I wouldn't say that 1984 is actually drawn from Soviet communism any more than it reflected the overall trend of the times towards ever-more-centralized government...a trend visible in both Britain and the United States at the time.

It was more a complaint about nationalism and centralization ( http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/12/george-orwe... ) and police states than a comment on the Soviet system.

~

Also, if you "don't really follow any of this", I think you're being facetious or willfully dense. Let's try again. You claimed:

> in fact, THT's dystopia is more relevant today than Orwell's was or is.

I claim that you are incorrect in this, to a borderline hysterical degree. You say that the THT is more relevant, when 1984 actually features a lot of things that have come to pass and will continue to pass.

Compared to the future sketched in THT, we do not have Old Testament class hierarchies and uniforms. We do not have women being completely unpersoned by the .gov for not bearing children. We do not have the Constitution any more likely being suspended in any meaningful way than we did 16 years ago. We do not keep an underclass of women for breeding purposes. We do not ban women from reading or writing or playing Scrabble. We do not prevent women from voting. We do not prevent women from owning property. We have not rounded up African-Americans for forced relocation. We have not purged Catholics, Jews, or Muslims. We do not execute homosexuals. We do not enslave women.

Now, looking over at things that have actually come to pass from 1984, we have: Secret government torture rooms (Guantanamo Bay, and your own city's black sites). Televisions with two-way cameras (Samsung smart TVs, in this case) surveilling owners. Effect two-minutes-hate of America's enemies over on Fox News (or the Left's or Right's enemies if you read Twitter) every day. History being changed and edited electronically (Wikipedia edit wars and other operations). An ever-expanding lower class, Orwell's proles or what people who don't live in affluent neighborhoods might call the poor, kept asleep with booze and drugs and sexual imagery and vice. A permanent state of military conflict justifying the state security apparatus of every major player.

It's pretty obvious that 1984 is the more relevant dystopia today, tptacek. Would you prefer to elaborate on why you think that this is not the case?

(there are other, more appropriate future sketches than either of those two novels, but they aren't being discussed here)