Even though the term "Orwellian" has become a part of the language, it is generally applied to only one of the dangers – government surveillance -- against which he was warning. Ironically – this was the one point on which he was most nearly wrong.

1984, in keeping with the tenor of the time – 1948 -- in which it was written, is an overwhelmingly pessimistic book. However, as much as Big Brother would love to watch us all, that has proved impossible, and technology has also made it relatively easier for us to watch Big Brother. This error by Orwell was not just technological.

Orwell (Eric Blair) –like so many other anti-Communists -- overestimated the ability of governments to control the people, and – even more importantly – underestimated the drive for individual freedom.

The fall of Communism probably would have surprised Orwell, but other developments would not have. In the other major themes of 1984, Orwell was much more nearly right, and -- sadly -- is much less understood.

To the citizens of the London of 1984, "the chief city of Airstrip One," the most salient fact of life was endless war. The enemies kept changing, but the war never stopped. Today, DEAland, for good reasons and/or bad, stays involved in conflicts around the world, but these conflicts do not have much relevance in the daily lives of the people. They really cannot serve the purpose that war served in 1984.

There is one war, however, that touches everyone, and is designed never to end. That is the Drug War, the soul of which is the war on marijuana.
See
Ten More Years; Six Million More Arrests, Says Czar – Too Long; Too Few, Says Newt.
Actually, the Czar Did Not Mention the Arrests, but No One Ever Does.

It gives the government of DEAland an excuse to interfere in the internal affairs of every country, not just those that are actually threatening DEAland’s real interests.
See
Drug Czar Uses Foreign Affairs Magazine Article For Anti-Dutch Propaganda,
Elevating The Lying To Official Status. Analysis By Richard Cowan
and
The "Vietnamization" of the Drug War; US Narco-Imperialism Goes In Search of Enemies–
The Quagmire of Tomorrow

It also gives the government of DEAland an excuse to interfere in the private lives of everyone, because anyone could be a marijuana user. The huge number of marijuana users, and the fact that most are indistinguishable from non-users, makes everyone a suspect.
See
Everyone Is A Suspect At US/Canadian Border As Customs Searches For Marijuana --
Another Cost of Prohibition

This is the perfect pretext for creating a police state.
See
Prohibition Provides Practice For A Police State In Wisconsin:
"5 counties involved in still-secretive highway safety initiative."

In 1984 everyone was constantly reminded that "Big Brother Is Watching You." Today, such a statement would be offensive, in large part thanks to Orwell. Instead, people are being encouraged – or rather frightened – into wanting Big Brother to watch them. How is this being done? Through fear and hatred.

I think that the most important feature of 1984 is "Newspeak" and "Doulblethink." Orwell even wrote an Appendix to 1984, "The Principles of Newspeak."

As Orwell explained, the purpose of Newspeak was not just to provide a medium of expression, but to make "heretical thought ….literally unthinkable."

"To give a single example. The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as ‘This dog is free of lice’ or ‘This field is free of weeds.’ It could not be used in the old sense of ‘politically free’ or ‘intellectually free,’ since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless." Pages 246 and 247.

Obviously, this limiting of the use of the word "free" reminds me of the current obsession with being "free of drugs" and the so-called "Partnership for A Drug-Free America.

I do not think that there has ever been a single institution that has posed a threat to individual freedom of Americans comparable to that posed by the Partnership.
See
When The Partnership For A Marijuana-Free America Speaks,
The Media For A Marijuana-Free America Parrots.
Widely Reported Press Release About Kids and "Drugs" Mentions Marijuana 29 Times, Alcohol 0!
and
Magazine Publishers of America Agree To Feature Prohibitionist Propaganda In Content
To Get Share of $775 Million Ad Campaign

However, the Partnership is by no means the prime mover here. It is rather an opportunistic infection that has taken advantage of a long-term decline in our ability to think critically. Orwell was very concerned about the loss of meaning, which he did not blame on any conspiracy.
See
"The government’s relationships to the media industry, and to the public, are changing."
and
Hundreds Of Newspaper Editors Try To Figure Out What To Do About Reader’s Distrust (Hint: Stop Lying!)

It is this decline in intellectual standards that makes a culture and society susceptible to propaganda. After all, Hitler rose to power at a time that Germany was politically and culturally very vulnerable. The reasons for Germany’s problems are easily understood at this point, while the reasons why we are having such difficulty dealing with basic concepts is less clear.

The danger from The Partnership is that it has brought a high level of sophistication to creating a new ideology that is limiting the definition of freedom as was Newspeak.

Their job is to eliminate the competition from marijuana for their patrons in the alcohol and pharmaceutical industries. However, this can only be done by eliminating our ability to think critically about "drugs." They have a great advantage in that this idea seems absurd to most observers in spite of the overwhelming evidence.

