, “newspeak” is language twisted to deceive, seduce and undermine the ability of people to think critically and freely.</p>
<p>Donald Trump’s unapologetic bigoted language made headlines again Thursday when it was reported he told lawmakers working on a new immigration policy that the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-attacks-protections-for-immigrants-from-shithole-countries-in-oval-office-meeting/2018/01/11/bfc0725c-f711-11e7-91af-31ac729add94_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_trumpmeeting-445pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.a6146ac46b16">United States shouldn’t accept people from “shithole countries” like Haiti</a>. Given his support for white nationalism and his coded call to “Make America Great (White) Again,” Trump’s overt racist remarks reinforce echoes of white supremacy reminiscent of fascist dictators in the 1930s.</p>
<p>His remarks about accepting people from Norway smack of an appeal to the sordid discourse of racial purity. There is much more at work here than a politics of incivility. Behind Trump’s use of vulgarity and his disparagement of countries that are poor and non-white lies the terrifying discourse of white supremacy, ethnic cleansing and the politics of disposability. This is a vocabulary that considers some individuals and groups not only faceless and voiceless, but excess, redundant and subject to expulsion. The endpoint of the language of disposability is a form of social death, or even worse.</p>
<p>As authoritarianism gains strength, the formative cultures that give rise to dissent become more embattled, along with the public spaces and institutions that make conscious critical thought possible.</p>
<p>Words that speak to the truth to reveal injustices and provide informed critical analysis begin to disappear, making it all the more difficult, if not dangerous, to judge, think critically and hold dominant power accountable. Notions of virtue, honour, respect and compassion are policed, and those who advocate them are punished.</p>
<p>I think it’s fair to argue that Orwell’s nightmare vision of the future is no longer fiction in the United States. Under Trump, <a href="https://theconversation.com/scientific-information-is-the-key-to-democracy-88620?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20January%204%202018&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20January%204%202018+CID_c92244b9da5fa91dfaa10c6cbd4fe095&utm_source=campaign_monitor_ca&utm_term=waging%20a%20war%20against%20scientific%20information">language is undergoing a shift</a>: It now treats dissent, critical media coverage and scientific evidence as a species of “fake news.” </p>
<p>The Trump administration, in fact, views the critical media as the “enemy of the American people.” Trump has repeated this view of the media so often that <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/americans-media-poll-trust-trump-fake-news-attacks-a8091991.html">almost a third of Americans now believe it</a> and support government-imposed restrictions on the media, according to a Poynter survey. </p>
<h2>Thought crimes and fake news</h2>
<p>Trump’s cries of “fake news” work incessantly to set limits on what is thinkable. Reason, standards of evidence, consistency and logic no longer serve the truth, according to Trump, because the latter are crooked ideological devices used by enemies of the state. Orwell’s “thought crimes” are Trump’s “fake news.” Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth” is Trump’s “Ministry of Fake News.” </p>
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<p>The notion of truth is viewed by this president as a corrupt tool used by the critical media to question his dismissal of legal checks on his power, particularly his attacks on judges, courts and any other governing institutions that will not promise him complete and unchecked loyalty.</p>
<p>For Trump, <a href="http://time.com/4665755/donald-trump-fear/">intimidation takes the place of unquestioned loyalty</a> when he does not get his way, revealing a view of the presidency that is more about winning than about governing. </p>
<p>One consequence is the myriad practices by which Trump gleefully humiliates and punishes his critics, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/31/us/politics/trump-reinventing-presidency.html">wilfully engages in shameful acts of self-promotion</a> and unapologetically enriches his financial coffers.</p>
<p>Under Trump, the language of civic literacy and democracy has become unmoored from critical reason, informed debate and the weight of scientific evidence, and is now being reconfigured and tied to pageantry, political theatre and a deep-seated anti-intellectualism. </p>
<p>One consequence, as language begins to function as a tool of state repression, is that matters of moral and political responsibility disappear and injustices proliferate.</p>
<h2>Fascism starts with words</h2>
<p>What is crucial to remember here, as authoritarianism expert <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2017/12/21/beware-of-president-trumps-nefarious-language-games/?utm_term=.dc9e11b2d2c9">Ruth Ben-Ghiat notes</a>, is that fascism starts with words. Trump’s use of language and his manipulative use of the media as political spectacle are disturbingly similar to earlier periods of propaganda, censorship and repression.</p>
<p>Under fascist regimes, the language of brutality and culture of cruelty was normalized through the proliferation of strident metaphors of war, battle, expulsion, racial purity and demonization. </p>
<p>As German historians such as Richard J. Evans and Victor Klemperer have made clear, <a href="http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi-germany/censorship-in-nazi-germany/">dictators like Adolf Hitler</a> did more than simply corrupt the language of a civilized society, they also banned words. </p>
