Atwood, Orwell and the Destruction of Discourse
Thank You, Margaret and George, for Ruining Adult Conversations in this Country.
Opinions on the stories of either of these novels notwithstanding, it can safely be said that George Orwell’s 1984 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale have done more damage to human discourse than any other work of fiction in the modern era. One cannot go more than five minutes without some ignorant rightist saying something like, “Big tech won’t let me call black people racial slurs. We are living in Orwell’s 1984. RIP Free speech.” or some braindead leftist making a comment like, “I can’t, like, abort my child a week before they’re like due? This is like, literally The Handmaid’s Tale.” Just listening to some mid-wit constantly make these comparisons makes me want to literally Othello myself.
If you reading this have ever made these comparisons before, I just want you to know that I’m not mad at you. We’ve all done it before. Yes, even I, in my infinite wisdom, have fallen prey to this before. I can see now that all these comparisons do is kill any nuance or adult discussions that could have happened around the desired topic.
Seeing all these pea-brained takes makes one wonder if anyone who makes these comparisons has ever actually read the didactic dystopian novels that they love to compare even the slightest of disagreements to. But then again, I can understand why people make these outlandish comparisons when even the authors themselves do it too! Well, Atwood does at least, the whole being a corpse thing really stifles Orwell’s ability to make timely societal observations. Atwood herself said that the Handmaid’s Tale was being reflected in the presidency of the obviously deeply religious Donald Trump (a.k.a Cheeto Hitler, Agent Orange, Dorito Mussolini, etc.) who clearly wants only select women to be able to have children… despite the fact that he himself is clearly sexually promiscuous and seems to have a problem finding women he doesn’t want to have children with. Give me a break Maggie.
Quick side tangent: we have our ever-so insecure neighbors to the north to thank for The Handmaid’s Tale; as if Bieber, Nickelback and Molson’s weren’t enough. The most unrealistic part of The Handmaid’s Tale is the fact that Canada is seen as this utopian alternative to the United States where everything is sunshine and rainbows, where there is no discrimination, everyone is happy, the nation is an important player on the world stage and… hey? Why are you laughing?
Anyhow, it is now impossible to have an adult conversation about a topics like abortion and free speech. If you want to discuss maturely the way that we as a society should react to inciteful or discriminatory speech towards groups of people, you’re met with cries of “Orwellian censorship!” and, “This is like 1984!” Perhaps you want to discuss the nuances of personal responsibility and the morality of abortion but are instead subjected to screeches of “This is just like The Handmaid’s Tale!” and, “Oh, so you think I should be forced to pump out hundreds of babies against my will?” No, bozo, no one thinks that. And you’re not getting off scot-free rightoid, freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences. If you go around telling people to hate the Jews or kill the blacks or whatever hateful garbage you spew out, don’t be surprised if civilized and decent people tell you to shut up and call for your banning.
Annoying as it may be to deal with the adolescent antics surrounding 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale, the root cause of why these are brought up constantly hasn’t been addressed. I’m no licensed psychologist, but I sure am an armchair psychologist, so here is my theory. Every single one of these chronically online individuals who bring up the two novels in question whenever they sense a disagreement are clearly well-to-do. They live in the first world, spend their entire day on their smartphone and live middle to upper class lives in a nation where they have the freedom to make these ridiculous comparisons.
The mundane nature of their meaningless lives has to be filled by something. Like how Alan Grant says in Jurassic Park, “T. Rex doesn’t want to be fed. He wants to hunt,” we are so pampered in our modern world, and our basal instincts create in us a yearning for some kind of struggle to fill that void. For some young right-wing man, he may fill the void that going to war and hunting used to fill in him by acting as if his freedom or beliefs are under threat from a totalitarian regime. For a young left-wing woman, she may fill the void that caring for a family and gathering used to fill in her by acting as if her body or her life are under an actual threat of control by a theocratic government. For both of these people, so devoid of meaning and actual hardship in their lives, they have to make up life-changing threats that amount to nothing more than some kind of sad, personal theater where these lunatics have convinced themselves that their cushy lives are somehow equivalent to a dystopian hellscape.
If you want to see a real-life Handmaid’s Tale or 1984, look to countries like Saudi Arabia or China. Comparing your literal first world problems to The Handmaid’s Tale or 1984 is doing a serious disservice to those who actually have to struggle in this world. Not enough female representation in Oscar winners is not a real issue, not being able to freely call people slurs on the internet is not a real issue. Please, for the love of God, stop using these two books as comparisons for everything you disagree with, for the good of all discourse in this country.