Free-Market Advocate Takes Revenge on Orwell
A democratic society requires mature, public conversation about issues of importance. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has convoked " A Year of Books " to offer such an opportunity. This commentary is part of a series of commentaries on each of the readings proposed by Zuckerberg. As an 8th grade student, back in 1983, in the run up to the year of the book's title, I read for the first time George Orwell's 1984 . That reading began a series of readings in dystopian and utopian visions, including Aldous Huxley's Brave New World as well as a then unsuccessful foray into Thomas More's Utopia . Those darker visions, especially Orwell's, were vivid and haunting. Later, as a freshman in college, I believe, I read Orwell's " Politics and the English Language ," and I found a new mission in attempting to be a clear writer and thinker. Over time, my political vision has been driven more by hopeful visions of what we may become than by Orwell's h...