<p>Soon afterwards, the Nazis banned books and the critical intellectuals who wrote them. They then imprisoned those individuals who challenged Nazi ideology and the state’s systemic violations of civil rights. </p>
<p>The end point was an all-embracing discourse of disposability — the emergence of concentration camps and genocide fuelled by a politics of racial purity and social cleansing. </p>
<p>Echoes of the formative stages of such actions are upon us now. An American-style neo-fascism appears to be engulfing the United States after simmering in the dark for years.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201523/original/file-20180110-46706-fer80e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201523/original/file-20180110-46706-fer80e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201523/original/file-20180110-46706-fer80e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201523/original/file-20180110-46706-fer80e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201523/original/file-20180110-46706-fer80e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201523/original/file-20180110-46706-fer80e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201523/original/file-20180110-46706-fer80e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Donald Trump stands on the field for the U.S. national anthem before the start of the NCAA National Championship game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium between Georgia and Alabama on Jan. 8 in Atlanta.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More than any other president, Trump has normalized the notion that the meaning of words no longer matters, nor do traditional sources of facts and evidence. In doing so, he has undermined the relationship between engaged citizenship and the truth, and has relegated matters of debate and critical assessment to a spectacle of bombast, threats, intimidation and sheer fakery. </p>
<p>This language of fascism does more than normalize falsehoods and ignorance. It also promotes a larger culture of short-term attention spans, immediacy and sensationalism. At the same time, it makes fear and anxiety the normalized currency of exchange and communication. </p>
<p>In a throwback to the language of fascism, Trump has repeatedly positioned himself as the only one who can save the masses — reproducing the tired script of the model of the saviour endemic to authoritarianism. </p>
<p>There is more at work here than an oversized ego. Trump’s authoritarianism is also fuelled by braggadocio and misdirected rage as he undermines the bonds of solidarity, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/business/dealbook/trump-congress-financial-regulations.html?_r=0">abolishes institutions meant to protect the vulnerable</a> and launches a full-fledged <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/04/climate/trump-offshore-drilling.html">assault on the environment</a>.</p>
<p>Trump is also the master of manufactured illiteracy, and his obsessive tweeting and public relations machine aggressively engages in the theatre of self-promotion and distractions. Both of these are designed to whitewash any version of a history that might expose the close alignment between his own language and policies and the dark elements of a fascist past.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"951109942685126656"}"></div></p>
<p>Trump also revels in an unchecked mode of self-congratulation bolstered by a limited vocabulary filled with words like “historic,” “best,” “the greatest,” “tremendous” and “beautiful.” </p>
<p>Those exaggerations suggest more than hyperbole or the self-indulgent use of language. When he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/04/17-issues-that-donald-trump-knows-better-than-anyone-else-according-to-donald-trump/">claims</a> he “knows more about ISIS than the generals,” “knows more about renewables than any human being on Earth” or that nobody knows the U.S. system of government better than he does, he’s using the rhetoric of fascism. </p>
<p>As the aforementioned historian Richard J. Evans writes in <em>The Third Reich in Power</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>“The German language became a language of superlatives, so that everything the regime did became the best and the greatest, its achievements unprecedented, unique, historic and incomparable …. The language used about Hitler … was shot through and through with religious metaphors; people ‘believed in him,’ he was the redeemer, the savior, the instrument of Providence, his spirit lived in and through the German nation…. Nazi institutions domesticated themselves [through the use of a language] that became an unthinking part of everyday life.”</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sound familiar?</p>
<p>Under the Trump regime, memories inconvenient to his authoritarianism are now demolished in the domesticated language of superlatives so the future can be shaped to become indifferent to the crimes of the past. </p>
<p>Trump’s endless daily tweets, his recklessness, his adolescent disdain for a measured response, his unfaltering anti-intellectualism and his utter ignorance of history work in the United States. Why? Because they not only cater to what <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/12/19/author-brian-klaas-is-trump-an-aspiring-despot-or-a-bumbling-showman-yes/">historian Brian Klaas refers to as</a> “the tens of millions of Americans who have authoritarian or fascist leanings,” they also enable what he calls Trump’s attempt at “mainstreaming fascism.”</p>
<p>The language of fascism revels in forms of theatre that mobilize fear, hatred and violence. Author <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/43017-how-a-culture-of-fear-helped-propel-trump-into-the-white-house">Sasha Abramsky</a> is on target in claiming that Trump’s words amount to more than empty slogans. </p>
