COMMENTARY: Thoughts from George Orwell on book banning - circa 1941

By Samuel C. Damren

In the news, Barnes & Noble announced the 2022 top 10 banned and challenged books in libraries and schools. The top 10 include two books by George Orwell, “Animal Farm” and “1984,” published in 1945 and 1949. They have been on lists of banned books from the date of publication. Orwell is the only author with two books consistently on these lists.

Gven though he had yet to pen “Animal Farm” and “1984,” Orwell in June 1941 warned of the threat to freedom posed by book banning in a BBC talk. The talk was titled “Literature and Totalitarianism.”

Given concerns over a present-day acceleration of book banning, and rather than adding my own commentary to the chorus of opposition, having Orwell himself weigh in on the issue is far more interesting.  What follows are excerpts from his 1941 talk, printed in the “Listener.”

“(T)his is not a critical age.  It is an age of partisanship and not of detachment, an age in which it is especially difficult to see literary merit in a book with whose conclusions you disagree.

“The whole of modern European literature of the past four hundred year is built on the concept of intellectual honesty. The first thing that we ask of a writer is that he shall not tell lies, that he shall say what he really thinks, what he really feels ... Modern literature is either the truthful expression of what one man thinks and feels, or it is nothing.

“(T)his is the age of the totalitarian state, which does not and probably cannot allow the individual any freedom whatever. When one mentions totalitarianism one thinks of Germany, Russia, Italy but I think one must face the risk that this phenomena is going to be world-wide.

“Totalitarianism has abolished freedom of thought to an extent unheard of in any previous age. And it is important to realise that its control of thought is not only negative, but positive. It not only forbids you to express – even to think – certain thoughts, but it dictates what you shall think ... As far as possible it isolates you from the outside world, it shuts you up in an artificial universe in which you have no standards of comparison.

“The peculiarity of the totalitarian state is that though it controls thought, it does not fix it. It sets up unquestionable dogmas, and it alters them from day to day. It needs the dogmas, because it needs absolute obedience from its subjects …  It declares itself infallible, and at the same time it attacks the very concept of objective truth.

“The most characteristic activity of the Nazis is burning books.

“Whoever feels the value of literature, whoever sees the central part it plays in the development of human history, must also see the life and death necessity of resisting totalitarianism, whether it is imposed upon us from without or within.”

Orwell started writing “Animal Farm” in November of 1943.  He started writing “1984” immediately after he completed “Animal Farm.”  Orwell died in 1950. Readers of The Legal News will be familiar with both works, but they might want to take the time to re-read them if only to marvel at the magnificent literary prose in “Animal Farm,”and Orwell’s prescient array of possible totalitarian social control techniques envisioned in 1984.  

“Animal Farm” is a novel of betrayal in which the animals on a working farm overthrow their oppressive human owners. They begin operating the farm for themselves in egalitarian fashion only to later be deceived by two of the farm pigs who end up standing on their hind feet, wearing clothes and assuming the same oppressive role over the animals that the human owners did.  

In a 5 December 1946 letter to his friend, Dwight Macdonald, responding to “your query about ‘Animal Farm,’” Orwell noted “(o)f course I intended it primarily as a satire on the Russian revolution.  But I did mean it to have a wider application ... The turning point of the story was supposed to be when the pigs kept the milk and apples for themselves. If the other animals had had the sense to put their foot down then, it would have been alright ... What I was trying to say was, You can’t have a revolution unless you make it for yourself; there is no such thing as a benevolent dictatorship.”

“1984” is an even darker novel. The first sentence of sets the tone: “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” The reader is introduced to the fictional Republic of Oceania, the Party and Big Brother through protagonist Winston Smith.  His journey through the oppressive machinery of state social control is bleak. Smith is weary, isolated, with no community to trust or to provide comfort. He instinctually resists the life forced on him, but from the onset it is clear he is doomed.

We find aspects of the fictional world Orwell created in “1984” all around us.

North Korea is a present-day Oceania with the “Beloved Leader” substituting in name only for Big Brother. The Party in North Korea follows the “Ten Principles for the Establishment of the One-Ideology System.” It is a more nuanced and expansive version of the three slogans of Oceania’s Ministry of Truth: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
Russia’s military take-over of Crimea and threatened expansion into Ukraine – both for the purpose of achieving “security” –  is the embodiment of the first slogan: WAR IS PEACE.  China’s forced labor and indoctrination camps for Muslim Uighurs is the embodiment of the second slogan: FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.  Anti-Vaxer protests that prolong the pandemic and kill the unvaccinated is the embodiment of the third slogan: IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

In “1984,” Orwell identified not only the broad strokes of future totalitarian tactics, he identified the details as well.

Much of Donald Trump’s political play book is taken from Big Brother. The first underlying assumption  to doublespeak in “1984” is the recognition of what Kellyanne Conway termed “alternative” facts.

The second predicate for doublespeak is that citizens recognize that the Party, and the Party alone, decides which set of facts apply. If the Party says 2 + 2 = 5, then as Winston Smith learns at the conclusion of “1984,” that is what Party members must not only acknowledge but actually see as reality.

Trump’s Big Lie about the vote count of the 2020 Presidential election and demand that “real” Republicans swear allegiance to a false result is the Party reality of today’s RNC. The RNC censures of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and view that the January 6 insurrection was “legitimate political discourse” are recent examples of how attached the RNC has become to Oceania-styled ideology.

It would be of comfort to Orwell that the vast majority of Americans, including many Republicans, do not now reside in a Republic of Oceania reality. It would be a discomfort that leaders of so many populace based authoritarian movements around the globe declare themselves “infallible” while “at the same time attack the concept of objective truth” and that large numbers of their followers lack “the sense to put their foot down” when they do.

As to Orwell’s 1941 concerns about book banning, sales of “Animal Farm” and “1984” have never been higher.
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Samuel Damren is a retired Detroit lawyer and author of “What Justice Looks Like.”