Fear and Loathing in the Ministry of Truth

There is no greater sin in the Church of the Perpetual Grift than reading Orwell and understanding him. That would be heresy—worse than treason, worse than tax increases. No, the only proper way to digest 1984 is to rip it apart like a rabid dog tearing through a steak wrapped in government bonds, chewing up the words and spitting them back out in whatever shape best suits the moment. It’s easier for a camel to imagine Big Brother reading 1984 aloud than for a rich man to stop weaponizing Orwell for his own pocketbook.

The game is simple: take the words of a man who spent his life attacking the tyranny of the powerful and twist them into a cudgel against the powerless. Rage against the Ministry of Truth while stuffing its coffers. Bellow about Newspeak while speaking in slogans cooked up by ad men in a Pentagon broom closet. Condemn Big Brother while erecting a hundred little Brothers, subcontracted out to private security firms and Silicon Valley ghouls who can make a better telescreen than Orwell ever dreamed.

They don’t read Orwell—they quote him. Like a televangelist rattling off scripture while cashing the checks of the desperate, they dangle 1984 and Animal Farm as totems of their own imagined victimhood. “We are the ones Orwell warned about!” they scream, usually from an air-conditioned think tank built on oil money.

Meanwhile, the real trick is hiding in plain sight. The boot stamping on a human face forever isn’t coming from a socialist commune or a ragged union hall. It’s coming from the very people who cry “Orwellian” every time they can’t dump more poison into the drinking water or sell your metadata to the highest bidder.

Orwell didn’t write for these people. He wrote about them. But that’s the beauty of power—it doesn’t have to read, it just has to repeat.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *