How Orwell’s words became our reality

Summary

Front Burner — "How Orwell’s Words Became Our Reality" (Nov. 7, 2025)

Episode Overview

In this episode of Front Burner, guest host Damon Fairless speaks with acclaimed documentary filmmaker Raoul Peck about his new film “2 + 2 = 5”, which explores the enduring relevance of George Orwell’s work. The discussion centers on how Orwell’s concepts—like doublethink, narrative control, and the manipulation of truth—are increasingly echoing in contemporary politics, surveillance, media, and public discourse. Peck draws direct lines from Orwell’s life and ideas to headline events and the state of democracy today.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Orwell’s Enduring Influence in Today’s Politics

• Pervasive Use of "Orwellian" Language:
  • Orwell’s terms—like doublespeak, Big Brother, and thoughtcrime—have entered everyday vocabulary and are invoked by all sides of the political spectrum. (03:37)
• Appropriation by the Right:
  • Though Orwell was a democratic socialist and an antiauthoritarian, his language is now used especially on the political right, often detaching it from its original intent. (02:16, 24:38)

Peck’s Motivation and Background

• Personal Connection to Doublethink:
  • Peck, raised in Haiti and familiar with the Western rhetoric used to justify unjust policies, explains how he grew up deconstructing “democracy,” “justice,” and “freedom” as practiced by Western powers. (03:33)
  • Quote: “I always had to deconstruct all my life.” — Raoul Peck (05:26)
• Orwell’s Insights as Timely and Timeless:
  • Peck stresses that Orwell isn’t writing speculative fiction, but warning from lived experience about the dangers of authoritarianism and language manipulation. (14:46, 16:12)

Manipulation of Reality and Narrative Control

• January 6th and the Present-Day Erasure of Truth
  • Peck points to the US Capitol attack as a "centerpiece" example where reality is actively rewritten by those in power.
  • Quote: “A sitting President is reinterpreting history to a way that fits his own agenda.” — Raoul Peck (06:21)
• Erasing Evidence Mirrors 1984:
  • Drawing a direct comparison to “1984,” both the film and Peck’s discussion portray current attempts to erase or distort truth as central to authoritarian control.
  • Quote: “You erase the picture, you erase the sound, because it doesn't exist, because it shouldn't exist. So it doesn't exist…” — Raoul Peck (07:04)

The Significance of Language and Inversion of Meaning

• Degradation of Language as a Threat to Democracy
  • Quote: “Orwell has this incredible sentence where he said the degradation of language is the condition for the degradation of democracy.” — Raoul Peck (09:59)
  • Language under authoritarian regimes ceases to provide shared meaning, making genuine debate or consensus impossible.
• Inversion for Manipulation:
  • Political leaders say “law and order” while encouraging lawlessness, creating dissonance and confusion.
  • Quote: “I am for law and order while encouraging rioters.” — Raoul Peck (10:21)

Literature and Censorship

• Book Bans and Information Control:
  • Attacks on literature and knowledge are hallmarks of authoritarianism; books serve as a “vaccine against ignorance.” (11:44)
  • Quote: “Books are a sort of vaccine against ignorance. So of course you would attack books… because in those books, potentially, there are writers analyzing your present behavior.” — Raoul Peck (11:44)

Orwell’s Biography: The Making of an Antiauthoritarian

• Orwell’s Experience in Empire:
  • Key formative experiences in Myanmar (Burma) led to Orwell’s anti-authoritarian outlook, having felt complicit in imperial oppression.
  • Quote: “He realized that in Burma he was basically a tool of imperialists… and he resented the character that he became…” — Raoul Peck (17:06)
• Rooted in Real Experience, Not Dystopian Fantasy:
  • Quote: “He was talking about what he went through… His books were warnings telling us, if you don’t watch out, this is where you’re gonna land.” — Raoul Peck (14:46)

Dystopia or Reality?

