George Orwell's '1984' Tops Amazon's Bestseller List (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Sales of George Orwell's dystopian drama 1984 have soared after Kellyanne Conway, adviser to the reality-TV-star-turned-president, Donald Trump, used the phrase "alternative facts" in an interview. As of Tuesday, the book was the sixth best-selling book on Amazon. Comparisons were made with the term "newspeak" used in the 1949 novel, which was used to signal a fictional language that aims at eliminating personal thought and also "doublethink." In the book Orwell writes that it "means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them." The connection was initially made on CNN's Reliable Sources. "Alternative facts is a George Orwell phrase," said Washington Post reporter Karen Tumulty. Conway's use of the term was in reference to White House press secretary Sean Spicer's comments about last week's inauguration attracting "the largest audience ever". Her interview was widely criticized and she was sub-tweeted by Merriam-Webster dictionary with a definition of the word fact. In 1984, a superstate wields extreme control over the people and persecutes any form of independent thought. UPDATE 1/24/17 6:56PM PST: Orwell's dystopian novel is now the #1 Best Seller in Books on Amazon.

Comments

I really hope...

[SharpFang]

I really hope SJWs will realize their fight to purge the language of "bad words" is in fact persecution of thoughtcrime.

If you ban "Uncle Tom's Cabin" from schools "because it uses the 'n' word and that's offensive", you're doing precisely what 1984 warns about.

Re:I really hope...

[aevan]

No, they aren't. Otherwise they wouldn't have whined at the military for 'chink in the armour'. Thank you though for demonstrating 'alternative facts' though, your interpretation of the last few years has been noted.

Re:I really hope...

[Mashiki]

Uh no. This is the bullshit that social justice has created. People are screaming "SJW" because social justice warriors are the ones pushing the bullshit claiming that kimono's are cultural appropriation. Or wearing Halloween costumes are racist/sexist/misogyny or some other bullshit. They're the ones lining up to try and ban people from making speeches, and saying that people who don't follow the group think need to be banned. You know, like Peter Tatchell or Germaine Greer. You are authoritarians, you are engaging in authoritarian behavior. You think you're the good guys and you're not. You're everything you claim to fight.

Re:I really hope...

[Mashiki]

SJW have never had any actual power, yet white males still see them as threatening and trot out all kinds of false equivalence to back themselves up.

Gee. I guess that explains all those events that have been cancelled because of their violent threats and backlashes right? Or their attacks, doxing and so on against people who have a different ideological pov. Or university administrations that follow their lines of bullshit? How about when they throw a hissyfit and get advertisements pulled because it hurts their feelings. Or try to get people fired(sometimes successfully) for daring to have a different position. Nope, no power there at all. That's why none of that's happened right?

Good thing I'm not a "white male" then isn't it.

Re:I really hope...

[elrous0]

SJW have never had any actual power

Tell that to all the conservatives on college campuses who are under siege right now from "powerless" SJW's. Tell that to all the conservatives getting banned from social media, getting doxxed, getting fired from their jobs for having the "wrong" ideas, getting physically attacked just for daring to speak at rallies, etc. For a "powerless" lot, SJW's sure seem to wield quite a bit of power these days in the media, on college campuses, in Hollywood--pretty much everywhere save direct politics (where mainstream Americans still thankfully vote them down).

It's gotten pretty bad when an old-school liberal like myself fears Donald Trump and the Republican Party less than what the Democratic Party has become. As a former Democrat, all I can say is that the new left had better wake up and realize that SJW's are a cancer that will ultimately kill the host. They've already chased away the working class, and turned several blue states red. Just keep going down that path and see how many more states turn red in 2020.

Re:I really hope...

[meta-monkey]

As a former Democrat, all I can say is that the new left had better wake up and realize that SJW's are a cancer that will ultimately kill the host.

And there are certainly crazies on the right. The difference is the center-right ignores them or disavows them and does not give them a platform. No one would ever hear a single idea of David Duke or Richard Spencer if the left and corporate-left media didn't promote them. You will never hear Sean Hannity welcoming "friend of the show Richard Spencer" onto his TV or radio show. You will never see even Ann Coulter citing the "scholarly work of Dr. David Duke." No one wants anything to do with these people. But the liberal college professors let the SJWs run amok on campus and the Democrats parade illegal aliens and various nutjobs out on stage at their national convention.

