Back in 1984 I read ‘1984’ to see if George Orwell’s prophecy had been fulfilled. I thought it was a great yarn but it was a dystopian scenario that would never actually come true. At least not in my lifetime and certainly not in the United States of America.
How wrong I was.
‘1984’ is a warning about how power survives by controlling truth, language and what people are taught to see. In 2026, we need to heed that warning.
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.”
That line keeps echoing as I watch what’s unfolding in Minneapolis. We watch eyewitness footage in real time, and then we are told – calmly, authoritatively – that what we are seeing isn’t what actually happened. If the official version doesn’t match our own senses, we are told to doubt ourselves instead or blame the victims.
If the government can tell such blatant lies about the truth we can actually see, imagine the lies they tell of that which we don’t see and record.
That’s conditioning.
“If all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth.”
In ‘1984’, most people aren’t citizens; they’re proles. They’re managed, distracted and fed a single approved narrative. There’s no need for impartial scrutiny – or third-party investigations into wrongdoing – if the story is repeated often enough. The official account becomes history by default.
“In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it.”
We are now expected to accept conclusions that contradict what many of us can plainly see, and to treat questioning those conclusions as irresponsible or dangerous.
No. Two plus two equals four. Always has and always will. I have eyes. I have a brain. And they still work together. Big Brother isn’t going to tell me otherwise.
Years later after reading ‘1984’ I read the ‘Hunger Games’ trilogy. It pretty much picks up where ‘1984’ leaves us and tells of an overthrow of an authoritarian regime. There’s one scene that I remember clearly. A lone citizen holds up a three-finger salute in a silent gesture of solidarity. Initially, others are frightened but gain the courage to also join in.
Minneapolis appears to be giving that three-finger salute. A refusal to unsee what has been seen. A refusal to comply with a version of reality that asks us to distrust our own eyes and ears.
That isn’t extremism. It’s what responsible citizenship is supposed to look like.