A Classical Liberal Analysis of Two Classic Books
George Orwell and Ayn Rand were two of the most prominent authors of dystopian literature, sparking discussion on authoritarianism and leaving a legacy of influence in modern political thinking. Books by these two authors, 1984 by Orwell and Anthem by Rand have strong similarities to the real-world settings in which they were written.
Let’s go through some of them.
Orwell’s 1984 and reality
1984 is arguably George Orwell’s most famous work and the greatest work of dystopian literature of all time. Still, a question can be raised: Is it really a work of fiction? Or were many Orwellian concepts already being put into practice in real life?
The book presents the reader a scenario set in the year of the title (35 years after the book was written, in 1949) where the world is dominated by three superpowers: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia.
Right there, in the existence of three superpowers competing against each other, we can find a resemblance to real-life settings. The most evident, of course: World War II, where the Axis opposed the Allies. (It also brings to mind the context during the Cold War: Western Bloc vs. Eastern Bloc.)
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Winston Smith, the book’s main character, lives in Oceania under the rule of “Big Brother,” a mysterious leader surrounded by a fervent personality cult. Once again, the reader is confronted with something that was already happening in real life. At the time Orwell wrote 1984, there were multiple historical examples of personality cults during absolute or authoritarian regimes, such as Louis XIV’s France, Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Stalin’s USSR, Mussolini’s Germany, Salazar’s Portugal and Franco’s Spain, just to name a few.
And even after the book’s publication, there was no lack of examples: Mao Zedong’s China, Pol Pot’s Vietman, Niyazov’s Turkmenistan or, in the present day, Kim Jong Un’s North Korea.
Speaking of Mao Zedon’gs China, learn more about one of his worst legacies:
The concept of the “Ministry of Truth,” is also not, unfortunately, pure fiction. No authoritarian State had ever had a Ministry with such a name, but the rewriting of history and the manipulation of information were always crucial tools for autocratic governments. By the time the book came out, Nazi Germany had already had a Ministry of Propaganda with similar functions to the “Ministry of Truth” and Stalin had already denied the Holodomor famine.
Additionally, political police forces responsible for spying on government opponents were common at the time. Nazi Germany’s Gestapo, USSR’s NKVD, Portugal’s PIDE, and Spain’s BSI had operated in similar ways as Big Brother’s regime, the “Thought Police.”
Finally, the concept of “Newspeak,” in which words are oversimplified or outright removed from dictionaries is a form of censorship that can be equated to real-life acts perpetrated by secret polices and government forces: Think burning books, banning songs, supervising correspondence, and listening in on people’s conversations.
Rand’s Anthem and reality
Ayn Rand’s dystopian work Anthem is, at first glance, a little further away from reality than 1984. Rand depicts a monstrous absorption of the individual by the collective. The main character, for instance, goes by “Equality 7-252” because the ruling power banned natural names. He was raised in collective homes, and does not use the word “I” to talk about himself because people are required to use plural pronouns.
The elimination of natural, individualized names (and their substitution for numbers) was seen in contexts like Nazi Germany’s concentration camps — but no government, even the most horribly authoritarian ones, has ever prevented its citizens from having real names. There are also no records of governments forbidding people from referring to themselves as “I,” either. So Rand’s work is less literal than Orwell’s.
Learn more about Ayn Rand:
I should note, however, that raising children in collective homes was an idea proposed by Ancient Greece’s philosopher Plato and was put into practice at some points in history — namely, Ancient Sparta and the USSR.
Who goes further with the dystopian scenarios?
George Orwell’s 1984 can be considered a dystopia in the sense that it portrays an imagined future in which the world is dominated by war, autocracy, and surveillance. However, it ends up working more as a metaphor for already existing authoritarian regimes and practices: “Big Brother” corresponding to personality cult, “Ministry of Truth” corresponding to historical revisionism, “Thought Police” corresponding to political polices ,and “Newspeak” corresponding to censorship.
Related: 1984 is as relevant as ever in 2022
Ayn Rand’s Anthem, in turn, is more keen on presenting situations that have not actually happened in real life but theoretically could, if collectivism is taken to its natural extreme.
Spoiler alert!
If we consider the endings of both books [SPOILER ALERT!], Rand is more optimistic than Orwell.
While Winston Smith ends up loving Big Brother, Equality 7-252 manages to escape, along with his love interest, finding an “old-world house” and changing his name to Prometheus, the Greek mythological hero who takes fire from the gods and brings it to humans in the form of technology and wisdom.
Read more by this author: The Literature of Liberty
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