
Sales of George Orwell’s ’1984′ up 69 percent on Amazon - The_Cartman
http://washingtonexaminer.com/sales-of-orwells-1984-up-69-percent-on-amazon-list/article/2531503
======
InclinedPlane
It's interesting how little improvement in the characterization of power
structures heavily intent on limiting individual liberty has occurred over the
last half century. 1984 was written in 1948 and Brave New World in 1932. There
have certainly been newer works in the same vein, such as V for Vendetta, but
they generally have just used the same palette, the same terminology, the same
ideological formulations.

However, I think those formulations are out of date and their out-of-dateness
is harmful to this critical discussion about the nature and importance of
liberty and its relationship to governance.

Our terminology, our mental models, even our archetypes are best-suited to the
world of the 1930s and '40s, not to today. We throw around terms like fascism
and tyranny and they lose a lot of their force because they are not really
applicable. That's not to say that there is no danger of the industrialized,
democratic nations slipping into forms of governance which are every bit as
bad as tyranny or fascism, but we must recognize that when we use terminology
that is not 100% applicable it makes it that much easier to dismiss or ignore.

History is replete with examples of tyrants who have ruled harshly to further
their own self-interests or out of a sense of megalomania. But I think we need
to recognize that limitations to personal liberty need not be due solely to
tyranny or fascism and so forth, there are other forces, other modus operandi
at play. People have tried using the term "nanny state", but that has the
opposite problem of lacking sufficient gravitas.

There is a very real movement that has been underway for over a century to
limit individual liberty in the service of the greater good. The war on drugs
is an extension of this phenomenon, as are the worst excesses in the war on
terror. But lacking good terminology makes this discussion that much more
cumbersome and difficult.

~~~
msg
Stalin's Russia is no longer the touchstone it once was, in other words. I
don't think that you can't apply the critique in 1984 to current events. There
is just a generation gap.

GWB is a kind of touchstone for the modern generation, helpless while events
swirl around him, grasping for a measure of control at all costs. And what
costs they were: torture, surveillance, war, a Manichaean division of the
world into heroes and villains.

Instead of intentions of powerful men, you have the psychoses of bureaucracies
created by individuals for all the right reasons, full of unintended effects,
ultimately achieving the opposite of their stated goals.

In 1984, there is a malevolence at the back of Big Brother. In 2013, there
need not be anything but a decentralized system, harnessing the latest
technologies, manipulated by the knowledgeable, but ultimately storyless,
aimless, and inhuman.

~~~
crdoconnor
>In 1984, there is a malevolence at the back of Big Brother.

1984 made it painfully clear that the actual existence of big brother was
superfluous.

It wasn't his malevolence that made the system run as it did - it was the
nature of the system itself.

~~~
msg
I guess I meant the inner circle, who were complicit and aware of it, and
dissociating the fact. That came from the myth of Lenin that a small, pure
cadre could run the whole show. Oceania follows this design.

Today we need no such evil and aware of it crew to see the same systematic
abuses, merely the banal evils of everyday.

------
mindcrime
For anybody who wants to read it now:

[http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt](http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt)

~~~
JacksonGariety
When I started reading your comment said "posted 4 minutes ago."

Now it says 2 hours. I'm a third of the way done.

Thank you.

------
ianstormtaylor
To anyone who wants to buy their own copy, use the EFF affiliate link first:
[http://www.amazon.com/?tag=electronicfro-20](http://www.amazon.com/?tag=electronicfro-20)

------
gioele
Ah, the irony: 1984 was the first book to be removed from Kindles using the
remote Amazon kill switch [1], another plain violation of many basic human
rights (first of all, the "right to read" [2]).

[1]
[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090717/1559425587.shtml](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090717/1559425587.shtml)
[2] [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-
read.html](http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html)

~~~
hysterix
When people ask why I pirate pdf's, I point to instances like this.

I want full control over my hardware, my software and the like. The fact this
happened gives in my opinion, more ammunition to the side claiming piracy is
equal to actually owning your content, drm free.

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stiff
It's a pity for most people this will be the only Orwell's book they will
read, personally I find it one of his weaker ones, I liked "Animal farm",
"Down and out in Paris and London" and his essays much more, and his biggest
literary achievement is probably "Homage for Catalonia".

