Future Warnings

Indoctrination schooling, cancel culture, tech dominance, history erasure, government-dictated media, de-platforming— nightmarish realities seemingly emerging without any precedent or justification. No one had foreseen the arrival of any of these disturbing trends, no one except perhaps, Eric Arthur Blair, later to be known by the pseudonym George Orwell.

Born in India to European parents in 1903, Orwell studied in England before serving with the colonial police in Burma in 1922. Resigning in 1928, Orwell retreated to the slums of London and Paris, living a willfully meager existence as a conscious reaction to his personal attitudes on his experiences in Burma. This inspired his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London, published in 1933.

The Road to Wigan Pier, published in 1937, cemented Orwell’s socialist agenda while he enlisted in the militia of the Spanish Civil War. These experiences soon inspired Orwell’s newfound fears regarding communism which he expounded on in Homage to Catalonia, published in 1938.

In 1943, Orwell became literary editor of the socialist newspaper, The Tribune. The novella Animal Farm followed, which allegorically depicted the Russian Revolution with an array of farm animals. This paved the way for the work his name would forever be synonymous with. Nineteen Eighty-four, published in 1949, addressed the threat of Nazism and totalitarianism in a not-so-distant future.

In the novel, the story’s protagonist clashes with a draconian government which alters and censors previous accounts of history and monitors citizens by employing ‘Thought Police’ who seek to brainwash and eradicate any elements of individuality. Orwell’s greatest contribution to literature would also be his last. He succumbed to tuberculosis in London in 1950 at 46.

To now say that Nineteen Eighty-four fortuitously prophesied present developments is an arguable understatement. A rapidly evolving political climate where any dissent from those in power is immediately labeled as “misinformation” and even “immoral” obviates how many of Orwell’s 20th Century fears have been realized thus far.

The symbiotic development of these ideas within one year of Covid lockdowns can’t be chalked up to coincidence. A grimly premeditated power grab has clearly been made by those eager to take advantage of a dire global crisis.

Ironically, young Americans whose predecessors once burned draft cards have moved on to burning books. Presently, one wouldn’t exactly be alarmist to imagine Orwell’s work itself as the next pile on the bonfire.

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

Will their utopia become your dystopia? By George, let’s hope not.

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Christopher Robinson

Only Coming Through in Waves

They eccentrically took their name from two unsung blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, before gradually establishing themselves as one of the most prodigious and innovative acts in rock history.

Guitarist David Gilmour, bassist Roger Waters, keyboardist Richard Wright and drummer Nick Mason, originally led by the enigmatic Syd Barrett, formed in England in 1965 as Pink Floyd. Their improvisational musicianship and exploratory style quickly brought them to the vanguard of London’s swinging psychedelic pop music scene.

The band’s future suddenly became uncertain when Barrett, their chief creative force, entered an irrevocable state of depression and mental exhaustion. After his dismissal, Waters subsequently began handling the majority of Floyd’s lyrics as they ventured further into wildly expanded solos, with guitar hero Gilmour, in particular, honing an inimitable trademark style. The four band members, in fact, came to share a nearly ‘telepathic’ vortex and tirelessly crafted their sonic experiments with an increasingly artistic and disciplined approach.

After recording a brief series of mildly received film soundtracks, Floyd carved out an undeniable niche with a string of LP triumphs that eschewed hit single status in favor of sprawling and ambitious musical statements. More than any other band, they popularized the album format as a homogenous work with equally iconic and ambitious cover art design, a distinctly 1970s phenomenon that later fell into decline with the advent of newer audio formats like the compact disc.

The high-water mark of this period was the moody and cosmic The Dark Side of the Moon, which has eventually seen a mind-bending 957 weeks on the Billboard 200 Charts. The album’s universally introspective lyrics and concepts coupled with its cutting-edge recording techniques broke new ground for Floyd and rock, in general. The resultant success even garnered a lucrative pop career for the album’s engineer.

Anxiously anticipated follow-ups to Dark Side’s massive success included Wish You Were Here which evoked the band’s history up to that point as well as Syd Barrett’s decline and the music business as seen from the band’s viewpoint.

By 1977, they had released Animals, which borrowed themes from George Orwell’s Animal Farm to address class issues in modern society. It was followed by the magnum opus, The Wall, a chart-topping rock opera that chronicled the stress and pressures of stardom spiraling out of control for a troubled rock musician. The ambitious 1979 double LP included the hit, “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” and spawned an adapted film. All of these albums saw Waters asserting considerable creative control, especially in regard to the band’s overall artistic oeuvre.

Today Pink Floyd are unequivocally regarded as founding fathers of progressive rock or ‘prog.’ Although the three surviving members foresee no further reunions, they haven’t completely ruled out those possibilities either. It’s a testament, in a sense, to the rightful assertion that the ‘rock wizards’ have realized their impressive goals and accomplished their musical mission. That’s a legacy you just don’t meddle with.

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Christopher Robinson