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To answer my own question, and without deliberately getting involved in today’s politics, I think some aspects of Orwell’s 1984 seem remarkably prescient, including, but certainly not limited to:
Fear as a political tool, where governments and media can use public anxiety to encourage compliance or attract attention.
Mass surveillance through CCTV, smartphones, location tracking, facial recognition and the vast amounts of personal data collected by governments and technology companies. The sheer volume of information that can now be gathered about ordinary people would have been almost unimaginable when Orwell wrote 1984.
Social conformity. Are there not parallels between Orwell’s state-enforced conformity and the pressures created today by social media, online outrage and public shaming?
Whether Orwell intended these exact parallels is open to debate, but I find it fascinating how often 1984 is still used to describe aspects of modern society.
The novel I’m currently outlining draws on some of these ideas, which is probably why I’ve found myself thinking about Orwell again.
John Westley Turnbull
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