• Present Absurdity Over Distant Dystopia
  • Shows and films like Black Mirror echo Orwell, but Peck argues reality itself has become “absurd,” not just speculative fiction. (19:35)
  • Quote: “If it’s a way not to deal with reality, then I have a problem with it because reality, especially the one we are experimenting right now, is absurd.” — Raoul Peck (19:35)
• Orwell as a Toolbox for Analysis:
  • Peck sees Orwell as offering not just caution but analytical tools for understanding current crises.
  • Quote: “Orwell is providing you with the tools… to put names on what is happening today.” — Raoul Peck (20:17)

Historical Cycles and New Technologies

• Why Do Orwell’s Predictions Still Fit?
  • Surveillance, propaganda, and manipulation existed long before modern tech; new tools simply amplify old patterns.
  • Quote: “What is new is the technology applied, but in fact is analyzing capitalism… the relationship between classes, the relationship to profit.” — Raoul Peck (21:33)
• Orwell as Cold War Weapon and Misreading
  • Orwell’s work was posthumously appropriated for Western anti-Communist propaganda, often missing the broader warning against all forms of totalitarianism, left or right. (23:45)

Orwell Claimed by All, Misquoted by Many

• Broad Appeal, Deep Misunderstanding
  • Orwell’s language and warnings are now deployed by both the far-right and far-left, often without grasping Orwell’s true convictions.
  • Quote: “Ignorance is strength, you know, they make almost Orwell say the contrary of what Orwell says... it's a sort of rehabilitation of Orwell, it's a sort of putting Orwell back where he belongs.” — Raoul Peck (25:46)
  • Trump himself recently cited Orwell among great English writers, further illustrating the wide (and sometimes distorted) influence. (25:18)
• Orwell’s Words, Not “Alternative Facts”:
  • Quote: "There is no alternative facts for Orwell. You know, two plus two is not five." — Raoul Peck (25:58)

What Would Orwell Say Today?

• Nothing Has Changed—The Warnings Still Stand:
  • Quote: “I think he would shake his head and he would just say, I have nothing to add. This is exactly what I’ve been telling you 75 years ago… We just have to learn from history.” — Raoul Peck (27:21)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On narrative control and erasure of dissent (07:04):
  • “You erase the picture, you erase the sound… that’s the only way for any authoritarian regime to have influence upon you or upon the society is to redefine what is true and what is untrue.” — Raoul Peck
• Orwell’s own writing aims (12:13):
  • “I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention.” — “George Orwell” (voice actor)
• Orwell’s motivation (18:44):
  • “My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice.” — “George Orwell” (voice actor)
• On the far-right invoking Orwell (25:58):
  • “That the far right is using it is because they are counting on the people's ignorance. On the contrary, Orwell, explain this behavior very well. That's what authoritarian regime again do.” — Raoul Peck

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction to Orwell’s legacy & language: 00:34 – 02:16
• Peck’s background and motivation for the film: 03:12 – 05:45
• January 6th and narrative manipulation: 06:21 – 08:15
• Meaning of “2 + 2 = 5” and forced reality inversion: 08:15 – 09:07
• The degradation of language & democracy: 09:07 – 10:13
• Modern book banning, knowledge control: 11:23 – 12:36
• Orwell’s biography, colonial experiences: 14:46 – 18:52
• Dystopia vs. reality; tools for understanding: 19:12 – 21:10
• Orwell’s insights on technology, class, and control: 21:10 – 24:38
• Left and right appropriating Orwell: 24:38 – 27:13
• What would Orwell say today?: 27:13 – 27:42

---

Tone & Style

The conversation is urgent but thoughtful, marrying historical analysis with pointed observations about the present. Raoul Peck speaks candidly and sometimes passionately, drawing from personal experience and rigorous research.

