Arab Press

بالشعب و للشعب
Tuesday, Jan 20, 2026

A 'trigger warning' on ‘1984’? Big Brother would be proud!

A 'trigger warning' on ‘1984’? Big Brother would be proud!

The University of Northampton, an institution which appears to have suffered an irony bypass, slapped a trigger warning on ‘1984’ because it contains “explicit material,” which some students may find “offensive and upsetting”.

Thus, another great work of English literature is branded ‘bad’, or ‘doubleplus-ungood’ if you prefer.

It seems the Thought Police are alive and well in Northampton. I mean, God forbid we wake the woke by letting them read George Orwell’s ‘1984’ without a warning that it may be as hazardous to their mental health as cigarettes are to their lungs. Perhaps “I read Orwell, but I didn’t inhale” will be the excuse du jour of future politicians?

The woke must be warned to steel themselves with icy resolve if they are to turn the pages of ‘1984’, lest they awaken and see exactly where their dreams of ‘social justice’ are taking us. Reading ‘1984’ could cause the snowflakes to have an embarrassing meltdown in class as they recognize themselves as the villains (though this would require a level of self-awareness hitherto unseen on their part). They would, then, need to retreat to their safety puddles to comfort each other with assurances that their work as the social-media posse enforcing the state’s Groupthink policies is for the betterment and unification of a world without discordant ideas.

I have my doubts over whether ‘1984’ could even be published today because it places its crosshairs on the very censorship that governs the educational, journalistic and artistic realms of our time. Ironically, on the other hand, perhaps it would simply read like a boring tale of the world as it is, so readers would only wonder what was bothering Winston Smith so much about life on Air Strip One.

But if it did get published, and actually started gaining attention and waking people up, it would, with equal irony, likely suffer the fate of the books in Ray Bradbury’s ‘Fahrenheit 451’. It is, in internet terms, already being flamed by what the university has to say about it.

Appropriately, the literature course that provides this warning is part of a module labeled “Identity Under Construction,” as no one is certain of their identity today, thanks to schools like this pedaling gender-fluid, trans-sexual, non-binary nonsense to woke students. This is why they must take college courses to figure out what children previously understood in pre-school. There are so many gender choices now, since schools began indoctrinating students into thinking they cannot just look down at their groins to know their gender. The question, with which maybe one in a thousand unfortunate, confused souls once struggled, has now become a universal struggle.

But I digress.

Some have tried to blame this kind of insane wokeness on “Foreign Powers” (they mean Russia).


One could be forgiven for thinking Mr. Graham has a point because, as this next fellow points out (if I may still venture this is a “fellow” without checking preferred pronouns), the strategy is showing great returns already if it were a nefarious plot:


But, in the reality, the truth is much closer to this writer’s theory:

“The America government and establishment is now culturally to the left of most of its great power rivals, such as Russia, China, and Iran, not to mention friends like India, Israel, Poland and even, perhaps, France. The U.S. government sponsoring Woke-adjacent consciousness-raising on their soil is a running annoyance, much less the power of the U.S. media…. In general, why [should Russia or China] bother? The U.S. is self-destructing for free, so if you are Putin or Xi, it’s best just to sit back and watch the show.”

As Vladimir Putin, himself, has said, Russia has been there, done that, and doesn’t need to do it again, while apparently the West needs to learn by its own hard path:

“The advocates of so-called 'social progress' believe they are introducing humanity to some kind of a new and better consciousness. Godspeed, hoist the flags, as we say, go right ahead. The only thing that I want to say now is that their prescriptions are not new at all. It may come as a surprise to some people, but Russia has been there already. After the 1917 revolution, the Bolsheviks, relying on the dogmas of Marx and Engels, also said that they would change existing ways and customs, and not just political and economic ones, but the very notion of human morality and the foundations of a healthy society. The destruction of age-old values, religion, and relations between people, up to and including the total rejection of family (we had that, too), encouragement to inform on loved ones – all this was proclaimed progress and, by the way, was widely supported around the world back then and was quite fashionable, same as today. By the way, the Bolsheviks were absolutely intolerant of opinions other than theirs.”

Indeed, it doesn’t take “the Russians” to make something like this happen in America or in the UK when it is mandated from within by authorities in government, in business and the arts:

“The 'explosion of woke,' as one longtime producer put it, didn't come out of nowhere. Hollywood had always pushed boundaries—from the 1947 'Gentleman's Agreement,' which confronted antisemitism, to 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' (1967), which tackled interracial marriage, to 'All in the Family' (1971-1979), which grappled with race and women's liberation.”

Now, even All in the Family has been stashed out of sight because Archie Bunker would have been a Trump voter, and we can’t have that on mainstream television!

Since the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences launched its Representation and Inclusion Standards Entry platform (or RAISE), all producers hoping for a Best Picture award must provide detailed information about every person involved in the production showing they meet the following criteria:

The lead or significant supporting actors must be any race but White or, at least, 30% of the actors in supporting roles must be any race but White or must be LGBTQ or people with disabilities, or the main storyline must be about such people and their issues. Similar standards apply for the crew behind the production. (You can read the exact wording here.)

