Orwell
Who seems to have been right about just about everything
If you go here
https://doi.org/10.1093/monist/onaf034
you’ll read the abstract of a terrific discussion of 1984 by Prof. Felicia Nimue Ackerman. Most analytical readers focus (not unreasonably) on the political relevance of the novel; this paper considers the nonpolitical.
Please note that the paper appeared in The Monist, January 2026, v.109, Issue 1:109-18.
There’s no way (that I’ve found) I can share the entire work here.
It ends:
“…But scientists and technicians need not claim infallibility in order to retain authority. They need to claim only that they alone have the expertise necessary to call for revision of their pronouncements. As discussed in the section on sanity, this is plausible for purely scientific and technological pronouncements, but not for the policy and lifestyle recommendations that often arise out of them.
It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. (Orwell 1949, 51)
“This maxim from the lexicographer Syme expresses an attitude that seems increasingly common in our society, where people on both sides of America’s political divide seek to replace various words and expressions with substitutes “intended to impose a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them” (Orwell 1949, 303), although our society’s substitutes often involve the additional rationale of avoiding offense. Words and expressions that have been targeted for destruction fall in various categories. These categories include outright slurs (such as the notorious n-word), words with derogatory and inaccurate associations (such as the association of ‘homosexual’ with the discredited view of “homosexuality” as a mental disorder, which illustrated psychiatrists’ tendency to pathologize what they disapprove of), words whose substitutes have a more activist image (such as the replacement of ‘Negro’ with ‘Black’), words “scrubbed from federal websites
” (such as ‘transgender’ and ‘nonbinary’), words replaced by such euphemisms as ‘financially challenged, ‘intellectually challenged,’ ‘medically assisted death,’ ‘unborn babies,’ and ‘senior,’ and words replaced by “people first” language (such as ‘people with disabilities’ or ‘people experiencing homelessness’).
“As a person experiencing the challenge of seniorhood, l am far from alone in considering the last two categories of substitutes ludicrous. Note also that the substitute euphemisms are bound to fall prey to what Steven Pinker calls “the euphemism treadmill,” because “[p]eople invent new ‘polite’ words to refer to emotionally laden or distasteful things, but the euphemism becomes tainted by association and the new one that must be found acquires its own negative connotation.”
“Finally, consider that O’Brien tells Winston, “There are three stages in your reintegration. There is learning, there is understanding, and there is acceptance” (Orwell 1949, 260). This ideologically motivated tripartite requirement calls to mind the aims of various ideological groups in our society, such as diversity trainers and religious educators.
“Upon reading The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, Winston reflects,
The book fascinated him, or more exactly it reassured him. In a sense, it told him nothing that was new, but that was part of the attraction. It said what he would have said, if it had been possible for him to set his scattered thoughts in order. It was the product of a mind similar to his own, but enormously more powerful, more systematic, less fear-ridden. The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already. (Orwell 1949, 200)
“This encapsulates my reaction to the insights of Nineteen Eighty-Four. The insights of this novel have more bearing on my life than those of any other novel I have read. When I tell people this, they assume I am referring to the book’s political insights. I am not.” ‘