Orwell In Five Words

Episode

Title

First
Broadcast

Repeated

Comments

Fascism

20200120

20200121 (R4)

In the last few years, George Orwell's writing and thinking have come to seem ever more timely. But they are also much misrepresented. As BBC Radio 4 marks the 70th anniversary of his early death, BBC documentary-maker Phil Tinline takes five words that resonate through Orwell's work, and tests out what light they can shed on our problems today.

In the late 1930s, Orwell worried that bourgeois democracy was just fascism's more civilised twin. But within a couple of years, his position had swung round to champion democracy as the radical enemy of totalitarianism.

Today, many worry that democracy is in its greatest crisis since the 1930s. Phil asks a leading historian of totalitarianism, Timothy Snyder, if Orwell's dramatic switch can help us work out how to tackle it.

Series contributors include: Abduweli Ayup, Nick Cohen, David Dwan, Maurice Glasman, Joanna Kavenna, Robert Jay Lifton, Dorian Lynskey, James Millward, Ferdinand Mount, Jean Seaton, Joanne Smith Finley, Timothy Snyder, Mihrigul Tursun

Presenter/ Producer: Phil Tinline

George Orwell has been dead for 70 years. What can his ideas tell us about life in 2020?

Truth

20200121

20200122 (R4)

Orwell thought the very idea of objective truth was in mortal danger from the totalitarian mindset, writing that: `The truth, it is felt, becomes untruth when your enemy utters it.`

In the era of fake news' and extreme online polarisation, copies of Orwell's work have been flying off the shelves. But he wasn't only worried about dictators and demagogues. So today, just how widely do his fears for the future of truth apply?

Presenter/ Producer: Phil Tinline

George Orwell has been dead for 70 years. What can his ideas tell us about life in 2020?

Big

20200122

20200123 (R4)

Throughout the 1940s, Orwell grew alarmed at the rise of the oligarchical collectivists' - the cadres of unaccountable technicians and managers on whom superstates - and large organisations - depend.

Free market economics was supposed to have upended all that - so do Orwell's anxieties have anything to tell us about today's corporations and big tech companies as well as resurgent authoritarian states? The conservative writer Ferdinand Mount, who once worked with a thinker who shaped Orwell's ideas, argues that the oligarchs are back.

Presenter/ Producer: Phil Tinline

George Orwell has been dead for 70 years. What can his ideas tell us about life in 2020?

Law

20200123

20200124 (R4)

Early in Nineteen Eighty Four, Orwell makes clear that in Big Brother's dictatorship, `there were no longer any laws` - because this is a regime which doesn't distinguish between thought and deed, and where the only law is state power.

So we explore how useful are Orwell's ideas about power in countries that still have the rule of law? And we hear from a Uyghur writer who spent months in a Chinese prison about his experience of law in the world's most powerful authoritarian state.

Series contributors include: Abduweli Ayup, Nick Cohen, David Dwan, Joanne Smith Finley, Maurice Glasman, Joanna Kavenna, Robert Jay Lifton, Dorian Lynskey, James Millward, Ferdinand Mount, Jean Seaton, Timothy Snyder, Mihrigul Tursun

Presenter/ Producer: Phil Tinline

George Orwell has been dead for 70 years. What can his ideas tell us about life in 2020?

Love

20200124

20200125 (R4)

After Winston Smith has been tortured, brainwashed and broken in the Ministry of Love, Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty Four ends: `He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.`

In this final programme, Phil traces the common origins of the world Orwell imagined in Nineteen Eighty Four and the thought transformation' process that the Chinese government is currently applying to hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in vocational training centres' across Xinjiang.

Presenter/ Producer: Phil Tinline

George Orwell has been dead for 70 years. What can his ideas tell us about life in 2020?

