"The secrecy of your revolt poisons you like a secret disease..."

Why Orwell Matters by Christopher Hitchens
Basic Books, 2002
(New York)

Why should we care about George Orwell?  Why does he matter?  Does he, in the 21st century, have anything pertinent or relevant to show us?  Isn’t Orwell just a crack-pot conspiracy theorist, whose grim outlook on life compelled him to write of a totalitarian, dark future?  Are his ideas of that future not overblown and overly gloomy (to say nothing of accuracy)?

Well, as it turns out, he is mind-bendingly relevant and still an important read for us advanced 21st century humans.  He died over 60 years ago, yet his voice wafts ever eerily to us over the decades, warning us, scolding us, and in a way shaming us:  the type of shame one feels when being told by a healthy person that eating that chocolate bar will make you unhealthy.  It's not that we don't already know this, it's just that more often than not, we succumb to our frailty.  In relation to George Orwell, this frailty involves a linguistic laziness.

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