The adjective “Orwellian” has become cheap currency in modern political discourse. Liberals and conservatives alike in democracies like the United Kingdom and the United States enjoy using the term to describe nearly any infringement on civil liberties by the state. Video cameras to deter crime, wiretaps of suspected terrorists, and security checks at airports — all have been deemed worthy reference to Orwell’s masterpiece, 1984.
I too sense the importance of protecting personal freedoms, even in a democracy, but those of us who have lived in actual police states would prefer to keep certain words in our lexicon that can describe our far more dire circumstances. The most powerful theme in Orwell’s book is not that of the all-seeing Big Brother, but that of the control and distortion of language, especially in the form of “newspeak.” Words take on inverted meanings, words expressing unapproved ideas are eliminated, and human thought itself is curtailed through the reduction and simplification of vocabulary. This attempt to warp reality via information control is not science fiction to anyone brought up reading Pravda in the Soviet Union, or anyone living in Putin’s Russia today.
— Winter is Coming (Garry Kasparov), Loc. 3666–76