“The term “Orwellian” has become lazy shorthand for exercises of authority with which one disagrees. When a publisher drops your book because your brand has become toxic, it’s Orwellian. When an internet platform enforces its terms of service and kicks you off, it’s Orwellian. When a store has you removed from the premises for refusing to wear a mask during a pandemic, it’s Orwellian.” – USA Today
Important Update 9/28. The ACLU has apologized - sort of. Read more here.
Something that has always driven me nuts about people who use the term “Orwellian” is that more often than not they use it outside of the context of Orwell’s writings. I see it all the time in my Conservative circles and most of the time I pass by it because many have also discovered the term “Gatekeeping” and accuse you of trying to gatekeep when you correct their incorrect usage of Orwell. And how does one correct someone’s misusing of gatekeeping without being accused of gatekeeping, gatekeeping? It’s a vicious circle.
USA Today was mostly correct to point out in their article that the political right in America equates any use of authority they don’t like as Orwellian, however, they also – purposefully I believe – missed Hawley’s proper use of the term in order to equate him with members of the far-right. But, that’s another blog for another time, it’s just worth pointing out. The point is, we want to apply the term within the context that Orwell would have used it and this week, boy oh boy, did I find a perfect example.
"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,"
One of the main issues raised in 1984 is that the past is mutable. Mutable simply means that those in power can make either subtle or drastic changes to history to ground their current ideological and political goals as historical struggles. Winston Smith is the main character of 1984 and his actual job in the “Ministry of Truth” is to forge the past into something unrecognizable to fit the current goals of The Party. We run into this struggle all the time when studying history. As the saying goes: “History is written by the victors” (I’d recommend reading this take on why that saying is a bit overplayed). Can true history be known? Many, including Orwell, believed we can.
A few days ago, the ACLU put out a tweet quoting former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg (RBG).
Right away, many noticed the brackets inserted into her quote which usually notates an error of grammar or spelling was originally found in the text, so those doing the quoting are notating they’re correcting those errors. In writing, this is called Sic. (See here for more on that). What was the error RBG committed that warranted the ACLU to offer a correction? She used female-gendered language to describe pregnancy and this is not inclusive to the current ideology that transgendered men can also bear a child.
Notice the Orwellian nature of the use of Sic here. RBG did not commit a grammatical error in her quote. She did not create an error of fact either. RBG knew the biological fact that only biological women can bear children and her statement properly corresponded to that reality. So the ACLU by any rule of grammar, logic, or reality is clearly in the wrong for using Sic to correct RBG. But this is where we get to the Orwellian nature of their edit. It’s not that RGB was wrong - she’s one of the Elders of The Party after all – it’s that her words need to be updated to properly reflect The Party in the present.
The ACLU’s attempt to literally rewrite RBG in this quote is Orwellian. It’s saying that history is mutable and that it’s appropriate to update history, even direct quotes, to match the current whims of The Party in the present. It’s exactly what Orwell pointed out as Fascistic behavior. The ACLU is purposefully manipulating a fact, in this case, a direct quote, of the past and abusing agreed-upon grammar rules and laws to do it. But it’s not only an abuse of fact but of truth. RBG was not saying anything about transgender rights here. She did believe in those rights in general from other writings, but it’s not true and clearly a manipulation of facts to apply that belief into something she did not intend to say.
One could say at least the ACLU notated the change, but what happens when the brackets disappear? What happens when one tries to find the real quote but it’s been scrubbed? We get this:
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped.”