<p>Instead, his language comes “with consequences, and they legitimize bigotries and hatreds long harbored by many but, for the most part, kept under wraps by the broader society.”</p>
<p>Surely, the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-islam-muslim-islamophobia-worse-911-says-leader-a8113686.html">increase in hate crimes</a> during Trump’s first year of his presidency testifies to the truth of Abramsky’s argument.</p>
<h2>Fighting Trump’s fascist language</h2>
<p>The history of fascism teaches us that language operates in the service of violence, desperation and troubling landscapes of hatred, and carries the potential for inhabiting the darkest moments of history. </p>
<p>It erodes our humanity, and makes too many people numb and silent in the face of ideologies and practices that are hideous acts of ethical atrocity.</p>
<p>Trump’s language, like that of older fascist regimes, mutilates contemporary politics, empathy and serious moral and political criticism, and makes it more difficult to criticize dominant relations of power.</p>
<p>His fascistic language also fuels the rhetoric of war, toxic masculinity, white supremacy, anti-intellectualism and racism. But it’s not his alone. </p>
<p>It is the language of a nascent fascism that has been brewing in the United States for some time. It is a language that is comfortable viewing the world as a combat zone, a world that exists to be plundered and a view of those deemed different as a threat to be feared, if not eliminated. </p>
<p>A new language aimed at fighting Trump’s romance with fascism must make power visible, uncover the truth, contest falsehoods and create a formative and critical culture that can nurture and sustain collective resistance to the oppression that has overtaken the United States, and increasingly many other countries. </p>
<p>No form of oppression can be overlooked. And with that critical gaze must emerge a critical language, a new narrative and a different story about what a socialist democracy will look like in the United States.</p>
<h2>Reclaiming language as a force for good</h2>
<p>There is also a need to strengthen and expand the reach and power of established public spheres, such as higher education and the critical media, as sites of critical learning. </p>
<p>We must encourage artists, intellectuals, academics and other cultural workers to talk, educate, make oppression visible and challenge the common-sense vocabulary of <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/casino-capitalism-trump-style_us_59c9127ae4b0cdc77332f26a">casino capitalism,</a> white supremacy and fascism.</p>
<p>Language is not simply an instrument of fear, violence and intimidation; it is also a vehicle for critique, civic courage and resistance.</p>
<p>A critical language can <a href="https://medium.com/quote-of-the-week/american-politics-and-the-crystallization-of-totalitarian-practices-464e1f02f514#.fyuncour9">guide us</a> in our thinking about the relationship between older elements of fascism and how such practices are emerging in new forms.</p>
<p>Without a faith in intelligence, critical education and the power to resist, humanity will be powerless to challenge the threat that fascism and right-wing populism pose to the world. </p>
<p>Those of us willing to fight for a just political and economic society need to formulate a new language and fresh narratives about freedom, the power of collective struggle, empathy, solidarity and the promise of a real socialist democracy. </p>
<p>We would do well to heed the words of the great Nobel Prize-winning novelist, J.M. Coetzee, <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/12/21/lies/">who states in a work of fiction</a> that “there will come a day when you and I will need to be told the truth, the real truth ….no matter how hard it may be.” </p>
<p>Democracy, indeed, can only survive with a critically informed and engaged public attentive to a language in which truth, rather than lies, become the currency of citizenship.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89850/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henry Giroux does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Donald Trump’s language has disturbing similarities to the words and verbal tactics used by fascists, including his cries of “fake news” and his obsessive exaggerations about his achievements.Henry Giroux, Chaired professor for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the Department of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/883662017-12-21T11:20:16Z2017-12-21T11:20:16ZH.G. Wells vs. George Orwell: Their debate whether science is humanity’s best hope continues today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200089/original/file-20171220-5004-1bmzit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=50%2C136%2C1341%2C1070&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Man Combating Ignorance' – what's science's role?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/uicdigital/4387519894">Century of Progress Records, 1927-1952, University of Illinois at Chicago Library</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the midst of contemporary science’s stunning discoveries and innovations – for example, 2017 alone brought the editing of a <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/first-us-team-gene-edit-human-embryos-revealed">human embryo’s genes</a>, the location of an <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39000936">eighth continent under the ocean</a> and the ability to <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/03/technology/future/spacex-launch-dragon-reuse-crs-11-launch/index.html">reuse a spacecraft’s rocket boosters</a> – it’s easy to forget that there’s an ongoing debate over science’s capacity to save humankind. Seventy-five years ago, two of the best-known literary figures of the 20th century, H.G. Wells and George Orwell, carried on a lively exchange over this very issue. </p>