---

Takeaway

This episode frames Orwell not merely as a literary prophet, but as a trenchant analyst whose warnings were rooted in the struggle against imperialism, authoritarianism, and the corruption of language. Both the film and this conversation urge listeners to recognize Orwell’s relevance: not as abstract dystopia, but as a set of vital tools and warnings for understanding—and resisting—the manipulation of truth in our own times.

Transcript

[Sarah Marshall]

Hey, I'm Sarah Marshall and there's one story from the past that I've been circling around for years now. This eight part series traces the hidden history of the Satanic panic in North America. We'll connect the dots. From Victoria, B.C. to the back roads of Kentucky, Satan.

[Damon Fairless]

Was having a moment.

[Sarah Marshall]

The sensationalist heartthrob of our time, the devil you know. Available now wherever you get your podcasts.

[Raoul Peck]

This is a CBC podcast.

[Damon Fairless]

Hi, I'm Damon Fairless, in for Jamie Poisson. I think it's fair to say that there's no author who gets more attention in our public and political conversation than George Orwell.

[Actor/Voice Actor (reading Orwellian quotes)]

It's very Orwellian. I've used that term before in the context of this administration's approach to science. To go back and reread George Orwell, I mean, this kind of doublespeak makes no sense at all.

[Damon Fairless]

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. That's from George Orwell's 1984. This president wants to control the present by having people change the past.

[Raoul Peck]

You're telling me you're going to get CISA out of the business of policing narrative control? I mean, narrative control. Good Lord. I mean, what could be more Orwellian than that?

[Damon Fairless]

Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that.

[CBC Announcer]

But the point I have a hat. Make Orwell fiction again.

[Raoul Peck]

I've seen that hat.

[Damon Fairless]

Yeah. His ideas around mass surveillance and propaganda, expressed in books like animal farm in 1984, they've shaped the way we talk about the world and how we talk about it. Thought, crime, doublespeak, Big Brother, they're all parts of our vocab. We even created an adjective for him. Orwellian. And looking around, it feels like he predicted some of the biggest problems of our time. In an age where distrust in the media and institutions is rising, democracies are under threat and lying seems to have lost its stigma.

[Actor/Voice Actor (reading Orwellian quotes)]

But one thing I can promise you, I will always tell you the truth.

[Damon Fairless]

Orwell was a self proclaimed democratic socialist. He explicitly fought against authoritarianism. But these days his language is used across the entire political spectrum, particularly on the right. So why do his ideas Resonate so strongly? 75 years after his death, in a new film, 2 25, director Raoul Peck looks back on the writer's life, juxtaposing Orwell's own words with political events like the January 6th capital insurrection, the persecution of the Rohingya people in Myanmar and the invasion of Ukraine. Raoul Peck joins me to talk about what Orwell tells us about the world today and the ideological battle over those ideas. Hey, Raoul.

[Raoul Peck]

Hey. Hi. Nice to meet you.

[Damon Fairless]

Yeah, nice to meet you. Thanks for coming on.

[Raoul Peck]

My pleasure.

[Damon Fairless]

So before we get into the main narrative of your document, let's start with the namesake, George Orwell. You're one of the big heavyweights of documentary filmmaking these days. You're working with Alex Gibney, who's another heavyweight. I'm curious, what made you want to take this on? Like, why Orwell? Why this particular moment? Why are you doing it now?

[Raoul Peck]

Well, I knew by knowing Orwell toolbox about authoritarian regime, I knew that it fit perfectly to the time we are in right now. At the same time, when I start working on the project, it was obvious for us, for most people, that Kamala Harris would become the next President of the United States. And for me, the film was as urgent. Because what we are living right now with the present administration in the US Is just an extreme development of what I've been building for the last five decades, because I come from Haiti. I come from the third world. So the idea of the Western countries using a certain set of ideas behind words, let's say, democracy, justice, freedom. Those terms, when they were used toward us, were never meant to mean what they means. To give you an example, when I was a young boy, I never could understand how come president that, you know, argued to be, you know, the most democratic in the whole world, like Kennedy, like Johnson, Reagan, even Clinton. They were the worst in dealing with countries like Haiti, Rwanda, Congo. As if those words didn't mean the same for these countries. You know, they were supporting dictatorship in my country. I went to Congo as a young boy. They were supporting Mobutu. Mobutu came to power with the help of the CIA. So I had a great familiarity with double thinking, double talk, double speak. I always had to deconstruct all my life.

