From 1984 to 2024

In my lifetime, there has been extraordinary change affecting human life on the planet. 

The speed of technological advances means that the average person has no understanding of how systems operate - from AI to satellite systems, global weapons to data analysis, even how we make ultra-processed foods and pandemic medicines. We simply use the technology and rely on someone else's knowledge of how it was created. We eat food that may not be good for us, use mobile phones incessantly and compulsively, and yet we have access to vast stores of human knowledge and scientific advancement - which we mostly ignore. 

We are the Proles....

At home with a high temperature and possible COVID symptoms, I reread 1984. This is ridiculously relevant now in 2024. (Okay 2025, but it wasn't when I was writing this...)

The feeling of the world constantly at war, so that we all just get used to living with it. The Newspeak - a language of propaganda and misinformation. Trump's doublethink - where he tells us that Ukraine caused the war that they are fighting against hostile invaders. Where protestors are arrested and imprisoned, and those who speak out against dictators or the wealthy elite are quickly silenced.

How easily did we slip into this state of affairs, with all of us complicit because we have no knowledge of how to rise up and stop this rule by oligarchy, this demonisation of immigrants, the poor, the disabled, this stressful existence where we are encouraged to look the other way for fear of losing our own jobs, our own fragile stake in the world.

What has the power to subvert this descent into societal breakdown? 

Who or what can stop climate change?

I feel oddly well-positioned to answer these questions. Like many authors of dystopian fiction, I have read sci-fi, been schooled in global war scenarios, played games that destroy planets, and grown up on literature that forewarns how we get to Gilead.

The antidote is CONNECTION.

The current Labour party is not socialist, even though it used its socialist roots to appear like an alternative to Tory corruption. Young people distrust politicians - for good reason - see what they have allowed to happen on their watch. So it doesn't feel realistic to suggest we can vote ourselves out of trouble.

Instead, we have to build grassroots resilience, communities that are inclusive and well-prepared, and be ready to download manuals and knowledge, and preserve practical skills for the day when our ruling bodies cease to function. I am not talking about becoming preppers - it's bigger than that. It's about how we bring the rest of the world with us - all those who want to live via community, empathy, honesty and decency.

Remember those balloon debates in school? They taught us that capitalism was going to swallow us up unless we preserved our individualism, and had a better reason for being saved than the next person. 

I disagree.

We want to bring everyone along with us - all the divergent, messy, broken people whom society has placed a low value on. These are the people who actually know how to survive in an intolerant world. We need the crazy scientists and fantasy writers, people who pray and those who don't, carers, workers, farmers, healers and musicians. And we don't need big impressive leaders who got where they are by treading on all of us.

We may be the Proles, but we are also the industrious ants and bees, the fruitpickers, the dambuilders, the vast swarming hordes who can build and grow and care and survive.

Turns out WE have the power. And the more we work together the better our future becomes.