<p>Wells, one of the founders of science fiction, was a staunch believer in science’s potential. Orwell, on the other hand, cast a much more skeptical eye on science, pointing to its limitations as a guide to human affairs. </p>
<p>Though Wells and Orwell were debating in the era of Nazism, many of their arguments reverberate today in contemporary debates over science and policy. For example, in 2013, biologist <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eob371ZgGoY">Richard Dawkins</a> justified confidence in science in these terms: “Science works. Planes fly. Cars drive. Computers compute. If you base medicine on science, you cure people. If you base the design of planes on science, they fly. It works….” On the other hand, Nobel laureate <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Limits_of_Science.html?id=o8iSP7DmHT8C">Peter Medawar</a> famously argued that there are many important questions that science cannot answer, such as, “What is the purpose of life?” and “To what uses should scientific knowledge be put?” </p>
<p>Confronting challenges such as climate change and feeding the 2 billion people who lack a reliable source of food, it might be natural to regard science as humanity’s only hope. But expecting from science what it cannot deliver is just as hazardous as failing to acknowledge its great potential.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200090/original/file-20171220-4951-1v7y0l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200090/original/file-20171220-4951-1v7y0l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200090/original/file-20171220-4951-1v7y0l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200090/original/file-20171220-4951-1v7y0l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200090/original/file-20171220-4951-1v7y0l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200090/original/file-20171220-4951-1v7y0l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200090/original/file-20171220-4951-1v7y0l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200090/original/file-20171220-4951-1v7y0l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">H.G. Wells’ fantastical fiction embodied scientific optimism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:H._G._Wells,_c.1890.jpg">Frederick Hollyer</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Wells: Full faith in science</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-36831?rskey=6DO1DC&result=1">Herbert George Wells</a> was born in Kent, England, in 1866. After a childhood accident left him bedridden, he discovered a love of reading. He studied and taught science under biologist <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/thuxley.html">Thomas Huxley</a>, eventually receiving a biology degree. To supplement his income, he worked as a freelance journalist, publishing his first book, “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine">The Time Machine</a>,” in 1895.</p>
<p>Today Wells, who died in 1946, is best known as a science fiction writer. Among his most prominent works are “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/188556/the-island-of-dr-moreau-by-hg-wells/9780375760969">The Island of Doctor Moreau</a>,” “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/306808/the-invisible-man-by-hg-wells/9780451531674">The Invisible Man</a>” and “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/188559/the-war-of-the-worlds-by-hg-wells/9781590171585/">The War of the Worlds</a>.” In his own day, however, Wells was better known as a public intellectual with progressive political views and high hopes for science.</p>
<p>Wells foresaw many of the landmarks of 20th-century scientific progress, including airplanes, space travel and the atomic bomb. In “<a href="https://archive.org/stream/discoveryoffutur00welliala/discoveryoffutur00welliala_djvu.txt">The Discovery of the Future</a>,” he lamented “the blinding power of the past upon our minds,” and argued that educators should replace the classics with science, producing leaders who could foretell history as they predict the phases of the moon.</p>
<p>Wells’ enthusiasm for science had political implications. Having contemplated in his novels the self-destruction of mankind, Wells believed that humanity’s best hope lay in the creation of a single world government overseen by scientists and engineers. Human beings, he argued, need to set aside religion and nationalism and put their faith in the power of scientifically trained, rational experts.</p>
<h2>Orwell: Skeptical of the utopian impulse</h2>
<p>Nearly four decades after Wells, <a href="http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-31915?rskey=rbWoZI&result=1">George Orwell</a> was born in 1903 to a British civil servant in India. He grew up in England a sickly child, but loved writing from an early age. Educated at Eton, he lacked the resources to continue his studies and became a policeman in Burma for five years.</p>
<p>After returning to England, he began a prolific career as a journalist. His writings explored such themes as the lives of the working poor and the dark side of colonialism, and he also produced fine literary criticism. It was near the end of his life that Orwell published the two works for which he is best known, “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm">Animal Farm</a>” and “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four">Nineteen Eighty-Four</a>.”</p>
<p>Today Orwell is widely regarded as one of the <a href="https://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/the-dominant-writer-of-the-20th-century/">greatest writers</a> of the 20th century. The word Orwellian has entered the language to describe totalitarian governments that use surveillance, misinformation and propaganda to manipulate popular understanding. Orwell also introduced such terms as doublethink, thought police and big brother.</p>
