Shiftless2
Well-known member
Thought this was an interesting read and couldn't figure out where to put it. Hence a new topic.
Is 2025 the new '1984'? Some authors think censorship 'can get much worse'
"When you can't feel free to speak your mind, you might as well not have a mind, right?" Five authors break down if 2025 is the new '1984'.
It has been 76 years since "1984," George Orwell's warning about government control, censorship and the corruption of language, was first published.
The organizations behind Banned Books Week based this year's theme, "Censorship Is So 1984. Read for Your Rights," on Orwell's sobering story to show we may be closer in real life to his dystopia than ever before.
Over 3,700 unique books were banned during the 2024-2025 school year, more than double the number of titles advocacy group PEN America tracked in the 2021-2022 school year when it began counting. The nonprofit, dedicated to free expression, found 6,870 total instances of book banning in the '24-'25 year. Their "Banned in the USA" report warns against a "normalization" of book bans, calling them "rampant and common."
"If we're not careful, it might not simply be your book being put on a list that makes it so a librarian can't order it," says Clint Smith, author of "How the Word Is Passed." Instead, "it might be you arrested for writing the book in the first place."
"You have to recognize that where we are now is worse than where we've been, but where we could be going could be far worse than where we are," the author adds. "That is why it's so important to name it, to call it out, speak out against it as much as we can."
In their own words, five writers − Professor Laura Beers, Chicana writer Sandra Cisneros, Professor Michael Shelden, fiction writer Alejandro Varela and Smith − recalled the impact of reading Orwell's "1984" for the first time. They also explore whether we can outrun the parallels between our current political moment and Orwell's world, as well as their interpretation of what's actually considered "Orwellian."
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