Rod Dreher: Language, Memory, & Soft Totalitarianism

Rod writes: “A professor pointed out to me today that one theme of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four that’s becoming quite relevant today is how the most oppressive regime of control does not apply to the proles, but to members of the Party. The more elite you are, the more coercive the system is. It’s true in hard totalitarianism, and it’s especially true in soft totalitarianism. Said the professor, “If you’re a plumber or a fast-food worker, you aren’t likely to pay any consequences for not playing the PC game, but the higher you are in the elite, the more danger you’re in.””