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https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-george-orwell-is-everywhere-but-nineteen-eighty-four-is-not-a-reliable-guide-to-contemporary-politics-190909>
"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 “alternative facts”.
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 gone up an
estimated 9,500%.
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?”
Almost everyone in every quarter sees Orwellian undertones in the manoeuvrings
of their opponents. Like Elvis, Orwell has been spotted everywhere.
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."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
