Why is George Orwell so important?

Question

For some reason I have always thought of him as just a good writer. Noam Chomsky, C. Hitchens, etc. all were influenced by him. Can someone explain?

Answer 1

It's interesting to note that although the 'utopian' story is hundreds of years old, the anti-utopia one is fairly recent and Orwell may be considered one of its founders with '1984'.

It had long been thought that one thing or another would eventually come along and solve everyone's problems, whether it was a god or science or whatever.  And early in the 20th century it had finally seemed that man was on the brink of feeding the world, ending poverty, and any number of other problems.  This kind of optimistic pro-science mindset is often associated with the 'modern' movement in art, fiction, and so on.

But after World War II, people began to have very different notions.  Even if science COULD feed the world, it began to seem like there were those more interested in letting them starve.  And if they could end wars, there were those more interested in having them continue.  It is this disillusionment with progress that Orwell captured so adeptly in his book, and that it was part of the zeitgeist and not just an individual depression can be seen in its echoing popularity to this very day.  He wasn't the only one to come up with that kind of stuff back then, but his was among the best - he certainly was an outstanding writer (though I've also always been fond of the Second Coming by Yeats after WW1 - link below)!

Let us also not make a very common mistake here:  Orwell was a socialist.  He really wanted these things to be resolved and came to believe that political institutions were the major obstacle.  Animal Farm isn't a warning against revolution, it's a eulogy for what went wrong with the Russian Revolution.  It wasn't the ideas that were inherently bad... it was those who corrupted and abused them until they were no better than the slave-drivers they envied.  That Chomsky, who tends to have similar notions, finds him inspirational shouldn't be too surprising, then.

Answer 2

Orwell’s book “1984” is a classic in which he predicts a future that many people believe is not only possible, but actually in the process of happening to a certain extent.  Another book that is interesting and makes a good compliment to “1984” is a book by Aldous Huxley called “Brave New World.”  In my opinion a “Brave New World” future has a greater chance of becoming reality than “1984” because in “1984” fear is used to control society whereas in “Brave New World” reward is used to control the people.  Both books are classics and both authors are excellent writers with exceptional imagination and vision.

Answer 3

Well, he was a good writer, but he was also one of the first writers to talk about how the media and government use propaganda for their own ends, and how the English language can be exploited and twisted with bad intent. He was one of the first to sound the warning bell on communist totalitarianism (via "1984" and "Animal Farm.")