I'm wondering: where is the new George Orwell? Why aren't all writers writing about this? Clearly we need a new 1984, because we didn't learn anything from the original.
Or you know, we could vote those people out of office. We keep bashing those clueless politicians but we did put them here in the first place. We don't even have the excuse of dictatorship.
This tendency around these parts to look for technical solutions (tor, bitcoin, etc...) for political problems is very saddening.
Assuming most of the readers of HN come from democratic countries, we shouldn't have to fear our government. No amount of openSSL will fix that problem.
The sad truth is that politics is basically a marketing game. Whoever pours the most money into ads and campaigning has the best chance of winning [1]. There aren't enough people who care enough to do their own research to make a real difference
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/dec/02/conservatives-spent-twice-labour-election-campaign -I'm working on several strategies in this space. Perhaps we should gather some constructive conspirators.
See, that sounds jailworthy already, even though it's in the spirit of opening up debate, discourse and emancipation...
Problem is: if you don't vote, you're certain not to get the candidate you want. You're basically accepting their reign.
Better to stubbornly vote for a small candidate who doesn't really have a chance. If enough people do that, he might accidentally get elected.
Alternatively, if no one voted, the corrupt bastards couldn't legitimately claim power.
This is a serious flaw in our current implementation of "democracy". If you don't vote for the two /three main parties (who are all neocons anyway), you are effectively ignored. People argue vote, or not to vote, but in the end whatever either of these options will be ignored.
Yeah, but do you really think Labour would be any better? Both parties seem so scared of the Mail and the Telegraph that they'll do anything to look tough on crime. Thinking about it, is this the inevitable result of an aging population?
But aren't there smaller parties you can vote for? And if there aren't any, surely you can start a new party? Find enough people who agree with you.
It's hard to imagine people who have lived similar lives now (maybe a minimum-wage warehouse worker from South London who went to fight with the rebels in Syria and came home wounded) believing that society can be changed in useful ways by writing fiction.
And if they did, and they became a threat to power, the daily mail would probably destroy them fairly quickly. Different times.
[1] In the UK, "public schools" are mostly what everyone else on the planet calls private schools.
Edit: s/tramp/homeless person/
I disagree. I'm sure education and lifestyle was important in shaping Orwell's world-view, but I believe that he was inspired by the Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union and not by the Spanish civil war or his schooling years.
He witnessed first-hand how totalitarian governments operate and a possible future outcome. A book that played a major role in his understanding of the Soviet Union was Darkness at Noon[1] by Arthur Koestler written in 1940, a book which gives an insight view of the Moscow Trials[2] in 1938. Orwell's 1984 was published in 1949.
They don't really explain, for example, why he voluntarily lived as a homeless person before writing Down and Out in Paris and London, or his feelings about the plight of working people that motivated the writing of The Road to Wigan Pier. Its also worth noting that in Spain he was fighting against Franco's fascists in the mid-30s because he could already see where that belief system leads.
Orwell's experience of private education resulted in his strong views about the role of class and privilege in British society at the time - concerns which are arguably still relevant today. His time in the colonial Burmese Police led him to say, in The Road to Wigan Pier, that "I hated the imperialism I was serving with a bitterness which I probably cannot make clear". It would be interesting to speculate on what he would think of UK foreign policy after 9/11.
Orwell was a social critic. In the context of the issues raised Monbiot's article and the question about a "new Orwell", anyone who was successfully taking on that role would be doing more than just writing cautionary tales about possible future totalitarian dystopias.
His experience of the Communist party and the infighting on the Republican side during the Spanish civil war was a massive influence, though.
Not exactly a "gentleman of the road" with a spotted-hanky-bundle on a stick, but the nearest I've seen to an archetypal tramp. I hope he made it.
I originally used the word "tramp" because (from memory) that was the word Orwell used to describe himself in Down and out in Paris and London; corresponding to the meaning described at [1]. I was aware that it is considered pejorative, but not the different meaning in US English.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_school_%28United_Ki...
Also, just to confuse things, in Scotland they are generally called "private" schools and are extremely popular in some places - Edinburgh has 25% of kids attending private schools.
Well we'll only know in the future, right?
Orwell showed us a world where rampant socialism, statism, lack of individual liberties, twisting of language for political means, and widespread unaccountable surveillance led to a horrific dystopia. People read the book and people agreed that it was something best to be avoided. But at every opportunity people have flinched away from the example of 1984. People have said "oh, but this socialism is the good kind, it's different", they said "this statism isn't that kind of statistm", and "it's only a small limitation of liberty in exchange for valuable improvements in safety", and "these changes to language are in service to a greater good", and so on, and so on. Then we get to widespread, unaccountable surveillance by the state and suddenly everyone starts shouting about 1984 and wondering how things could possibly have gotten so bad without anyone noticing.
Lots of people have been noticing, but even more people have been ignoring, or excusing.
Bright bright future :D