He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.
George Orwell, 1984
He who controls
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6 thoughts on “He who controls”
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huh, and here I was thinking that rage against the machine wrote that, when apparently they were just quoting it.
…for a while.
In real life the winners, or the controlling establishment writes the past.
Sadly, this quote is all too true.
But it’s not the least sad if we’re referring to our own work. It’s fun to rewrite ‘established’ history. 🙂
Heh, been doing that too. 😉
In my story ‘think of the children’ is a curse used at those so busy trying to childproof their world that they never think of or bother world-proofing their children …
Intent matters.
Alternate history writers and Counter-factual historians don’t pretend their altered scenarios are anything but entertainment and/or explorations of the relative significance of the events that happened whereas the revisionists Orwell was referring to use their fables to replace the events that did happen with a made-up narrative crafted to further their own pre-established agenda. (Think of the “Black Athena” narrative of the 90’s.)
It’s the difference between cleaning a mural and throwing a bucket of black paint on it to obscure it.