Review Article
| Published date | 01 March 1950 |
| Date | 01 March 1950 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070205000500108 |
| Subject Matter | Review Article |
Review
Article
Airstrip
One-1950
George
Orwel's
terrifying
picture of
Britain
in
1984,'
when
it has
become
Airstrip
One
of
the
totalitarian
world-power
Oceania
and
lives
in
a
state
of
continuous
war
with
one
or
the other
of
the
two
rival
powers,
Eurasia
and
Eastasia,
should
be
pondered
by
everyone.
It
is
a
brilliant
exercise
in
imaginative
logic.
With
savage
intensity
he piles
incident
upon
incident
to
show
what
the ultimate
perversion
of
human
nature
would
be
like
when
a
permanently
entrenched
ruling
class
has
taken
control
of
a
state
which
regulates
every
moment
of
the individual's
existence, and
when
it
is
on
the
point
of
perfecting
the
final
instrument
of
despotism,
a
"newspeak" language
which
makes dangerous
thoughts
impossible because
there
are
no
words
in
which
heretical
ideas
can
find
expression.
But
like
his
Animal
Farm the
book
is
almost
entirely
based,
not
on
his
experiences
in
his
own
country,
but
on
the
practices
and
concepts
of
Stalinist
Russia. Save
for
the
cockney
"proles"
who
think
not
of
revolution
but
of
beer
and
football
pools,
the
nightingales
singing
in
country
lanes,
the-
dull
meals
in
government
cafeterias,
and
the
smell
of
cabbage
being
overcooked
in
London
kitchens,
there
is
very
little
of
England
in
it.
If
the
British
people
ever
do
sink
under
a
totalitarian
government, the
actual
Britain
of
1984
will
have
many
more
reminiscences
of
1950
in
it
than
has
Mr.
Orwell's
imaginary
Airstrip
One.
The
actual
Britain
of
1950
is
the most
interesting
political and
social
laboratory
in
the
Western world.
For
its
people
have
gone
further
in
the
Revolution
of
the
West
than
any
of
the
other
peoples
of
Oceania,
and
they
are
working
out
a
new
relationship
between
liberty
and
authority,
between the
individual
and
the
state,
which
may
provide
the
pattern
for
the
rest
of
us.
As
M.
de
Jouvenel
points
out,
England
is
conducting
a
great experiment
which
will
be
the
education
of
the
whole
of
Europe;
and
the
English discussions
about
socialism
today
may
have the
same
creative
influence as
the
discussions
about
free
trade
and chartism
a
hundred
years
ago
which
inaugurated
the
liberal
mid-
nineteenth
century.
We
are
all
at
one
stage
or
another
in
the
process
of
accommodating ourselves to
the
twentieth-century
r6gime
of
"diri-
gisme,"
as
we
seek
to
use
the state
power
to
provide
security
and
opportunity
for
the
masses of
the
people.
If
they
can
get
through
their
present
economic
and
financial
crisis,
the
British
are
more
likely
to
succeed
in
this
experiment than the
rest
of
us
because
they
have
a
greater
social
cohesion,
more
team
spirit,
are
less
prone
to
mass
hysteria,
'George
Orwell,
Nineteen
Eighty-Four
(Toronto:
Saunders,
1949.
314pp.
$3.00,
members
$2.40).
61
To continue reading
Request your trial