Of course, Orwell’s 1984 imagines a post-apocalyptic world that never came to be - it is set amidst a stalemate between three strange and constantly warring global superpowers formed after widespread nuclear war devastated the world. Worse, where it once may have contained valid social criticism and a linkage to post-War western thinking, “Orwellian” has ceased to have any real impact at all. Yet the term’s common usage - try searching Twitter on any given day - is less than a comic book version of the real thing. In its modern, bastardized usage “Orwellian” is meant to signify the darkest over-reach of the state into human life, depths of control so vast that they rival conditions in Orwell’s famous futurist dystopian novel.
Yet I suspect that more people bring to mind the famously theatrical Apple commercial invoking shades of 1984 when they throw around “Orwellian” than the thinking or writing of the actual man. This may represent the high water mark for the rampant, almost fad-like invocation of the mid-20th century British social critic’s name in public discourse.įor a writer of remarkably sparse fictional output who died tragically young at the age of just 46 in London fully 64 years ago next month, George Orwell sure gets around a lot these days. Tom, the founder of Cause Wired, is also the author of the book CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World as well as a recent set of New York City reminiscences titled ‘ Bridge and Tunnel Kid‘.)Įarlier this week, Federal Judge Richard Leon described the information gathering techniques of the National Security Agency as “almost Orwellian” in a ruling that the agency likely violates the Constitution. Let’s get the party started early with a sharp opinion piece by Tom Watson, a longtime friend and debate partner of Litkicks. (Privacy in the Internet age is emerging as one of the crucial ethical topics of our era we’ve briefly touched upon it here at Philosophy Weekend, but will clearly have to begin devoting more space to the big controversies in 2014.
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