This is severely off-putting to normal people, and the Democrats are doomed unless they start punching left. Their biggest enemy is not Donald Trump. It's the pink haired landwhales literally shitting on the streets as a "political statement," the antifa thugs beating the hell out of trash bins (must have found Adolf Binler, the most evil racist trash bin of all time) and the illegal immigrants waving Mexican flags while they throw eggs at Republican voters.

Re:Wrong Book?

[locofungus]

Also Animal Farm. I think the people are going to be very disappointed to discover that the elites have been replaced with the elites which, of course, will all be the fault of the elites.

Re:Who's buying?

[mwvdlee]

We've heard Trump's inauguration speech with echoes of the villain Bane from the Dark Knight Rises

Oh boy, we've got someone pulling out their fake news. There was a single sentence that had a basic resemblance to Bane's speech. That single sentence: "We're giving power back to the people." That's it.

Then it's not fake news, now is it?
If may be insignificant and not newsworthy, but it is not fake.

Re:Not even close.

[swb]

Legalized drugs: Widespread use of anti-depressants and tranquilizers is a lot like soma.

Sorting people into classes based on intelligence: Socioeconomic pecking order based on which degree you got, which college you went to, your SAT scores, your GPA, etc.

Purely centralized economy: Federal reserve monetary policy, Wall Street, investment banking, transnational corporations, Davos, private equity, regulatory capture. I'll cede that this is a weak comparison, but all of those organizations tend to be incestuous in membership and switching between organizations is common.

Procreation: In-vitro fertilization, genetic screening, scheduled c-sections. We're not yet decanting our offspring, but among the moneyed classes the reproductive process is industrializing.

Perhaps as a whole the real world isn't a literal comparison to BNW, but I think the metaphorical comparisons are striking.

Re:Doublethink? Try watching the interview before

[allcoolnameswheretak]

And let's not forget that rational, intelligent people can disagree on matters of import, the significance of facts, and so forth without ceasing to be rational.

Are you sure you're not talking about opinions? Isn't the definition of a "fact" that it is a non-debatable, unambiguous truth? Such as the fact that Obama is christian and was born in the United States? If you are trying to soften up facts and put them up to debate, you are already by your knees in that Orwellian universe the White House would like to have us.

Re:And here we go again...

[tbannist]

The Obama administration never lied about anything?

Obviously, if anyone can find one false statement from Obama, it excuses an infinite number of deliberate lies from Trump. Right?

Re:And here we go again...

[MightyMartian]

I don't really recall them asserting that lies could be recoined as "alternate facts". That politicians and their minions lie is a given, that they would so obstinately declare outright falsehoods and then try to recast the obvious falsehoods as some variant on "facts" is a new one to me, at least in the West. This is indeed more a trick of authoritarians.

And for what exactly? Because the Mall wasn't nearly as filled for Trump's inauguration as for Obama's 2008 inauguration? Why would that matter? Even further, to claim Hillary Clinton's popular vote win was made up of fraudulent votes? Why would that matter? What counts is the Electoral College, not popular votes? It strikes me as completely idiotic, a squandering of what little political capital Trump has actually entered the White House with on moronic side issues that have no bearing on governance whatsoever.

I had begun to believe the claim that Trump's bluster was some sort of clever ploy, a strategic type of hyperbole. Now I'm beginning the man really is a fucking moron. The first rule of lying is don't lie when you can get easily caught, and don't lie when there's no advantage conferred. What the hell was the point of inauguration attendance claim? What is the point of the three million vote fraud claim? These lies are not only stupid and easily debunked, they do nothing to aid Trump's administration.

Re: And here we go again...

[bryanbrunton]

That's it? That's all you got? Benghazi.

Trump is mentally ill. He is fcking insane. Lost touch with reality. Major parts of every speech he has given has shown to packed full of lies.

And the best you got is Benghazi?

Re: Nah...

[un1nsp1red]

The weird shit is the nature of the many lies he's told. It's one thing to make vague claims to further a political agenda (e.g., WMDs in Iraq, 'Obama was born in Kenya and is muslim,' 'if you like your insurance, you can keep it, etc...). It's another thing entirely to deny you said something last week, when there's video and audio of you saying that thing. It's like these petty, childish lies for no reason other than lying. It's bizarre that so many people were ok with that. If it was your six year-old child, you'd tell them how ridiculous it is to lie about something when the people you're lying to know it's obviously a lie.