Truth in an age of doublethink
November 10, 2025
52 min
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733 of 775
November 10, 2025
Truth in an age of doublethink
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Gray Area Episodes Around November 10, 2025
Episode 733 of 775 — walk the feed in the order it was published.
Truth in an age of doublethink
Summary
We use “Orwellian” to describe everything from campus dust-ups to authoritarian crackdowns. But what did George Orwell actually stand for, what did he get wrong, and what can we learn from him about our age of surveillance capitalism and distraction? Sean’s guest is Laura Beers, historian at American University and author of Orwell’s Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the 21st Century. They dig into Orwell’s defense of truth over ideology, his crusade against euphemism, his experience with propaganda and persecution in Spain, and why 1984 and Animal Farm only capture part of his project.
Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)
Guest: Laura Beers, historian and author of Orwell’s Ghosts
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