Episodes

Episode	Title	First Broadcast	Repeated	Comments
01	Fascism	20200120	20200121 (R4)	In the last few years, George Orwell's writing and thinking have come to seem ever more timely. But they are also much misrepresented. As BBC Radio 4 marks the 70th anniversary of his early death, BBC documentary-maker Phil Tinline takes five words that resonate through Orwell's work, and tests out what light they can shed on our problems today. In the late 1930s, Orwell worried that bourgeois democracy was just fascism's more civilised twin. But within a couple of years, his position had swung round to champion democracy as the radical enemy of totalitarianism. Today, many worry that democracy is in its greatest crisis since the 1930s. Phil asks a leading historian of totalitarianism, Timothy Snyder, if Orwell's dramatic switch can help us work out how to tackle it. Series contributors include: Abduweli Ayup, Nick Cohen, David Dwan, Maurice Glasman, Joanna Kavenna, Robert Jay Lifton, Dorian Lynskey, James Millward, Ferdinand Mount, Jean Seaton, Joanne Smith Finley, Timothy Snyder, Mihrigul Tursun Presenter/ Producer: Phil Tinline George Orwell has been dead for 70 years. What can his ideas tell us about life in 2020?
02	Truth	20200121	20200122 (R4)	In the last few years, George Orwell's writing and thinking have come to seem ever more timely. But they are also much misrepresented. As BBC Radio 4 marks the 70th anniversary of his early death, BBC documentary-maker Phil Tinline takes five words that resonate through Orwell's work, and tests out what light they can shed on our problems today. Orwell thought the very idea of objective truth was in mortal danger from the totalitarian mindset, writing that: `The truth, it is felt, becomes untruth when your enemy utters it.` In the era of fake news' and extreme online polarisation, copies of Orwell's work have been flying off the shelves. But he wasn't only worried about dictators and demagogues. So today, just how widely do his fears for the future of truth apply? Series contributors include: Abduweli Ayup, Nick Cohen, David Dwan, Maurice Glasman, Joanna Kavenna, Robert Jay Lifton, Dorian Lynskey, James Millward, Ferdinand Mount, Jean Seaton, Joanne Smith Finley, Timothy Snyder, Mihrigul Tursun Presenter/ Producer: Phil Tinline George Orwell has been dead for 70 years. What can his ideas tell us about life in 2020?
03	Big	20200122	20200123 (R4)	In the last few years, George Orwell's writing and thinking have come to seem ever more timely. But they are also much misrepresented. As BBC Radio 4 marks the 70th anniversary of his early death, BBC documentary-maker Phil Tinline takes five words that resonate through Orwell's work, and tests out what light they can shed on our problems today. Throughout the 1940s, Orwell grew alarmed at the rise of the oligarchical collectivists' - the cadres of unaccountable technicians and managers on whom superstates - and large organisations - depend. Free market economics was supposed to have upended all that - so do Orwell's anxieties have anything to tell us about today's corporations and big tech companies as well as resurgent authoritarian states? The conservative writer Ferdinand Mount, who once worked with a thinker who shaped Orwell's ideas, argues that the oligarchs are back. Series contributors include: Abduweli Ayup, Nick Cohen, David Dwan, Maurice Glasman, Joanna Kavenna, Robert Jay Lifton, Dorian Lynskey, James Millward, Ferdinand Mount, Jean Seaton, Joanne Smith Finley, Timothy Snyder, Mihrigul Tursun Presenter/ Producer: Phil Tinline George Orwell has been dead for 70 years. What can his ideas tell us about life in 2020?
04	Law	20200123	20200124 (R4)	In the last few years, George Orwell's writing and thinking have come to seem ever more timely. But they are also much misrepresented. As BBC Radio 4 marks the 70th anniversary of his early death, BBC documentary-maker Phil Tinline takes five words that resonate through Orwell's work, and tests out what light they can shed on our problems today. Early in Nineteen Eighty Four, Orwell makes clear that in Big Brother's dictatorship, `there were no longer any laws` - because this is a regime which doesn't distinguish between thought and deed, and where the only law is state power. So we explore how useful are Orwell's ideas about power in countries that still have the rule of law? And we hear from a Uyghur writer who spent months in a Chinese prison about his experience of law in the world's most powerful authoritarian state. Series contributors include: Abduweli Ayup, Nick Cohen, David Dwan, Joanne Smith Finley, Maurice Glasman, Joanna Kavenna, Robert Jay Lifton, Dorian Lynskey, James Millward, Ferdinand Mount, Jean Seaton, Timothy Snyder, Mihrigul Tursun Presenter/ Producer: Phil Tinline George Orwell has been dead for 70 years. What can his ideas tell us about life in 2020?
05	Love	20200124	20200125 (R4)	In the last few years, George Orwell's writing and thinking have come to seem ever more timely. But they are also much misrepresented. As BBC Radio 4 marks the 70th anniversary of his early death, BBC documentary-maker Phil Tinline takes five words that resonate through Orwell's work, and tests out what light they can shed on our problems today. After Winston Smith has been tortured, brainwashed and broken in the Ministry of Love, Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty Four ends: `He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.` In this final programme, Phil traces the common origins of the world Orwell imagined in Nineteen Eighty Four and the thought transformation' process that the Chinese government is currently applying to hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in vocational training centres' across Xinjiang. Series contributors include: Abduweli Ayup, Nick Cohen, David Dwan, Maurice Glasman, Joanna Kavenna, Robert Jay Lifton, Dorian Lynskey, James Millward, Ferdinand Mount, Jean Seaton, Joanne Smith Finley, Timothy Snyder, Mihrigul Tursun Presenter/ Producer: Phil Tinline George Orwell has been dead for 70 years. What can his ideas tell us about life in 2020?