{"id":195080,"date":"2024-10-31T08:53:28","date_gmt":"2024-10-31T12:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=195080"},"modified":"2025-01-12T11:56:53","modified_gmt":"2025-01-12T16:56:53","slug":"orwells-nightmare-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=195080","title":{"rendered":"Orwell’s “nightmare world”"},"content":{"rendered":"

From George Orwell’s essential essay “Looking Back on the Spanish War”, where he reflects on all the lies and falsifications of that essential conflict, the rehearsal for Hitler-Stalin and all the monstrousness that followed. (It is the Spanish civil war that served as the breeding ground for 1984<\/i>, although evidence of the dystopian nature of totalitarianism would become mechanistic and even more monstrous in the years following the war. This essay pre-dates the writing of 1984<\/i> by a decade:)<\/p>\n

This kind of thing is frightening to me, because it often gives me the feeling that the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world: After all, the chances are that those lies, or at any rate similar lies, will pass into history. The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past<\/i>. If the Leader says of such an event, “It never happened”–well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five — well, two and two are five.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

2+2=5. I have written<\/a> about this concept<\/a> so much<\/a> – in fact I see it all around me, even in billboards<\/a> – and have done so since the birth<\/a> of this here blog. 2+2=5. The essential description of fascism\/propaganda\/brainwashing (so complete that the brainwashed eventually brainwash themselves) and what Orwell called “thoughtcrime”. It’s all you need. <\/p>\n

I read 1984 before I understood all of these issues, although I grew up at the tail end of the Cold War and knew in my bones the horror\/intimidation of this faceless enemy, and the threat of annihilation hovering over everything. It was very real. I wrote about this period – and the proliferation of nuclear winter movies at the time – on my Substack<\/a>. So maybe a part of me grokked it from that. I was 16 when I read 1984 and it got under my skin. I barely need to re-read it now because it is IN me. I am grateful. It has helped me stay the course as I maneuvered through propaganda as well as peer pressure, those who want me to say that 2+2=5. And it’s not just one side of the political fence demanding it. I credit Orwell for keeping my senses sharp, or as sharp as they can be. I think the books you read when you are young, before you understand context or history, sometimes enter you in a deeper and more permanent way than books you read when you’ve grown up a bit and are supposedly wiser to the ways of the world. <\/p>\n

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\nThank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account<\/a>. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0<\/a>, if you’d like to subscribe.<\/em> <\/small><\/p>\n