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Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
George Orwell estate accused of censorship after putting trigger warning at start of Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell's estate has been accused of censorship after a 'trigger warning' was added to his classic novel Nineteen Eighty Four. The preface of the the 75th anniversary edition suggests Orwell's protagonist Winston Smith is 'problematic' and that readers may find his views on women 'despicable'. The introductory essay was written by US novelist Dolen Perkins-Valdez and critics claim it risks undermining the revolutionary novel's warning against state control of thought. Orwell's dystopian hyperbolic future is set under an authoritarian regime, where citizens are punished by the 'Thought Police' for subversive thoughts. It follows Winston Smith and a minor bureaucrat who secretly rebels against the regime with Julia, a fellow party member. But their doomed affair comes to an end and the hearts of readers are broken when they are arrested, tortured and brainwashed into betraying one another. The novel has been hailed as one of the most influential pieces of literature of all time. Now, the author's estate has been accused of ideological policing. US writer Walter Kirn said on the podcast America this Week: 'We're getting someone to actually convict George Orwell himself of thought crime. 'We're not yet in a world where books and classic books are being excised or eliminated,' Kirn added, but warned the Orwell estate-approved edition of 1984 had been 'published with an apology for itself'. The book already had a foreword written by American novelist Thomas Pynchon, leading Mr Kirn to question why a second was needed. 'These people felt they needed an introduction before the old white man's introduction. So this version of 1984 has a trigger warning!' He called it 'the most 1984-ish thing I've ever f***ing read'. Ms Perkins-Valdez wrote she was enjoying the novel until Winston revelas himself to be a 'problematic' character who 'disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones.' She added the novel doesn't address race and as a black woman she found it difficult to connect with the characters. The anniversary edition of the 1949 classic is published by Berkley Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Orwell's 1984 now comes with ‘trigger warning'
George Orwell's estate has been accused of attempting to censor 1984 by adding a 'trigger warning' preface to the 75th anniversary edition of the dystopian novel. The new introductory essay describes the novel's protagonist Winston Smith as 'problematic' and warns modern readers may find his views on women 'despicable'. Critics claim the preface, written by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, an American novelist, and included in the 75th anniversary edition published in the US last year, risks undermining the work's warning against state control of thought. In 1984, citizens of the superstate Oceania are punished for subversive thoughts by the Thought Police. Now, in a real-world twist, the estate that oversees Orwell's literary legacy stands accused of ideological policing. 'We're getting somebody to actually convict George Orwell himself of thought crime in the introduction to his book about thought crime,' said Walter Kirn, a novelist and critic, on the podcast America This Week, hosted by journalist Matt Taibbi. 'We're not yet in a world where books and classic books are being excised or eliminated,' Kirn added, but warned the Orwell estate-approved edition of 1984 had been 'published with an apology for itself'. Ms Perkins-Valdez's preface is included in the anniversary edition of the 1949 classic, published by Berkley Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. In it, the award-winning novelist said she aimed to approach 1984 as a new reader, and admitted that, given the protagonist's views, she might once have abandoned the book entirely. 'I'm enjoying the novel on its own terms, not as a classic, but as a good story, that is, until Winston reveals himself to be a problematic character,' she wrote. 'For example, we learn of him: 'He disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones'.' The novel follows Winston Smith, a minor bureaucrat who secretly rebels against the regime with Julia, a fellow party member. Their doomed affair is cut short when they are arrested, tortured and brainwashed into betraying one another. Although Ms Perkins-Valdez eventually concludes Orwell was portraying misogyny as a feature of totalitarianism, her comments have provoked a backlash. Her preface also takes issue with the novel's handling of race. As a black woman, she says she finds little to connect with characters in Oceania. 'The most 1984-ish thing I've read' Mr Kirn questioned the need for Ms Perkins-Valdez's introduction, pointing out the 75th anniversary edition of 1984 already included a foreword by Thomas Pynchon, one of the greatest living American novelists. 'If you have a foreword by Thomas Pynchon to a book, you don't need another foreword, right? You got maybe the greatest living novelist of our time, who's also a recluse, to come out and write something. That's all you need. 'But no, these people felt they needed an introduction before the old white man's introduction. So this version of 1984 has a trigger warning!' He called it 'the most 1984-ish thing I've ever f---ing read'. The controversy follows real-life cases of so-called 'thought crime' in Britain. In February, The Telegraph revealed that Julian Foulkes, a retired special constable, had been wrongly arrested and cautioned by Kent Police over a social media post that warned of rising anti-Semitism. Officers who raided his home commented on his 'very Brexity' bookshelves and leafed through titles including The War on the West by Douglas Murray and The Demise of the Free State by David Green. His caution has since been deleted, and he has received compensation. Last month, The Telegraph reported that Scotland Yard had charged a Jewish counter-protester for holding a placard mocking Hezbollah's leader, claiming the sign could 'distress' terrorist sympathisers. The charge was dropped after eight months. Orwell himself has not escaped modern reassessment. In 2023, his wife's biographer Anna Funder described him as 'sadistic, misogynistic, homophobic, sometimes violent' and claimed 1984's darkness reflected the author's own. 'He desperately wants to be decent,' she told an audience at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in 2023. 'But writing a book like 1984, which is violent, misogynist, sadistic, grim, paranoid: that comes out of a writer's flaws.' Nor is this the first time 1984 has been flagged for 'problematic' content. In 2022, the University of Northampton warned students it contained 'explicit material' that may be 'offensive and upsetting'.
