Status Updates From The Orwell Reader: Fiction,...

A totalitarian society which succeeded in perpetuating itself would probably set up a schizophrenic system of thought, in which the laws of common sense held good in everyday life and in certain exact sciences, but could be disregarded by the politician, the historian, and the sociologist.

From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned. A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and it’s ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible.

There is no argument by which one can defend a poem. It defends itself by surviving, or it is indefensible.