What Would Orwell Think?
Michael Bayler
Strategist | Marketer | Author | Speaker | Delivering Breakthroughs to Value and Growth
With the return of Donald Trump to the presidency, the overthrow of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, a potential national ban on Tik-Tok looming, and also Australia's ban on social media for the under-16s all in mind, now is as good a time as any to revisit what we believe about liberty and totalitarianism.
And who better to guide us than the great George Orwell?
I talk to filmmaker Chris Durlacher, whose remarkable film "George Orwell "A Life In Pictures" won multiple awards, including an Emmy.?
We discuss what Orwell might have made all of this, with two of his most famous quotes as our departure point.
From 1984, the words of the sinister yet charismatic O'Brien:
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face ... forever."
And from an unused preface to Animal Farm, now to be found at the foot of Orwell's statue in front of the BBC's London offices:
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."?