• by Steven Rosenbaum , Featured Contributor, Yesterday

People think they remember “1984.”  They remember Big Brother's face on the poster. They remember "War is Peace" and the vague dread of surveillance. But ask them about the mechanics — how totalitarianism actually works on the human mind — and the details blur.

That's the problem. We treated Orwell's book like a ghost story instead of a field manual. Now we're living inside the systems he described, except we built them ourselves and called it progress.

These six ideas from 1984 don't just echo today. They're louder now than they were in 1949. And Orwell's own words — paired with what he'd say if he could see 2025 — still sound radioactive.

Truth Is Whatever Power Says It Is

Orwell saw the danger before we had the tools to make it real. He wrote:

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

That is the entire playbook. Once you convince people that their senses are negotiable, you can tell them anything you want. Today we live inside competing versions of reality, each one algorithmically tuned. Orwell got the psychology right long before the technology arrived.

So I challenged Orwell to a hard test.

"George, this idea still shakes people. When you look at 2025, does it feel right, wrong, or not nearly strong enough? Are we at the beginning of the fire or standing in the middle of it?"

His answer was immediate. No hesitation.

"You're past the middle. The danger isn't the lie anymore—it's how easily people accept it. I had to imagine a boot stamping on a human face. You lot just swipe past it."

Surveillance Turns People Into Their Own Enforcers

The brilliance of Orwell's surveillance state was that it didn't need to be constant. It only needed to be possible.

"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment."

That single idea does the work. You behave as if the eye is always there. Fear becomes internal. Today the watchers aren't governments. They're devices we buy ourselves. The effect is the same. We perform for audiences we cannot see and cannot verify.

But I wanted more.

"George, you imagined coercion. We invented self-surveillance with a smile. Does that make us safer, weaker, or just easier to steer?"

He didn't blink.

"Easier to steer. And you paid for the privilege. The telescreen was forced on Winston. You people queue up to buy the next model."

Shrink Language and You Shrink Thought

Newspeak wasn't a literary gimmick. It was a political instrument. Orwell wrote:

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?"

The fewer words you have, the fewer ideas you can hold.. Scroll through any social platform right now and you can watch language compress in real time. Everything becomes shorthand. It's Newspeak, delivered by the crowd instead of the state.

I wasn't done with him. I pushed harder.

"George, did you ever imagine people would make themselves smaller? That we'd compress our own thoughts instead of resisting it?"

His tone shifted. Not angry—disappointed.

"I thought people would fight to keep their words. Turns out they'll trade precision for speed without a second thought. You don't need a Ministry of Truth when people voluntarily dumb themselves down for engagement metrics."

Distraction Is as Dangerous as Censorship

Orwell understood something we still resist: Flooding people with information can be more effective than hiding it.

The trick is repetition. Not accuracy. Not honesty. Just volume. We built systems that never stop talking. Streams, feeds, clips, alerts. The firehose never shuts off. In that noise, truth doesn't disappear. It dissolves.

I pressed him again.

"George, you thought dictators would weaponize distraction. Instead, we built platforms that drown us by default. Is this freedom or something far closer to the world you described?"

"It's worse. At least in my book, people knew they were being controlled. But you've convinced yourselves you're free while drowning in noise. The cage doesn't need bars when you can't see past the feed."

Break a Person's Confidence and You Break Their Reality

Winston isn't defeated when he's beaten. He's defeated when he doubts his own mind.

That's the moment the book stops being metaphor. Once you can't trust your own perception, you'll accept whatever answer keeps the ground from shaking.

We see versions of this now: People so exhausted by conflict and contradiction that they stop caring what's true. They just want something that feels stable.

"George, today people aren't tortured into doubt. They slide into it. They get tired. They stop checking. Is that even more dangerous than what you wrote?"

"Of course it is. Fear makes martyrs. Exhaustion makes sheep. You don't even need Room 101 anymore—just enough noise and enough time."

The Point of Power Is Power

This is the bluntest idea in the novel. It's also the one people forget. Orwell has O'Brien say: "The object of power is power."

That idea is more relevant now than ever. We keep looking for motives behind the chaos. Orwell strips away all the excuses. Systems evolve to protect themselves. Confusion is a tool. Power is the prize and the product.

So I saved the hardest question for last.

"George, if power exists only to sustain itself, what does that look like in 2025? What do we even call the modern version?"

He leaned back and thought for a moment.

"Momentum without meaning. Systems growing simply because they can. Influence piling up without purpose. In my book, the Party wanted control for a reason, however twisted. You've built machines that optimize for their own survival and called it innovation. At least Big Brother had a face. Yours doesn't even need one."

Take Back Truth

So where do we go from here?

Orwell watched me lay out the modern world and shook his head like he was seeing the rough draft of his own nightmare. Then he said something I didn't expect.

"I wrote a warning, not a manual. You lot read it backward."

He was right. We studied “1984” like it was inevitable. But here's the thing Orwell understood that we keep forgetting: Totalitarianism only wins when people stop believing truth is worth defending.

The systems aren't inevitable. The noise isn't unstoppable. The exhaustion isn't permanent. But none of it changes unless we decide to take back truth.

Here's What That Looks Like

Stop performing and start verifying. Before you share, before you react, before you add to the noise—pause. Check the source. Read past the headline. Ask who benefits from you believing this.

Protect your language. Write full sentences and use precise words. Think before you reduce a complex idea to a slogan. Every time you choose depth over speed, you're fighting Newspeak.

Choose signal over noise. Unfollow accounts that flood you. Turn off notifications that don't serve you. Protect your attention like it's the most valuable thing you own—because it is.

Trust your senses, then test them. Your eyes and ears still work. You can still tell when something doesn't add up. But verify. Compare. Don't let exhaustion make you accept the convenient answer.

Find your people. This isn't a solo fight. Orwell knew that. Winston failed because he was isolated. Truth survives when communities commit to it together. Build those communities—online, offline, wherever you can.

- Demand better systems. Platforms aren't neutral. Algorithms aren't inevitable. We can build tools that elevate truth instead of burying it. But only if we stop accepting "this is just how it works" as an answer.

Orwell didn't write 1984 to tell us we were doomed. He wrote it to show us what happens when good people stop fighting. The gap between his world and ours isn't that wide. But it's not closed yet either.

Truth doesn't defend itself. We do.

I think Orwell would bet on us if we prove him wrong about how this ends. The choice is still ours. The question is whether we're too tired, too distracted, or too comfortable to make it. Take Back Truth.