The art of noise
How better evidence leads to more sophisticated lies from those in power
By the known rules of ancient liberty.
—Milton
I was reading George Orwell’s unpublished introduction to Animal Farm and, as ever, Mr Orwell (or is it his wife?) reminds us that the concerns many of us express about the ways in which power operates in our society are not new.
Orwell’s essay defends a libertarian take on free speech and makes the point that suppression of such speech doesn’t require formal censorship. The powers that be will defend almost anything or anyone if they consider them to be on the same side as themselves and suppress the opposite. In Orwell’s time, the nation that could not be offended—as far as the British ruling class were concerned—was the USSR and Animal Farm was initially refused publication because it was feared the book would do just that.
It takes very few substitutions in this paragraph, for instance, for Orwell’s comments to have a terrifyingly modern ring:
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