The relevance of George Orwell to Today
"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious..."
Orwell’s 1984 (along with Animal Farm) are subject to a misunderstanding that they ‘predict’ the future, whereas really they should be seen more as statements of commonly-held present-day ideas and the dangers inherent in these ideas.
It is ironic that these works have been subject to the same forces that they warn against. For example the statement that “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others” was intended by Orwell to be a satire on the American Declaration of Independence and the way it used a similar phrase about equality while simultaneously forming the basis for a slave-owning state.
