Apparently, sales of George Orwells novel, 1984, have soared in America and it is being put down to the Donald Trump administrations use of the dystopian novel as a template.
It is a great book and i would urge everybody to read it just because it is a brilliant read but also because although it may seem absurd, the concepts in the book, doublethink, thought police are being acted out in front of us.
The quotes from the administration regarding 'Alternative facts' and 'Just remember, what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening' are dangerously close to the line from the novel that read: 'The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears'.
The lies told over the over wars in Iraq and Afghanistan made people far less willing to believe the media and plays into Trump's often repeated line of 'fake news' to describe any coverage which is not favourable to him despite obvious evidence that he is lying, or as Orwell put it: 'political language designed to make lies sound truthful'.
The key message running through Nineteen Eighty-Four is that the purpose of propaganda is to narrow and limit the human the range of thinking but where we differ from going full Orwell is that the novel's Big Brother tried to hide what it was doing whereas Trump just lies and doesn't bother to try and hide it.
The most damning line from Orwell, and overarching line is that 'Ignorance is Strength' and it is the ignorance of the Trump supporters, rejecting what they see with their own eyes and ears that allow him to carry on, and get away with, what he does.
It is no surprise that people are reaching for 1984 to gain some understanding of what they are really seeing and hearing.
3 comments:
...says the Fox News viewer.
It does the beg the question then why you are so unknowledgable on so many matters?
True, your many displays of lack of understanding of a subject does that.
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