[George Orwell (voice actor reading Orwell's words)]

Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful.

[Actor/Voice Actor (reading Orwellian quotes)]

The love in the air. I've never seen anything like it.

[George Orwell (voice actor reading Orwell's words)]

And murder Respectable.

[Damon Fairless]

One of the really surprising parts of your film. You know, I was expecting a biography, which it is. But you also juxtapose Orwell's, you know, own words, his text. But you juxtapose this footage from different historical and political moments. Let's focus in on one of them. Right, You've got some footage of the attack on the US Capitol on 01-06-21. Tell me how that specifically fits into Orwell's ideas or his warnings.

[Raoul Peck]

Listen, it was a centerpiece of what happened in the last years, where a sitting President is reinterpreting history to a way that fits his own agenda.

[Actor/Voice Actor (reading Orwellian quotes)]

They were there with love in their heart. That was an unbelievable. And it was a beautiful day.

[Raoul Peck]

They were peaceful people.

[Actor/Voice Actor (reading Orwellian quotes)]

These were great people. The crowd was.

[Raoul Peck]

Was unbelievable.

[Actor/Voice Actor (reading Orwellian quotes)]

They don't represent us.

[Damon Fairless]

They need to pay the ultimate price for their crimes.

[Actor/Voice Actor (reading Orwellian quotes)]

An example needs to be made.

[Raoul Peck]

We can take that place.

[Actor/Voice Actor (reading Orwellian quotes)]

And then do what heads on point.

[Raoul Peck]

Even though every citizen have watched those footage and saw that it was never about love. It was a whole attack on the Capitol, where people died, where, where people got entrance, where people were fearing for their life. Congressmen, women. The vice president himself was in. In danger to be hanged, Right? But then they wanted to erase that. As if, you know, it's like in 1984, basically, you know, where, you know, you erase the picture, you erase the sound, because it doesn't exist, because it shouldn't exist. So it doesn't exist, you know, and that's the only way for any authoritarian regime to have influence upon you or upon the society is to redefine what is true and what is untrue.

[Damon Fairless]

You know, that brings me to the title of your film. You've got Orwell. Two plus two equals five. So that's a reference to the scene in 1984 where Winston Smith is being tortured until he kind of complies with that false axiom, right? The two plus two is five.

[Raoul Peck]

How many fingers am I holding up, Winston? Four. And if Big Brother were to say not four, but five, then how many? Four. How many fingers, Winston?

[Actor/Voice Actor (reading Orwellian quotes)]

Anything in the five?

[Raoul Peck]

No, no, Winston. Winston, that is no use. You are lying.

[Damon Fairless]

This is, you know, as you point out, this is kind of one of the things that happens under a totalitarian regime, right? There's this kind of forced inversion of reality, this need to get the population to deny what actually happened. So, so tell me more about that, because this is really kind of a central theme to your. Your film.

[Raoul Peck]

Yes, and, and, and you know, it's not a coincidence that usually that type of regime, they use every weapon in the toolbox of what Orwell defined. They attack history, they attack science, they attack justice, they attack language. Those are all the instruments within a society that enable us to have some sort of common ground, to know when we are having a discussion, that we agree on the terms of that discussion, we agree on the words of that discussion. But once you start pushing the meanings, you start forbidding certain expression, you know, you are basically losing the ability to have a real discussion or to build a society. You know, Orwell has this incredible sentence where he said the degradation of language is the condition for the degradation of democracy.