<p>Orwell operated with less lofty ambitions for mankind than did Wells. In reflecting on the utopian impulse, he wrote in “<a href="http://orwell.ru/library/articles/socialists/english/e_fun">Why Socialists Don’t Believe in Fun</a>” that creators of utopias resemble “the man who has a toothache, and therefore thinks that happiness consists in not having a toothache…. Whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own emptiness.”</p>
<h2>Science isn’t enough</h2>
<p>Orwell was not bashful about criticizing the scientific and political views of his friend Wells. In “<a href="http://orwell.ru/library/articles/science/english/e_scien">What is Science?</a>” he described Wells’ enthusiasm for scientific education as misplaced, in part because it rested on the assumption that the young should be taught more about radioactivity or the stars, rather than how to “think more exactly.”</p>
<p>Orwell also rejected Wells’ notion that scientific training rendered a person’s approach to all subjects more intelligent than someone who lacked it. Such widely held views, Orwell argued, led naturally to the assumption that the world would be a better place, if only “the scientists were in control of it,” a notion he roundly rejected.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200101/original/file-20171220-4973-1co67d4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200101/original/file-20171220-4973-1co67d4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200101/original/file-20171220-4973-1co67d4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200101/original/file-20171220-4973-1co67d4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200101/original/file-20171220-4973-1co67d4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200101/original/file-20171220-4973-1co67d4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200101/original/file-20171220-4973-1co67d4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200101/original/file-20171220-4973-1co67d4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Scientific expertise didn’t preclude some scientists from being swept up in Nazi fervor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-H12148,_N%C3%BCrnberg,_Reichsparteitag.jpg">German Federal Archive</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Orwell pointed to the fact that the German scientific community had mounted very little resistance to Hitler and produced plenty of gifted men to research synthetic oil, rockets and the atomic bomb. “Without them,” wrote Orwell, “the German war machine could never have been built up.” Even more damning, he argued, many such scientists swallowed the “monstrosity of ‘racial science.’”</p>
<p>Orwell believed that scientific education should not focus on particular disciplines such as physics, chemistry, and biology – not, in other words, on facts. Instead it should focus on implanting “a rational, skeptical, and experimental habit of mind.” And instead of merely scientifically educating the masses, we should remember that “scientists themselves would benefit by a little education” in the areas of “history or literature or the arts.”</p>
<p>Orwell is even more critical of science’s role in politics. In “<a href="http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/wells/english/e_whws">Wells, Hitler, and the World State</a>,” Orwell treats calls for a single world government as hopelessly utopian, in large part because “not one of the five great military powers would think of submitting to such a thing.” Though sensible men have held such views for decades, they have “no power, and no disposition to sacrifice themselves.”</p>
<p>Far from damning nationalism, Orwell praises it to at least this extent: “What has kept England on its feet this past year” but the “atavistic emotion of patriotism, the ingrained feeling of the English-speaking peoples that they are superior to foreigners?” The energy that actually shapes the world, writes Orwell, springs from emotions that “intellectuals mechanically write off as anachronisms.”</p>
<h2>Science’s promise and limitations: the debate continues</h2>
<p>The contrast between these two towering figures of 20th-century literature should not be overdrawn. While championing science, Wells recognized that scientific progress could also lead to human misery. He foresaw the development of immense military destructive power in the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33365776">atomic bomb</a>, as well as the creation of technologies that would undermine privacy.</p>
<p>For his part, Orwell recognized that without scientific research and technological innovation, the British could not maintain parity with Germany’s rapidly developing military. He did not for a second think that his countrymen should revert to the use of shovels and pitchforks as weapons of war, and he called for adult males to own and know how to use a <a href="http://www.orwelltoday.com/riflequote.jpg">rifle</a>.</p>
<p>Yet Wells’ and Orwell’s views on science’s potential did in the end contrast sharply. As Wells saw it, scientific habits of mind were precisely what was needed to rationalize the political order of the world. For Orwell, by contrast, purely scientific ways of thinking left human beings vulnerable to deception and manipulation, sowing seeds of totalitarianism. There is much to hope for from science, but a truly reasonable outlook places equal emphasis on science’s limitations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88366/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Gunderman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There’s no shortage of problems facing humanity. Science’s role in how to tackle them has long been debated – including memorably by two of the 20th century’s greatest literary figures.Richard Gunderman, Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.