Few books need less introduction than George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” or “1984”, but that doesn’t mean this introduction needs censorship nor rendering in Newspeak. “1984” is a novel about the terrors of totalitarianism, of “The Party” and “Big Brother”, of mass surveillance, of a world where the citizen is the possession of the state, where resistance is futile and even a thought can be considered a crime. It is a world of perpetual war for perpetual peace and few can remember any different. Winston Smith is one of those few, but memory and love are rebellious acts in a slave state. Orwell’s novel remains as various as it is relevant, providing readers with one of the most sensitive warning systems for totalitarian thought, and one of the most powerful defences against the terrifying delusion that political certainty can ever provide personal security.
Some of the books discussed in this episode include:
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