George Orwell spent his life employing the political essay and novel in pitched battle against the forces of totalitarianism, in whatever form that might have taken, be it Stalin’s Communism or the British Empire. In 1984 he put forth a vision of totalitarianism so far beyond the realms of history and (perhaps) not so far beyond the realms of possibility that it stuck permanently to our collective imaginations. To us, the state of Oceania is the logical conclusion of totalitarianism, and a dystopia that as happily free citizens we must do our best to halt, and that dictators the world over do their best to install. Thus comes the word “Orwellian”, meaning any combination of the following: an all-seeing government that controls every aspect of our lives (even, as far as it can, our thoughts), a world in which everyone and everything exists for the state, a state which exists primarily to perpetuate itself, and a political class which frequently not only lies, but tells the exact opposite of the truth, with the populace having to believe it even to the point of absurdity.

The scariest and most pernicious of Orwell’s inventions was that of “doublethink”, which really is totalitarianism taken to its extreme. It is thus described in 1984:

The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them… To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies…

If the state cannot control the minds of its people directly, it can at least force them to control their own minds, through an endlessly repeating process of “correcting” their thoughts. Doublethink is perhaps the most important feature of an Orwellian world, because without the freedom to think as you will, the last chance of rebellion is eradicated.

These are powerful ideas, which people would rather kill in infancy than suffer in perpetuity. However, a mild personality cult seems to have formed itself, centred on the prophetic figure of Orwell. Eric Blair, as he is otherwise known, is watching over his followers like Big Brother, imploring them to see Orwellianisms everywhere, even in places where they are far removed. Doublethink, or at least its milder strain, lazythink, can replicate itself in unsuspecting carriers much like the H1N1 virus—even though the society is officially vaccinated against totalitarianism. The seriousness of lazythink should not be underestimated: though it seems quite innocuous, it can lead to active involvement in unspeakable evil. How many of those who committed such terrible crimes in the name of National Socialism would not have done so had they really questioned the nature of what they were doing, and the ideology on which their actions rested? The Orwell cult probably won’t go down this route, but what their attitude leads to, quite ironically, is a stifling of debate—exactly the sort of thing that they would otherwise be quick to condemn as antithetical to a healthy, non-totalitarian society.

Not only does it stifle debate, but it chokes the natural breath of progress. A politician in an opposition party need not be so devilishly underhanded to call a government policy Orwellian, but with the use of that one word he has won a few easy points with great swathes of the voting public. Once the word is planted in the minds of people and combined with lazythink, we witness a downward spiral in which the accused government cannot do anything that’s not Orwellian, though they may have the best of intentions. It is unfortunate for Gordon Brown and his new iteration of New Labour that they quickly established themselves as serious and socialist. In that atmosphere, accusations of Ingsoc-style policy are even harder to banish. Obama has a similar (though milder) problem with the Fox News-watching American right. Although the current healthcare debate may not bring his presidency to ruin, it is likely that the accusations brought forth now will find a way to stay, even if the initial fervour ends up dissipating.

Alertness to sinister politics is a perfectly fine thing, of course. There will be times when the fears of encroaching totalitarianism are not unfounded. But being so quick to see the worst in a policy is just as counterproductive as seeing only the best. Let us not jump on the easy bandwagon with such important matters, nor try to look too clever. Rather, let us try to understand the situation in the cold light of day, with a sober and a present mind. Only if something is genuinely Orwellian should we ever use the word. In that way some of its rightful value will be restored, and Eric Blair might once again be proud to have it used in his honour.

This idea has been the overriding theme of the presidential race so far. Hillary Clinton insisted that she had more of it than Obama, though how she would have changed her tack when facing McCain, had she claimed the Democratic presidential nomination, is anybody’s guess. She clearly favours Obama over McCain: assuming this is genuine (and, despite the nature of party politics there is no reason not to think so), this is a tacit acknowledgement that experience is not the be all and end all, and that intellect and ideas are important after all.

McCain insists that he has more experience than Obama, but the question is, how important is experience in and of itself? Obama must have reflected on this pickle himself, and concluded that it wasn’t very much, except as a useful disarming tool; but it would be impolitic of him to express this publicly as he would draw jeers of “elitism” from the hungry media crowds. To take a hypothetical example: imagine an unintelligent person who is born into a privileged family with political connections, which he uses to embark upon a mildly successful political career. During the course of this career, he meets many politicians, engages in many debates, sees what goes on behind the scenes, becomes suitably cynical, and is able to put on a good political mask. By any standard, he would have had a lot of experience. But would this mean anything? He is unintelligent, and therefore gleans very little of substance from all these things. Of course, in this extreme example, experience would be meaningless.

