|
George Orwell's nineteen Eighty-Fours 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 nineteeFour remainourremain 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 EAs nineteenters. AsNineteen Eighty-Fourprotagonist 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 Introduction / Abbott Gleason, Martha C. Nussbaum -- A defense of poesy (the treatise of Julia) / Elaine Scarry -- Doublespeak and the minority of one / Homi K. Bhabha -- Of beasts and men: Orwell on beastliness / Margaret Drabble -- Does literature work as social science?: the case of George Orwell / Richard A. Epstein -- Puritanism and power politics during the cold war: George Orwell and historical objectivity / Abbott Gleason -- Rorty and Orwell on truth / James Conant -- From Ingsoc and Newspeak to Amcap, Amerigood, and Marketspeak / Edward S. Herman -- Mind control in Orwell's nineteen eighty-four: fictional concepts become operational realities in Jim Jones's jungle experiment / Philip G. Zimbardo -- Who do you trust? What do you count on? / Darius Rejali --Orwell versus Huxley: economics, technology, privacy, and satire / Richard A. Posner -- On the internet and the benign invasions of nineteen eighty-four / Lawrence Lessig -- The self-preventing prophecy; or, How a dose of nightmare can help tame tomorrow's perils / David Brin -- Sexual freedom and political freedom / Cass R. Sunstein -- Sex, law, power, and community / Robin West -- Nineteen eighty-four, catholicism, and the meaning of human sexuality / John Haldane -- The death of pity: Orwell and American political life / Martha C. Nussbaum
|