However, this can now be seen in their bitter opposition to including warnings about alcohol in their prohibitionist propaganda.
See
Mothers Against Drunk Driving Denounce Partnership For A Marijuana-Free America
For Opposing Warnings About Alcohol -- PR Disaster For Pharmaceutical Lobby Grows

If the Partnership and its allies in the government and the media were merely waging war on cannabis, that would be bad enough, but they are also waging war on the very meaning of words and on our ability to use them to communicate.
See
"Mom, Dad, What are Drugs?"

One of the inescapable features of life in 1984 was the "Two Minute Hate" during which everyone was required to focus on hating the enemies of Big Brother.

See
"These legalizers put American children at risk.
The Dutch government should be renouncing them, not siding with them."
What? Oh, Never mind!

and
Swedish Prohibitionists Denounce Body Shop And Anita Roddick:
"Demands for legalisation of cannabis is not an example of moral, ethical and social responsibility.
On the contrary, it shows a clear lack of moral, ethical and social responsibility."
In 1999 DEAland we have the omnipresent anti-marijuana prohibitionist propaganda provided by the Partnership and the government. Today it is most visible in ads that ask, "Are you waiting for your kids to ask you about pot?"
See
Page On The Drug Czar’s Web Site—Projectknow.Com—Is Called "True Lies" And It Truly Is

There are two consequences of this.

The first is a fanatical commitment to marijuana prohibition by certain types of ideologues. Such people were also characters in 1984. Marijuana prohibition has become the backbone of the prohibitionist ideology that drives such diverse groups as the police, the "treatment" industry, the "drug testing" industry, and above all others, the "drug education" industry. The latter are ideologues, pure and simple. They have nothing else to offer.
See
How Marijuana Prohibition Corrupts All Of Our Institutions
– Medicine, Law Enforcement, Journalism
And How That Corruption Sustains Prohibitionism

They are the vectors for the second consequence of the emphasis on anti-marijuana propaganda -- a disastrous undermining of all substance abuse education.
See
They Are Legal, So They Must Be Safe: "Teens Abusing Drugstore Medicines"
Should We Have Drug-Free Drugstores?
Context For Medical Marijuana and "Drug Education" Debates

The fact that anti-marijuana prohibitionist propaganda inevitably encourages substance abuse will ultimately destroy marijuana prohibition. In the meantime it has the ironic effect of benefiting marijuana prohibition, because it is not recognized as being counterproductive. As is typical of statist ideologies, the fact that things are getting worse is used to justify more of the same.

Even many of the critics of drug prohibition don’t understand that it is counterproductive. They think that prohibition is merely a failure. They do not understand that it has exacerbated the problem that it was intended to solve. Consequently, they approach reform very timidly, afraid that ending prohibition will make the "drug problem" worse.

This inability to grasp the concept of marijuana prohibition as counterproductive is an example of the failure of critical thinking caused by our own Doublethink.

"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."

These anti-prohibitionists actually hold two contradictory ideas at the same time. Marijuana prohibition is both a worthy cause and a failure. There are people who are so convinced that drug prohibition is a failure that they favor the legalization of drugs generally, but they still look with disdain on the users of marijuana and the supporters of medical marijuana and hemp. It is all rather beneath them.

Also there are people who have decided that some aspects of marijuana prohibition are failures and favor just medical marijuana or hemp. They have been conditioned to think that the people who agree with them are bad and the people who have been lying to them for decades are really good.
See
THE HEMP CASINO, HEMP WHORLED, & ROPERS VS. DOPERS
By John E. Dvorak, Hempologist
and
American Farm Bureau Convention Narrowly Votes Against Researching Hemp Production
In part, this misplaced respect is the result of decades of the Two-Minute-Hate. If someone has been conditioned to hate the enemies of Big Brother it is very difficult to stop hating them and admit that they were right all along. It is easier just to decide that Big Brother’s noble experiment was just a sad failure.

Even prohibitionists play this game. The Drug Czar, alias Big Brother’s Little Helper, is now declaring that the Drug War isn’t really a war. There won’t be any change in policy. The violence will continue. He just wants to stop calling it a war. When he makes this statement it is never questioned by the media.
See
From The Drug Czar’s 8-Year Plan to the Republican’s Drug-Free Century Act,
The Prohibitionist Agenda Is War Without End. Orwell Would Understand.
Analysis By Richard Cowan

1984 was not just a warning about the dangers of totalitarian governments. Indeed that was only one part. The most important part is the need for critical thinking and a commitment to the meaning of words as a part of that process.

As Orwell demonstrated, when we lose the ability to think for ourselves, freedom really will be lost.