The world has changed. Or has it?
The future, as foreseen by George Orwell in his novel, “1984”, looks increasingly similar to our current reality.
He wrote “1984” in 1948 and it was metaphorically true even back then. Recently it has become more substantively true with the advent of the internet, Facebook and Alexa, and this has catapulted it back into the foreground of popular culture.
While many of the constructs identified by Orwell in the book were arguably relatively easy to predict, many weren’t, and that is maybe what makes it such a remarkable text.
One example, “de-platforming” the practice of a brainwashed proletariate, self policing their own society, based on beliefs that they firmly and honestly hold as their own is becoming a more and more worrying reality.
This is effectively the people undermining their own rights, by choice.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
When society starts to monitor and limit itself in this voluntary way; and what have historically been seen as, “certain inalienable rights” are undermined by the very people they are there to protect, everyone needs to look up and think hard!
The parallels between Orwell’s predictions and observations, and the current day have been explored ad nauseam by thousands of people, and this isn’t the place to reiterate them or carry out yet another mapping of the book’s concepts onto today’s society. That is not what this column is about, so it will stop there.
A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims, but accomplices.
George Orwell
The technology that has inadvertently accelerated us towards the realisation of this dystopian political forecast has simultaneously opened up alternative routes forward. These alternatives have allowed parallel discourses to develop. The Party is at least for the moment, not fully in control.
The Party is at least for the moment, not fully in control.
Commentators exist and are continually emerging, taking advantage of the temporary freedoms allowed by the World Wide Web. They are bypassing the control of the media; openly critiquing the teachings of governments and world leaders; providing compelling alternatives to expert doctrine and looking honestly, objectively and deeply into the reality that they believe is out there.
This world is known to some as the “Intellectual Dark Web”, not to be confused with the “Dark Web”.
This temporary island of respectable anarchy is a place of free speech and creativity. It is moderated for the moment; not by officials, the state media or government organisations; but by the people who populate it.
Its commentators are sometimes credible and sometimes non-credible. This is a new frontier where it is up to the individual frontiersman to make his or her way cautiously and intelligently. Some of the commentators are liken to bandits; some are visionaries; many are already celebrities or pseudo celebrities.
This is a new platform where it is up to the individual viewer to decide what is right and what is wrong? What makes sense and what doesn’t? Who is honest and who is a confidence trickster?
Fortunately, when travelling this new world, you are not alone. Millions of kindred spirits are on the journey with you and they can be your guide, as you can be their’s.
Followings on Youtube channels indicate popularity. Comments on Blogs and Vlogs give guidance on the political views of the followers as well as the content producers and allow individuals with any degree of common sense and an awareness of psychological biases, particularly confirmation bias, to steer a careful track through the mass of “free” thought that is out there.