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

Posted by BeauHD on from the alternative-facts dept.

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.

6 of 659 comments (clear)

  1. I really hope... by SharpFang · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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    1. Re:I really hope... by aevan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:I really hope... by Mashiki · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

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    3. Re:I really hope... by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

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      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  2. Re:Who's buying? by mwvdlee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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  3. Re:Not even close. by swb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.