While obviously an anticommunist book, Newspeak is still a useful metaphor for the way states control the accepted dialogue and thought process of a population. Look at how in Western headlines and political education, complex geopolitical situations with complex processes and unique material conditions driving them are distilled into fantasy concepts like “good vs evil” or “freedom vs authoritarianism,” or even “big government vs small government.” It’s childish. Look how distracting garbage pop media and social media bots compare empire-friendly leaders like Zelensky to MCU and Star Wars heroes, obfuscating their actual function to fulfilling the agenda of ruling class oligarchs. Look how social media algorithms essentially censor news or opinions that run counter to empire controlled narratives and how Texas high school history books aggressively lie and fabricate events. Look how most liberals have been gaslighted their entire lives to not critically entertain any political idea or proposed solution to a problem that is outside the ever-shrinking and rightward Overton window. Look how Westerners have been gaslighted into thinking that anyone who comes out of a ruling class, elitist instution must be more qualified than a person coming through a working class institution, by default. Look how so many people in the West seem to have been trained to see ridicule on late-night comedy shows as the full extent of proper activism.

The thing with Newspeak, is that it very much exists outside of Orwell’s metaphor. It’s just that it’s much more prevalent and successful in imperialist countries.