Quote: (05-22-2016 11:15 PM)Teutatis Wrote:
Orwell was a genius and both 1984 and Animal Farm are fantastic and powerful works and should be mandatory reading for everyone. OP is just trying to stir some controversy.
Orwell's nightmare totalitarian state ruled by a shadowy, powerful elite which maintains absolute power in in perpetuity through scrutinizing the tiniest details of every citizen is a fantasy. It's logistically impossible; so is a society where everyone informs on everyone else as you just have a huge mass of conflicting information that's totally useless. In a sense a government that knows everything about its subjects knows nothing - even with computers it's way too much information to ever make any sense out of.
Nearly every real police state vaguely resembling the type Orwell envisioned collapsed, and collapsed rapidly. Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China (North Korea is a poor example, as it would collapse tomorrow if not for the boatloads of humanitarian aid it gets from more sensible nations, including the US.) The leaders forget the true nature of power, which is based on trust - not fear, and finally who they're working for: us. And so they get their throats slit.
Isaac Asimov pretty much said it best: "The true horror of his picture of 1984 is his eloquent description of the low quality of the gin and tobacco."
Another great criticism made by Asimov is that the novel's focus on history re-writing is absurd. In the real world, it's not even necessary because nobody cares. It's like, tell people "Hey, the US and Russia are friends now" and they'll say "Okay." "But don't you realize that we were enemies just a decade ago?" "Sure, that's fine." You don't even have to expunge history, because in general nobody even cares or bothers to look.