> Interestingly, one of the main themes that hasn't been the focus for any past generation, is how controlling language can control thought, but maybe that is something still to come.
To pick an obvious example, the Department of War was renamed to the Department of Defense just 2 years after this book. I better the current funding would look very different had the change not been made.
Language is controlled via wrongthink, aka political correctness in the initial "adherence to soviet policy" definition, this affected a generation of communists and socialist including Orwell himself. There are also modern version of wrongthink, opinions you can't share publicly for fear of reprisal for better or worse.
Control of language seems to be intertwined with controlling history too, being openly racist is now wrongthink, so history gets rewritten into things like "the civil war was about states rights".
Like the other aspects, it's there just not as draconian as Orwell predicted.
To pick an obvious example, the Department of War was renamed to the Department of Defense just 2 years after this book. I better the current funding would look very different had the change not been made.
Language is controlled via wrongthink, aka political correctness in the initial "adherence to soviet policy" definition, this affected a generation of communists and socialist including Orwell himself. There are also modern version of wrongthink, opinions you can't share publicly for fear of reprisal for better or worse.
Control of language seems to be intertwined with controlling history too, being openly racist is now wrongthink, so history gets rewritten into things like "the civil war was about states rights".
Like the other aspects, it's there just not as draconian as Orwell predicted.