In that brilliant critique, Orwell casts the blame for political corruption widely, and he insists that we all bear a responsibility to resist it by thinking and especially by writing more clearly (stay away from the caps lock key Todd). “One ought to recognize,” he wrote, “that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.” There’s a patriotic challenge you won’t hear coming from Washington, no matter which party is in power.
Fortunately, we’re not living under the dystopian terror that Orwell described in “1984.” Our new leader is not the manufactured icon of a supreme state. He’s a supernova of insecurities, tweeting out his insults and threats to increasingly perplexed citizens who still — for the moment, at least — enjoy the right to object in whatever language they choose.