~~~
unimpressive
Orwell's non-fiction is brilliant, and shines much brighter than the books
that made him famous. (Animal Farm and 1984).

Also, if you'd like to read Homage to Catalonia:

[http://www.george-
orwell.org/Homage_to_Catalonia/index.html](http://www.george-
orwell.org/Homage_to_Catalonia/index.html)

I highly recommend it.

------
pointernil
Are works like "1984" or "Brave New World" presenting to us such fundamentally
touching truths that they actually become self fulfilling prophesies?

Are those so elementary truths that they become building blocks of our
thinking, shaping our above mentioned [1] terminology, our mental models, even
our archetypes?

Is there any fiction presenting us with a future outlook we would actually
want to be become self fulfilling prophesies?

What is social fiction in contrast to science fiction?

__

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5860077](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5860077)

------
sage_joch
1984 is a pretty incredible book, even without its relevance to current
events. It is probably in my top three of all time.

~~~
mindcrime
Definitely in my top three of all time, along with _Fahrenheit 451_. I'd
probably put _The Fountainhead_ in my top 3 to round it out.

------
etfb
I'd like to know the names and addresses of the people who ordered it. Does
anyone have a phone number for someone in the Department of Homeland Security
I can ask?

------
dm2
Right now it's up 3,770%

Here is the movie on YouTube
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDbWtbCHt7g](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDbWtbCHt7g)

Edit: I can't watch old movies... needs more special effects.

------
abhaga
I am betting so are the searches on Google and sales of ebooks on Apple iStore
for "1984". Oh the irony!

~~~
general_failure
Cloud computing in general was not meant to be 'private'.

------
eksith
On one (massively disproportionate) level, this reminds when the sale of the
movie Independence Day suddenly spiked after 9/11.

Also "As of 10:16 p.m. EDT, sales of Orwell's "1984" are up 126 percent on the
Amazon list"

------
danso
Well-deserved...is there a high school classic that is so thematically
substantive and yet also such an accessible, enjoyable page turner? Yes, in
retrospect, of course there wasn't going to be a revolution, but you weren't
so pessimistic and cynical back in 10th grade. Also, I think I owe my latent
fear to rodents to that book's finale.

"Shooting an Elephant" also deserves to be mentioned almost as much as 1984,
in terms of lessons in civics and human psychology.

------
liotier
Also, Enemy Of The State is currently the most uploaded movie from my
Bittorrent shares...

------
jermaink
[https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=George+Orwell+1984#q...](https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=George+Orwell+1984#q=%221984+book%22&cmpt=q)

------
programminggeek
Um, only 69%, that's not even double. I'm not even sure that's enough to day
that there is as much of a public outrage over this as the tech crowd seems to
have.

------
kryten
If only these people had already read the book...

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alan_cx
Although I'm a self confessed fanboi, I recommend watching Babylon 5. In
places it's one hell of a scary prophecy.

------
fallous
I'd recommend "It Couldn't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis as a more
appropriate choice.

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cpursley
The irony. If there were ever a place to spy on what Americans are reading, it
would be Kindle.

------
hkmurakami
bah no wonder someone placed a hold on my copy I had from the library (3 weeks
ago there were no holds when I got it but now there are a bunch of Pple in
line)

------
wilfra
Now 177%. Here is the reason:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ALN7L...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ALN7LTeLxtI#)!

~~~
asperous
(Published on Nov 13, 2012)

~~~
wilfra
Good catch. Wont delete it since there are two replies but that may not be the
reason :)

~~~
hkmurakami
the video may have been linked to by some popular outlet. We'd be able to find
out if we had access to historical view count data but alas...

~~~
seabee
But alas, you do: click the bar chart icon under the view count.

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Helianthus
there are some dead links in this topic that are actually pretty funny.

