Orwellian

Orwellian describes a situation or idea based on the ideas of George Orwell; particularly his political novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Nineteen Eighty-Four told the story of a grim future in which all citizens of earth were slaves of one of three totalitarian one-party states which controlled all mass media and tightly regulated human interaction.

As a result, the term "Orwellian" usually refers to one or more of the following:

• Efforts to monitor people's social behaviour
• A dystopian future
• Political doublethink

The first is probably the most common and is often used to describe negatively a situation in which a Big Brother-like authority figure and thought police can, supposedly, constantly monitor people's every action for betrayal or improper thoughts. It is also used for oppressive political ideas and the use of euphemistic language in political discourse to camouflage morally outrageous ideas and actions.

The majority of Orwell's writings were focused on promoting the concepts of civil liberties and social justice - in other words, they were not Orwellian. The extensive use of the word Orwellian, often simply to attack political ideas that a person does not like, is also directly against Orwell's own philosophy. Orwell tried to promote more precise language in political discourse and he criticised political language popular at the time such as "running-dog lackey" which makes this use of his name even less fitting. In his essay Politics and the English Language, he derides the use of cliché and dying metaphors which "even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent".