Orwell described the evolution of Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany towards the same form of oligarchical collectivism. Totalitarian regimes of the 20th century maintained control through manufactured fear and surveillance. In 1984, continuous war between superstates perpetuated fear. Surveillance was achieved through the technology of the telescreen and citizen-on-citizen surveillance, leading to paranoia and thought crimes.
In 1940 George Orwell wrote: “Almost certainly we are moving into an age of totalitarian dictatorships – an age in which freedom of thought will be at first a deadly sin and later on a meaningless abstraction. The autonomous individual is going to be stamped out of existence.” George Orwell, Inside the Whale George Orwell’s dystopian novel […]
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Is 1984 Becoming a Reality? – George Orwell’s Warning to the World first appeared on
Academy of Ideas.