On Nineteen Eighty-four

by Nussbaum, Martha Craven

• ISBN13: 9780691113609
• ISBN10: 0691113602
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-04-29
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

George Orwell'sNineteen Eighty-Fouris among the most widely read books in the world. For more than 50 years, it has been regarded as a morality tale for the possible future of modern society, a future involving nothing less than extinction of humanity itself. DoesNineteen Eighty-Fourremain relevant in our new century? The editors of this book assembled a distinguished group of philosophers, literary specialists, political commentators, historians, and lawyers and asked them to take a wide-ranging and uninhibited look at that question. The editors deliberately avoided Orwell scholars in an effort to call forth a fresh and diverse range of responses to the major work of one of the most durable literary figures among twentieth-century English writers. AsNineteen Eighty-Fourprotagonist Winston Smith has admirers on the right, in the center, and on the left, the contributors similarly represent a wide range of political, literary, and moral viewpoints. The Cold War that has so often been linked to Orwell's novel ended with more of a whimper than a bang, but most of the issues of concern to him remain alive in some form today: censorship, scientific surveillance, power worship, the autonomy of art, the meaning of democracy, relations between men and women, and many others. The contributors bring a variety of insightful and contemporary perspectives to bear on these questions.

Table of Contents

Dedicatory Foreword	ix
Barbara S. Kirschner
Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction	1	(10)
Abbott Gleason
Martha C. Nussbaum
PART I: POLITICS AND THE LITERARY IMAGINATION	11	(60)
A Defense of Poesy (The Treatise of Julia)	13	(16)
Elaine Scarry
Doublespeak and the Minority of One	29	(9)
Homi K. Bhabha
Of Beasts and Men: Orwell on Beastliness	38	(11)
Margaret Drabble
Does Literature Work as Social Science? The Case of George Orwell	49	(22)
Richard A. Epstein
PART II: TRUTH, OBJECTIVITY, AND PROPAGANDA	71	(54)
Puritanism and Power Politics during the Cold War: George Orwell and Historical Objectivity	73	(13)
Abbott Gleason
Rorty and Orwell on Truth	86	(26)
James Conant
From Ingsoc and Newspeak to Amcap, Amerigood, and Marketspeak	112	(13)
Edward S. Herman
PART III: POLITICAL COERCION	125	(56)
Mind Control in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: Fictional Concepts Become Operational Realities in Jim Jones's Jungle Experiment	127	(28)
Philip G. Zimbardo
Whom Do You Trust? What Do You Count On?	155	(26)
Darius Rejali
PART IV: TECHNOLOGY AND PRIVACY	181	(50)
Orwell versus Huxley: Economics, Technology, Privacy, and Satire	183	(29)
Richard A. Posner
On the Internet and the Benign Invasions of Nineteen Eighty-Four	212	(10)
Lawrence Lessig
The Self-Preventing Prophecy; or, How a Dose of Nightmare Can Help Tame Tomorrow's Perils	222	(9)
David Brin
PART V: SEX AND POLITICS	231	(46)
Sexual Freedom and Political Freedom	233	(9)
Cass R. Sunstein
Sex, Law, Power, and Community	242	(19)
Robin West
Nineteen Eighty-Four, Catholicism, and the Meaning of Human Sexuality	261	(16)
John Haldane
CONCLUSION	277	(24)
The Death of Pity: Orwell and American Political Life	279	(22)
Martha C. Nussbaum
Contributors	301	(4)
Index	305