[Damon Fairless]

Let's talk about that. I'm curious to hear you talk about where you see evidence of this kind of inversion, this use of language today.

[Raoul Peck]

To take this formidable example of President Donald Trump. It's like, I am for law and order while encouraging rioters.

[Actor/Voice Actor (reading Orwellian quotes)]

I am your president of law and order and an ally of all peaceful protesters right here. We're going to walk down to the capitol and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.

[Raoul Peck]

That goes on and on. So the, the, the idea is basically to, to make such a mess of any type of reference that you have. So you basically, you know, you don't know how to move, where to move, what to say.

[Damon Fairless]

Kind of related to that too is, and you've got some scenes, you know, showing classic book burnings, right, and totalitarian systems often as, as well as this inversion of reality. There's, you know, the hard fact that there's, you know, campaigns against reading, banning of books, burning of books, right? What. Why is literature in particular seen as so subversive?

[Raoul Peck]

Well, because liter literature is what humanity have accumul in terms of knowledge. You know, books are a sort of vaccine against ignorance. So of course you would attack books. You would, you know, it's, and it's a sort of censorship as well, because in those books, potentially, you know, there are writers, you know, analyzing your, your present behavior.

[George Orwell (voice actor reading Orwell's words)]

When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, I'm going to produce a work of art. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention. And my initial concern is to get a hearing.

[Raoul Peck]

You know, you find answers in books, you find direction, you find analysis. And all those are enemies because you want one acceptable thinking. It's the thinking of the leader. And by example, it goes with a certain cult of personality as well. You know, I am the leader. I'm the one who knows the truth. And I am the one who decide what's truth or not. And when that doesn't match, well, there are alternatives truth, alternative facts, which is the, the biggest aberration of all.

[CBC Announcer]

The headlines never stop and it's harder than ever to tell what's real, what matters and what's just noise. That's where Pod Save America comes in. I'm Tommy Vitor and every week I'm joined by fellow former Obama aides Jon Favreau, Jon Levitt and David Dan Pfeiffer to break down the biggest stories, unpack what they mean for the future of our democracy, and add just enough humor to stay sane. Along the way, you'll also hear honest, in depth conversations with big voices in politics, media and culture like Rachel Maddow, Gavin Newsom and Mark Cuban that you won't find anywhere else. New episodes drop every Tuesday and Friday with deep dives every other weekend. Listen wherever you get your podcasts, watch on YouTube or subscribe on Apple Podcasts for ad free episodes.

[Damon Fairless]

One of the interesting things about your your doc is that you're using Orwell's words, his essays, his letters, his diaries. You do span us from his birth, his childhood, his early adulthood. It is pretty sweeping.

[George Orwell (voice actor reading Orwell's words)]

I was born into what you might describe as the lower upper middle class. People in this class owned no land, but they felt that they were landowners in the sight of God and kept up a semi aristocratic outlook by going into the, the professions and the fighting services.

[Damon Fairless]

But I, I guess I'm curious to you when you're immersed in his own writing and his writing about his life, what, what surprised you most about Orwell when you, when you step into his life?

[Raoul Peck]

Well, to be honest, something happened and, and I'm glad that it happened very early on of my research because Orwell, the way I learned about him in school, I read Animal Forms, you know, barely 1984, because at the time it was, I guess, a difficult novel for me to read. But he came, or let's say he was presented as a science fiction writer, almost dystopian writer who sees the future, who prophesies about the future as a catastrophic world. But no, he was talking about what he went through. He's talking about his experience. He's talking about his knowledge of what power is and what human beings can do to each other. He experienced how Britain was treating their colonies. So it was not science fiction, it was reality. And the books he wrote were not some dystopia. His book were warnings telling us, if you don't watch out, this is where you're gonna land. And the other aspect that I did not expect was I understood that he went to my world as somebody from the third world.

[Damon Fairless]

You mean like Myanmar?

