Electric Agora (archive)

Tag: 1984

  • A Time to Keep Silent and a Time to Speak

    by Andrew Gleeson ____ There is a great difference between doing what one does not approve and feigning to approve what one does. The one is the weakness of a feeble person, the other befits the temper of a lackey.                  –Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America On 6 July 1535, Sir Thomas More, the […]

  • Brave New World, 1984, #MeToo, The New Journalism, and Paprikas Csirke

    by Daniel A. Kaufman A remarkable IQ2 debate between novelist Wil Self and New Yorker essayist, Adam Gopnik, on the relative merits of Brave New World and 1984 in understanding our current world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31CcclqEiZw&index=11&t=0s&list=FLQzxHWvrODrO9oA35PHXsIQ Interesting reflections on the #MeToo movement and the sexual revolution of the 1960’s and 70’s. https://www.city-journal.org/html/sexual-revolutions-angry-children-15827.html Two of the best documentaries […]

  • Citizen Solidarity and Liberal Society

    by Daniel A. Kaufman In his essay, “See Something?  Don’t Say Anything,” Dan Tippens has broached an essential subject.  For a liberal society to survive, a healthy space must be maintained between the state and the citizenry.  That space is filled with the elements of civil society, by which I mean the voluntary associations and […]

  • See Something? Don’t Say Anything.

    by Daniel Tippens The children, on the other hand, were systematically turned against their parents and taught to spy on them and report their deviations. The family had become in effect an extension of the Thought Police. It was a device by means of which everyone could be surrounded night and day by informers who […]

  • This Week’s Special: George Orwell’s, “Politics and the English Language”

    by Daniel A. Kaufman Orwell’s influential essay, published in 1946, when considered alongside his “The Prevention of Literature” (1946) and the Appendix to 1984, “The Principles of Newspeak” (1949), offers a powerful picture of language and its abuse, especially in the arena of politics.  It is one of those essays that seems more prescient with […]