Why Big Brother Matters: The Enduring Importance of ‘1984′

Few books in history, if any, have left such a powerfully lingering effect with their last four words as the classic tale of a totalitarian nightmare by Eric Blair (aka George Orwell), ’Nineteen Eighty-Four’: “He Loved Big Brother.” In those four words, the utter destruction of a human being, and by extension humanity itself, was complete. The novel remains a most dark and compelling tale, and is even taught as a full course in many college classrooms.

John Hurt in Michael Radford’s ‘1984′

The essential fact, the very heart of the matter, in George Orwell’s timeless classic is “the ability to say two plus two equals four. If than can be done, all else follows.” Yet the nightmare Big Brother regime of ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ must by necessity keep redoing the math, even as it keeps rewriting history. Those who do the correct math, and refuse to see the equation otherwise, are the greatest dangers to Big Brother’s existence and are doomed to suffer fates worse than death. (more…)