[Raoul Peck]

When he was going to Myanmar. But even the fact that he was born in India, you know, when you are born, even as a young Baby as young child, the kind of emotion you get, the kind of warmth, his life with his nanny, you know, anybody who has had, you know, had the privilege and a chance to have a nanny, know the affection that it can install. And it allows me to understand why he would go when he's 19, back to Miramar. It was in the research of that feelings that he had.

[Damon Fairless]

I mean, this, this, this time he spent in Myanmar is really crucial to understanding him. Tell me how his, how his time there basically galvanized this anti authoritarian bent that defined the rest of his work.

[Raoul Peck]

Well, I think until that time he probably had as the young man he was, he, first of all he wanted to go elsewhere and not go after Eton, go to Cambridge or Oxford like most young privileged boy in England do. And he wanted to go and confront the real world. But then he realized that in Burma he was basically a tool of imperialists. He was in situation where he was actually the bully in the village. And he resented the character that he became or the role that he was playing as a basically a colonial policeman. And that was an important break for him.

[Damon Fairless]

Right. And he, you know, that's really like he's got that famous essay, shooting an elephant, right? And that's, that's really what that's about, is that moment, among other things.

[Raoul Peck]

But he talks also very long on it in that essays why I Write, which is one of the essays that also gave me, I would say, the red line of the whole story, the man storyline, you know, where he's very candidly, sincerely, you know, like an act of contrition, telling what he felt when he went to Burma and why writing was important for him and what was his, I would say, his motivation to become a writer and that the fight against injustice was important to him and was an important motivation for him.

[George Orwell (voice actor reading Orwell's words)]

My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice.

[Raoul Peck]

And so that station in Burma was one of the key element of his life.

[Damon Fairless]

Raul, I, I want to move on to some parallels to his work, to things that are happening on today. So the words dystopian and Orwellian, they both get a lot of plays these days, right? They're, they're really part of the zeitgeist. You can see that when people are like connecting with shows like Black Mirror and films like Minority Report. Why do you think these ideas about dystopia feel so urgent right now?

[Raoul Peck]

Well, I would say I would have a problem if today we continue to use dystopia, because if you are basically creating a world that actually is absurd. Yes, it seems in the future. But if it's a way not to deal with reality, then I have a problem with it because reality, especially the one we are experimenting right now, is absurd.

[Damon Fairless]

So, yeah, like, I mean, dystopia defined a while ago, but reality or documentary as defined by today. Yes.

[Raoul Peck]

And that's also the goal of this film is to enables you to be able to analyze your reality because Orwell is providing you with the tools it, providing you with the possibility to analyze, to put names on what is happening today. Because I can see that, you know, I've had a lot of Q&As and discussion with the audience, not only in the US but in Britain, in, in Germany, in France. And I could see how part of the audience is totally lost because they don't even know how to name what is happening, you know, and they are, they, they seems to be discovering that something like that could happen in what they thought was a solid democracy.

[Damon Fairless]

That's kind of what makes Orwell, like looking back on him is part of what makes him so amazing. Right, because he died in 1950, so he didn't see the Internet. There was none of the surveillance tech that we have today, you know, predictive policing, facial recognition, that sort of thing. And he still managed to kind of conjure up versions of that in his writing. What, like where did, where did that insight come from? How did that happen?

[Raoul Peck]

