On 'nineteen Eighty-four' (ebook)

Argumento de On 'nineteen Eighty-four' (ebook)

George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is among the most widely read books in the world. For more than 50 years, it has been regarded as a morality tale for the possible future of modern society, a future involving nothing less than extinction of humanity itself. Does Nineteen Eighty-Four remain relevant in our new century? The editors of this book assembled a distinguished group of philosophers, literary specialists, political commentators, historians, and lawyers and asked them to take a wide-ranging and uninhibited look at that question. The editors deliberately avoided Orwell scholars in an effort to call forth a fresh and diverse range of responses to the major work of one of the most durable literary figures among twentieth-century English writers.

As Nineteen Eighty-Four protagonist Winston Smith has admirers on the right, in the center, and on the left, the contributors similarly represent a wide range of political, literary, and moral viewpoints. The Cold War that has so often been linked to Orwell's novel ended with more of a whimper than a bang, but most of the issues of concern to him remain alive in some form today: censorship, scientific surveillance, power worship, the autonomy of art, the meaning of democracy, relations between men and women, and many others. The contributors bring a variety of insightful and contemporary perspectives to bear on these questions.0Dedicatory Foreword by Barbara S. Kirschner, M.D. ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction by Abbott Gleason and Martha C. Nussbaum 1

PART I: POLITICS AND THE LITERARY IMAGINATION 11

A Defense of Poesy (The Treatise of Julia) by Elaine Scarry 13
Doublespeak and the Minority of One by Homi K. Bhabha 29
Of Beasts and Men: Orwell on Beastliness by Margaret Drabble 38
Does Literature Work as Social Science? by The Case of George Orwell by Richard A. Epstein 49

PART II: TRUTH, OBJECTIVITY, AND PROPAGANDA 71

Puritanism and Power Politics during the Cold War: George Orwell and Historical Objectivity by Abbott Gleason 73
Rorty and Orwell on Truth by James Conant 86
From Ingsoc and Newspeak to Amcap, Amerigood, and Marketspeak by Edward S. Herman 112

PART III: POLITICAL COERCION 125

Mind Control in Orwell?s Nineteen Eighty-Four: Fictional Concepts Become Operational Realities in Jim Jones's Jungle Experiment by Philip G. Zimbardo 127
Whom Do You Trust? What Do You Count On? by Darius Rejali 155

PART IV: TECHNOLOGY AND PRIVACY 181

Orwell versus Huxley: Economics, Technology, Privacy, and Satire by Richard A. Posner 183
On the Internet and the Benign Invasions of Nineteen Eighty-Four by Lawrence Lessig 212
The Self-Preventing Prophecy; or, How a Dose of Nightmare Can Help Tame Tomorrow's Perils by David Brin 222

PART V: SEX AND POLITICS 231

Sexual Freedom and Political Freedom by Cass R. Sunstein 233
Sex, Law, Power, and Community by Robin West 242
Nineteen Eighty-Four, Catholicism, and the Meaning of Human Sexuality by John Haldane 261
CONCLUSION 277
The Death of Pity: Orwell and American Political Life by Martha C. Nussbaum 279

Contributors 301
Index 305