On "Nineteen Eighty-Four": Orwell and Our Future
by Abbott Gleason (Editor), Jack Goldsmith (Editor), Martha C. Nussbaum (Editor)
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George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is among the most widely read books in the world. For more than 50 years, it has been regarded as a morality tale for the possible future of modern society, a future involving nothing less than extinction of humanity itself. Does Nineteen Eighty-Four remain relevant in our new century? The editors of this book assembled a distinguished group of philosophers, literary specialists, political commentators, historians, and lawyers and asked them to take a show more wide-ranging and uninhibited look at that question. The editors deliberately avoided Orwell scholars in an effort to call forth a fresh and diverse range of responses to the major work of one of the most durable literary figures among twentieth-century English writers. As Nineteen Eighty-Four protagonist Winston Smith has admirers on the right, in the center, and on the left, the contributors similarly represent a wide range of political, literary, and moral viewpoints. The Cold War that has so often been linked to Orwell's novel ended with more of a whimper than a bang, but most of the issues of concern to him remain alive in some form today: censorship, scientific surveillance, power worship, the autonomy of art, the meaning of democracy, relations between men and women, and many others. The contributors bring a variety of insightful and contemporary perspectives to bear on these questions. show lessTags
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Please see my review in the Oxonian Review of Books:
http://www.oxonianreview.org/issues/5-1/5-1oleary.html
http://www.oxonianreview.org/issues/5-1/5-1oleary.html
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Jack Goldsmith's duty as head of the Office of Legal Counsel was to advise President Bush what he could and could not do . . . legally. After taking the job in October 2003 he found his predecessors' opinions, which were the legal framework governing the conduct of the military and intelligence agencies in the war on terror, to be deeply flawed. show more Jack Goldsmith is the Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Law at Harvard University. From October 2003 to June 2004 he was Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel. He lives in Newton, Massachusetts. show less
Martha C. Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics, appointed in the Philosophy Department and the Law School of the University of Chicago. She gave the 2017 Jefferson Lecture for the National Endowment for the Humanities and won the 2016 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy, which is regarded as the most show more prestigious award available in fields not eligible for a Nobel. Most recently, she was awarded the 2018 Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture. She has written more than twenty-two books. show less
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