Because he analyzed the basic of the way our societies function. You know, when he says, you know, you need to know your history, that means a lot of those structures happened before. It's nothing new. What is new is the technology applied, but in fact is analyzing capitalism, is analyzing the way class works, the relationship between classes, the relationship to profit. That's his analysis. And as long as we are in the middle of a capitalistic society, those rules still exist. And that's why they are still so precise in his analysis, because those behavior were already there. In the beginning of the 20th century, we had a moment where radio, newspapers, et cetera, book editing were in the very few ends. But what happened, there were resistance, there were people fighting that. And, and then there were regulations, antitrust laws, you know, and so it was nothing new in that sense. And that's why when we talk about toolbox, those are toolbox of capitalism. Those are toolbox. You know, if we just accept those, if we just accept the reality as something that historically is new, we won't understand what's going on, you know, and, and that's why those tools are important. Because they are not new. They are just presented differently. And their impact, of course, today, or even worse, because we are coming to a limit of, on many levels, the limit of, you know, climate change, the limit of. Of water, the limit of population. When you have a population that is becoming older and older in the Western world, the limit of the strength. Now, you don't have a bipolar world. Orwell's work was used as a tool against the Soviet Union. It was a tool in the Cold War. And that's one of the things that Orwell is so mistaken, because he died basically four months after finishing 1984. So he wasn't there to spin his book the right way. That's why I kept this sentence when he's one of the few letters where he's responding to accusations from the labor union, saying, you're almost a traitor. He said, no, I'm not attacking the labor union. I'm just warning you not to go into that kind of. Of society, like in fascism and communism.

[Damon Fairless]

What's really interesting, though, right, is that if you look ahead to now, right, there's not a lot of writers who have been claimed by people all over the political spectrum, right? So he was really clear about his convictions as a democratic socialist. But since then, his words, his writing been invoked by the far left, the fascist right, and every. Basically everyone in between. You know, there's Big Brother, Newspeak, Thoughtcrime, Doublethink. These are all parts of the political language of our day, particularly so on the right these days. I think that's fair to say. And what's really interesting is US President Donald Trump is among those who have recently praised Orwell publicly.

[Actor/Voice Actor (reading Orwellian quotes)]

If humanity speaks, writes, thinks, and prays in the language born on these isles and perfected in the pages of Shakespeare and Dickens and Tolkien, Lewis, Orwell, Kipling, incredible people.

[Damon Fairless]

So, like, I guess that's kind of what blows my mind. What is it about Orwell that has such a broad appeal across the political spectrum? Like he was fighting fascists in Spain. It's amazing that the far right is invoking him.

[Raoul Peck]

Well, but because ignorance is strength, you know, they make almost Orwell say the contrary of what Orwell says. That's why this film is important, because it's a sort of rehabilitation of Orwell. It's a sort of putting Orwell back where he belongs. And Orwell's words are very clear. There is no alternative facts for Orwell. You know, two plus two is not five. That's why I use that in the title, because it's the ultimate sample formula, arithmetic, formula that pays. No doubt, you know, that the far right is using it is because they are counting on the people's ignorance. On the contrary, Orwell, explain this behavior very well. That's what authoritarian regime again do. They attack institution, they attack language, they attack justice, they attack books and knowledge. And you come back to the party slogan, you know, a war is peace, ignorance is strength, freedom is slavery, you know, and that's exactly where we are. It's not because they use it that, you know, it makes them right about it. On the contrary, they fit the caricature.

[Damon Fairless]

Raoul, you've been in Orwell's head quite a bit lately. What do you think George Orwell would make of what's going on these days?

[Raoul Peck]

Well, I think he would shake his head and he would just say, you know, I have nothing to add. This is exactly what I've been telling you 75 years ago. That's it. We don't have to rebuild the world again and again. We just have to learn from history.

[Damon Fairless]

Raoul, thank you so much for coming on.

[Raoul Peck]

Thank you for inviting me.

[Damon Fairless]

That's all for today. Front Burner was produced this week by Jyota Shangupta, Matt Museum, Matthew Amha, Lauren Donley, MacKenzie Cameron, Sam McNulty and Kevin Sexton. Our YouTube producer is John Lee. Our music is by Joseph Shabazin. Our senior producer is Elaine Chao. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe. Lokos. And I'm Damon Fairless in for Jamie Poisson. She'll be back next week. Thanks for listening.

[CBC Announcer]

For more CBC podcasts, go to CBC CA Podcasts.