Newsweek
3 days ago
- Politics
- Newsweek
New '1984' Foreword Includes Warning About 'Problematic' Characters
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The 75th anniversary edition of George Orwell's novel 1984, which coined the term "thoughtcrime" to describe the act of having thoughts that question the ruling party's ideology, has become an ironic lightning rod in debates over alleged trigger warnings and the role of historical context in classic literature. The introduction to the new edition, endorsed by Orwell's estate and written by the American author Dolen Perkins-Valdezm, is at the center of the storm, drawing fire from conservative commentators as well as public intellectuals, and prompting a wide spectrum of reaction from academics who study Orwell's work. Perkins-Valdez opens the introduction with a self-reflective exercise: imagining what it would be like to read 1984 for the first time today. She writes that "a sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity," noting the complete absence of Black characters. She also describes her pause at the protagonist Winston Smith's "despicable" misogyny, but ultimately chooses to continue reading, writing: "I know the difference between a flawed character and a flawed story." "I'm enjoying the novel on its own terms, not as a classic but as a good story; that is, until Winston reveals himself to be a problematic character," she writes. "For example, we learn of him: 'He disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones.' Whoa, wait a minute, Orwell." That framing was enough to provoke sharp critique from novelist and essayist Walter Kirn on the podcast America This Week, co-hosted with journalist Matt Taibbi. Kirn characterized the foreword as a kind of ideological overreach. "Thank you for your trigger warning for 1984," he said. "It is the most 1984ish thing I've ever f***ing read." In which you will learn that the current leading paperback version of 1984, its official Orwell-estate-approved 75th anniversary edition, includes a 1984-ish trigger-warning introduction calling the novel's hero "problematic" because of his "misogyny." I am not making this up. — Walter Kirn (@walterkirn) June 2, 2025 Later in the episode, which debuted on June 1, Kirn blasted what he saw as an imposed "permission structure" by publishers and academic elites. "It's a sort of Ministry of Truthism," he said, referring to the Ministry of Truth that features prominently in the dystopian novel. "They're giving you a little guidebook to say, 'Here's how you're supposed to feel when you read this.'" Conservative commentator such as Ed Morrissey described the foreword as part of "an attempt to rob [Orwell's work] of meaning by denigrating it as 'problematic.'" Morrissey argued that trigger warnings on literary classics serve to "distract readers at the start from its purpose with red herrings over issues of taste." But not all responses aligned with that view. Academic Rebuttal Peter Brian Rose-Barry, a philosophy professor at Saginaw Valley State University and author of George Orwell: The Ethics of Equality, disputed the entire premise. "There just isn't [a trigger warning]," he told Newsweek in an email after examining the edition. "She never accuses Orwell of thoughtcrime. She never calls for censorship or cancelling Orwell." In Rose-Barry's view, the foreword is neither invasive nor ideological, but reflective. "Perkins-Valdez suggests in her introduction that 'love and artistic beauty can act as healing forces in a totalitarian state,'" he noted. "Now, I find that deeply suspect... but I'd use this introduction to generate a discussion in my class." Taibbi and Kirn, by contrast, took issue with that exact line during the podcast. "Love heals? In 1984?" Taibbi asked. "The whole thing ends with Winston broken, saying he loves Big Brother," the symbol of the totalitarian state at the heart of the book. Kirn laughed and added, "It's the kind of revisionist uplift you get from a book club discussion after someone just watched The Handmaid's Tale." Photographs of Eric Blair, whose pen name was George Orwell, from his Metropolitan Police file, c.1940. Photographs of Eric Blair, whose pen name was George Orwell, from his Metropolitan Police file, c.1940. The National Archives UK Perkins-Valdez, a Black writer, Harvard graduate and professor of literature at American University, also noted the novel's lack of racial representation: "That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity at all." Kirn responded to that sentiment on the show by pointing out that Orwell was writing about midcentury Britain: "When Orwell wrote the book, Black people made up maybe one percent of the population. It's like expecting white characters in every Nigerian novel." Richard Keeble, former chair of the Orwell Society, argued that critiques of Orwell's treatment of race and gender have long been part of academic discourse. "Questioning Orwell's representation of Blacks in 1984 can usefully lead us to consider the evolution of his ideas on race generally," he told Newsweek. "Yet Orwell struggled throughout his life, and not with complete success, to exorcise what Edward Said called 'Orientalism.'" Keeble added, "Trigger warnings and interpretative forewords... join the rich firmament of Orwellian scholarship—being themselves open to critique and analysis." Cultural Overreach The 75th anniversary edition of George Orwell's 1984 has become a lightning rod in debates over alleged wokeness, censorship and the role of historical context in reading classic literature. The 75th anniversary edition of George Orwell's 1984 has become a lightning rod in debates over alleged wokeness, censorship and the role of historical context in reading classic literature. Newsweek / Penguin Random House While critics like Kirn view Perkins-Valdez's new foreword as a symptom of virtue signaling run amok, others see it as part of a long-standing literary dialogue. Laura Beers, a historian at American University and author of Orwell's Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century, acknowledged