Orwell Remembered

I read Nineteen Eighty-Four when I was nine years old, and then went on to become, I should think, one of the youngest readers of George Orwell’s four volume Collected Essays, Letters, and Journalism, which helped prepare me for this low, dishonest time forty-five or years later. The great man had a number of themes and observations, one of them being people’s capacity to believe lies and nonsense that contradicted the evidence before their eyes, or what they would have concluded if they had demonstrated a basic capacity for logical thought and willingness to choose reality over groupthink or temporary comfort.

People have, to say the least, not become notably wiser since 1930s and 1940s, so thank you, Mr. Orwell, wherever you are today, for helping to immunize me against joining the Trump suck-ups. I wish that I and all the world could read what you would write about Lindsey Graham.