McCain is not this hypothetical example. But he claims to be a man of experience, and a man of substance. It seems to me, that if one truly is a man of substance, one should not keep reminding others that one is a man of experience. It is little more than an insecurity smokescreen. A true man of substance would not have to consciously describe himself as anything, but would let his policies and his actions be the true narrator. It is also a cynical tactic that, far from showing his sincerity, tends actually to show his falsity, and his desperation. Knowing that his experience is a selling point to many Americans, it is a mere word he has to use, an advertising jingle. Therefore it is also an insult to the electorate. Can they not judge for themselves the extent, nature, and importance of his experience without constant reminders?

Now of course, if a politician just happens to be naturally constituted in such a way that they actually are the polar opposite of the currently-hated politician, without need of styling, then there is very little they can do to protect themselves from the accusation that they are pretending. After all, the only way to truly prove their genuineness is for us to step inside their minds (unfortunately an impossible proposition, but one that might save a lot of time and money). However, it surely must have crossed the minds of at least some American voters that what Obama is offering is not that radical or new, and that it only seems to be so because it seems to stand in contrast to what the Bush administration stood for. Hope, equality, opportunity for all, change—these are all values that America was built on, and that therefore it would be absurd for any potential president not to stand for. What Obama has successfully done so far (and what he will most likely continue to successfully do until he becomes president) is give the persuasive illusion that he really does genuinely stand for these things. This is largely an aesthetic skill: it lies in his rhetoric of hope, so much more convincing as it is than any of his rivals’; it lies in his gait, his manner, his style, his confidence (as contrasted with the desperation of the ghastly Mrs. Clinton), and his image—inspiringly but somewhat cornily represented in The Audacity of Hope.

These are all perfectly fine qualities, and ones that will undoubtedly stay with him during his (nearly assured) tenure as president. But charm aside, we are still in the honeymoon period between Obama and the American people. Honeymooning necessitates a marriage, and marriages in politics more so than in life come—at the very least—with disagreements. In life, marriages end either in divorce or in death; in politics, the end is invariably divorce. The question is, then, what possible reason could there be for America to divorce such a charming man?

The answer must lie somewhere in the inevitability of the political machine, a machine which, as it turns so relentlessly and indifferently, catches all politicians in its spindles and gears. We surely cannot be so cynical as to suppose that most politicians enter into their chosen careers solely for the money, for there are many more lucrative paths for them to take. I suspect that most do genuinely hope to improve the world, and it is just that some succumb to simple pragmatics in the hopes of acquiring the power that will ultimately allow them to enact their good intentions. “Simple pragmatics”, however, is just the alluring face of the machine that, after tempting the unwitting politician, ensnares him, and never lets him out until he sees the necessity of lying, and then becomes desensitised to it. By this I don’t mean gargantuan and stupid lies (here I’m thinking of Hillary Clinton’s under-fire-in-Bosnia incident), but merely small and pragmatic ones. And as we all know of lies, they have a tendency to snowball until, at the very best, your sheen of respectability is lost, and at worst, you are essentially forced out of office (here I’m thinking of Hillary Clinton’s husband). The point is this: it appears to be an innate fact of the system that lies are inevitable, and impossible to avoid. Nothing here is innate in the politician, but in the environment he finds himself in, and in the specific kind of pressure put upon him. Consider how all political underlings (by this I mean all those who are not the presidents or prime ministers of this world) must, almost of necessity, side with the views of their party leaders. Whenever they disagree passionately with their leaders, as was the case with Robin Cook and Tony Blair on Iraq, they feel impelled to announce their resignations. Often, they are much admired for their supposed bravery, but is it not really cowardice? To leave politics, the arena in which you hoped to change the world for the better, over a disagreement, however large? I pose the question not rhetorically, but because I do not know the answer. The opposite is much more common of course, and is certainly cowardly—pragmatic, but cowardly. I cannot count the amount of times I have seen Labour politicians squirming their ways out of uncomfortable interview positions when confronted with the question of Iraq. Conservatives, of course, lie just as often, but because they are the opposition party, and not directly culpable for the war, theirs are comfortable and confident lies, just as disingenuous, and in fact condemning the government for their obvious disingenuousness—for the most part, just because it is obvious. So the politicians on the attack lie because it is easy to, and those on the defence lie because they have to.

I do not mean to suggest that Barack Obama has anything but the best intentions, though I am sure the same can be said of John McCain. I merely posit that Obama has set himself an extremely difficult task with his emphasis on “change we can believe in”. Apart from the phrase seeming to smack of the populist, really the only change he means is that of undoing what everyone accuses Bush of having done, and “undoing” is not the same as “change”. Regarding the Iraq war, Obama proposes removing American troops, ignoring completely the fact that this is likely to worsen the situation there. Regarding climate change and American dependence on oil, Obama proposes investing in new energy sources; this is appealing insofar as it is the opposite of the current administration’s policy, but at the same time so obvious that a child could have thought of it. What if these ambitious plans, along with many others, fail? Why then Obama will find himself firmly in the spindles and gears of the machine—the very machine that he proposes to change. One can only hope that he doesn’t fail, however; but it is exactly this hope, rather than objective analysis, that is likely to win him the presidency.