Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Here are Five Orwellian Quotes for Trump's "Post-Truth" Presidency

by Nomad


When tiny Donnie Trump, future President of the United States, was a two-year toddler, a world-famous author named George Orwell passed away of tuberculosis at the age of 46.

Orwell's best-known book, "Nineteen-Eighty-Four" painted a grim dystopian image of the future, in which lies and truth were reversible and the definitions of both were under the absolute control of an autocratic state.

The slogans of the ruling party in the novel are all about controlling the message and allowing no dissent, even to the degree of stating something as obvious as 2 plus 2 equals 4 or the size of a crowd.
Allies could suddenly become enemies and long-vilified enemies could in mid-sentence become welcome allies. The "facts" could be anything that suited the leaders and this required citizens to hold both truth and lies - the most transparent- are having equal value. (Thank God, this was just fiction.

Terms found in the novel such as "Big Brother", "doublethink" and "newspeak" have become part of our political language.
Nineteen Eighty-Four has been translated into more than 65 languages and sold millions of copies worldwide, giving George Orwell a unique place in world literature.
Practically ever since that book was written, Orwell's insight into the ways a government can manipulate the truth has served as an alarm against an increasingly totalitarian world.


I have made a small collection of Orwellian quotes which seem relevant in the Trumpian age of post-truth. Feel free to repost them wherever you think they will do the most good.