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The New Society | culture from the New Statesman

The New Society | culture from the New Statesman

Are we truly living in 'Orwellian times'?

Apr 18, 2026 · 21m

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Or has the term lost its meaning? It’s a label that’s everywhere now: used by political commentators, thrown around on social media, and increasingly a part of everyday conversation. In recent months it's been used to describe matters including Indian cricket, Sainsbury's use of facial recognition, the 'Dubai Dream'. But what did George Orwell actually warn us about, and how closely does our modern world resemble it? Nick Harris speaks to acclaimed Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck, whose latest film Orwell: 2+2=5 revisits Orwell not as a distant, dystopian novelist, but as a deeply political thinker, shaped by his own life experience: his birth in colonial India, his immersion in the working…