that such reactions reflect deeper political divides. But she defended the legitimacy of approaching Orwell through modern ethical and social lenses. "What makes 1984 such a great novel is that it was written to transcend a specific historical context," she told Newsweek. "Although it has frequently been appropriated by the right as a critique of 'socialism,' it was never meant to be solely a critique of Stalin's Russia." Dolen Perkins-Valdez. Dolen Perkins-Valdez. Courtesy American University "Rather," she added, "it was a commentary on how absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the risk to all societies, including democracies like Britain and the United States, of the unchecked concentration of power." Beers also addressed the role of interpretive material in shaping the reading experience. "Obviously, yes, in that 'interpretive forewords' give a reader an initial context in which to situate the texts that they are reading," she said. "That said, such forewords are more often a reflection on the attitudes and biases of their own time." While the foreword has prompted the familiar battle lines playing out across the Trump-era culture wars, Beers sees the conversation itself as in keeping with Orwell's legacy. "By attempting to place Orwell's work in conversation with changing values and historical understandings in the decades since he was writing," she said, "scholars like Perkins-Valdez are exercising the very freedom to express uncomfortable and difficult opinions that Orwell explicitly championed."
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Perspective: Media ‘chew toy' or ethical debacle? Either way, the optics of the Qatar jet are terrible
On Monday, author and commentator Walter Kirn asked his followers on X what 'chew toys' President Donald Trump would throw to the media this week to distract them from other things going on. There was an obvious answer in the form of a shiny new jet — dubbed a 'flying palace' — that Trump is considering accepting from the royal family of Qatar to serve as Air Force One while Boeing builds more. To accept an aircraft valued at $400 million for personal use would clearly be a gross violation of ethical standards set for all government employees, even if it goes to his presidential library after his term ends, as some news outlets have reported. But it's not clear that this will happen, or even if the Department of Defense will accept the use of the plane on behalf of the U.S. government. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that the arrangement is under review, adding 'of course, any donation to this government is always done in full compliance with the law.' A social media post by Trump over the weekend was less reserved: 'So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane. Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!!' CBS News confirmed with Ali Al-Ansari, Qatar's media attaché to the U.S., that the discussions are taking place, but no decision has been made. He told CBS News that reports that Trump would receive the aircraft during his trip to Qatar this week are 'inaccurate.' It might well be that, as Kirn suggested, Trump is playing with the media, like some say he is doing when he talks about running for president again in 2028. Despite his accessibility to the media — Leavitt calls him 'the most transparent and accessible president in American history' — his relationship with the press remains adversarial, and there often seems to be a bit of trolling involved in his public statements. 'You know what he cares about? Making idiots mad. And he's really, really good at it,' podcaster Ben Shapiro said recently, arguing that the 'Trump 2028″ ballcap and the talk about restarting Alcatraz were examples of the president needling his critics. More chew toys, in other words. That said, there is something that smacks of truth in Trump's posts about the jet. The president is a man who enjoys luxury, and he has been frustrated with the government's air travel options since his first term. Boeing has been under contract to deliver two new aircraft since 2018; it was supposed to deliver them in 2024, but that's been pushed back to 2027, per CNN. 'The two jets now in use, which have the code letters VC-25A and carry the Air Force One designation when the president is on board, have been in service for nearly 35 years, starting during the term of President George H.W. Bush,' Chris Isidore reported for CNN. That's older than the average age of planes in service globally — which is just under 15 years, according to the International Air Transport Association, per Forbes. That said, a showman like Trump should know that the optics of such a deal, if it transpires, are terrible, even if the White House lawyers find a way around the Standards of Ethical Conduct for the executive branch, which say it's OK to accept a cup of coffee and a doughnut, as well as gifts $20 or less. 'Ask yourself if the gift would have been offered if you were not working for the Government. If the answer is no, then the gift is being offered because of your Government position and, as a general rule, you cannot accept it. ... You must also turn down a gift from those who have interests that may be significantly affected by your Government duties, as they are also considered 'prohibited sources,'' the policy says. Accepting a 'flying palace' from a royal family would also be unconstitutional, The Washington Post reported, saying such a gift would violate "the emoluments clause, which forbids U.S. officials from accepting gifts or other things of value from foreign officials without congressional approval." Republicans have spent years decrying ethical violations in the Biden administration, such as Hunter Biden's lucrative stint on the board of directors of a natural gas company in Ukraine. Now their own president is serving up ethical transgressions on a silver platter, two already this month, between the plane and a private White House dinner and tour offered to the 25 top investors in his $Trump meme coin. Pick your battles, Mr. President. This one won't fly.