Of course, people may get sick of having this social agenda shouted into their ears and flashed into their eyes every time they sit down for entertainment. In which case, movie theaters may continue to wane into irrelevance and so might television that is produced by the BIPOC-LGBTQ corporations. (Because we just cannot have enough letters for our underrepresented peoples groups. Could we just call them all “UPG”s for short?)

As one RT writer said of the Academy’s new plot, we may soon reach “the near irrelevance of an entire industry (almost an entire art form) from self-destructive guilt.”

Because you dare not fall behind on wokeness, or the thought police will arrest you, even television producers are adhering to the Academy’s standards. The LA Times reports that “CBS mandated that writers' rooms be at least 40 percent black, indigenous and people of color (or BIPOC) for the 2021-2022 broadcast season and 50 percent for the 2022-2023 season.”

Oh, good, Safe Zones within CBS to create a woke-rich source of material for trite sit-coms. Of course, I need not apply because I call myself a WHAM! (White Heterosexual American Male!) None of those letters appear in the approved acronyms of Newspeak.

The changes are so intense and pervasive among the gatekeepers of culture and knowledge that Jordan Peterson resigned his position as tenured university professor at the University of Toronto because he said he felt like he was essentially defrauding his mostly white heterosexual male graduate students (they were Canadian, so they can’t call themselves WHAMs!) just by teaching them because they didn’t really have a shot at getting employment or of gaining research positions in their own university. He describes a university that sounds more like the Ministry of Truth:

“Diversity, Inclusivity and Equity mandates (my preferred acronym: DIE)…have been imposed universally in academia, despite the fact that university hiring committees had already done everything reasonable for all the years of my career… to ensure…no qualified ‘minority’ candidates were ever overlooked…. How can I accept prospective researchers and train them in good conscience knowing their employment prospects to be minimal?”

“Second…there simply is not enough qualified BIPOC people in the pipeline to meet diversity targets quickly enough…. This means we’re out to produce a generation of researchers utterly unqualified for the job…. That, combined with the death of objective testing, has compromised the universities so badly that it can hardly be overstated.”

So, the thought police of the West’s major universities and major media producers will make certain you are rigorously tested not for your skills and credits, especially in racist math, but for your adherence to woke orthodoxy and how well you fit in with the protected groups of the day. This line of thinking will be reinforced throughout your education and later in corporate communication as the language of Newspeak. (Time to read ‘1984’ if you don’t recognize that term because you’ll need to.)

I’ll leave you with this quote from the man himself: “Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

Arab Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Saudi Arabia Advances Ambitious Artificial River Mega-Project to Transform Water Security
Saudi Crown Prince and Syrian President Discuss Stabilisation, Reconstruction and Regional Ties in Riyadh Talks
Mohammed bin Salman Confronts the ‘Iranian Moment’ as Saudi Leadership Faces Regional Test
Cybercrime, Inc.: When Crime Becomes an Economy. How the World Accidentally Built a Twenty-Trillion-Dollar Criminal Economy
Strategic Restraint, Credible Force, and the Discipline of Power
Donald Trump Organization Unveils Championship Golf Course and Luxury Resort Project in Saudi Arabia
Inside Diriyah: Saudi Arabia’s $63.2 Billion Vision to Transform Its Historic Heart into a Global Tourism Powerhouse
Trump Designates Saudi Arabia a Major Non-NATO Ally, Elevating US–Riyadh Defense Partnership
Trump Organization Deepens Saudi Property Focus with $10 Billion Luxury Developments
There is no sovereign immunity for poisoning millions with drugs.
Mohammed bin Salman’s Global Standing: Strategic Partner in Transition Amid Debate Over His Role
Saudi Arabia Opens Property Market to Foreign Buyers in Landmark Reform
The U.S. State Department’s account in Persian: “President Trump is a man of action. If you didn’t know it until now, now you do—do not play games with President Trump.”
CNN’s Ranking of Israel’s Women’s Rights Sparks Debate After Misleading Global Index Comparison
Saudi Arabia’s Shifting Regional Alignment Raises Strategic Concerns in Jerusalem
OPEC+ Holds Oil Output Steady Amid Member Tensions and Market Oversupply
Iranian Protests Intensify as Another Revolutionary Guard Member Is Killed and Khamenei Blames the West
President Trump Says United States Will Administer Venezuela Until a Secure Leadership Transition
Delta Force Identified as Unit Behind U.S. Operation That Captured Venezuela’s President
Saudi-UAE Rift Adds Complexity to Middle East Diplomacy as Trump Signals Firm Leadership
OPEC+ to Keep Oil Output Policy Unchanged Despite Saudi-UAE Tensions Over Yemen
Saudi Arabia and UAE at Odds in Yemen Conflict as Southern Offensive Deepens Gulf Rift
Abu Dhabi ‘Capital of Capital’: How Abu Dhabi Rose as a Sovereign Wealth Power
Diamonds Are Powering a New Quantum Revolution
Trump Threatens Strikes Against Iran if Nuclear Programme Is Restarted
Why Saudi Arabia May Recalibrate Its US Spending Commitments Amid Rising China–America Rivalry
Riyadh Air’s First Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner Completes Initial Test Flight, Advancing Saudi Carrier’s Launch
Saudi Arabia’s 2025: A Pivotal Year of Global Engagement and Domestic Transformation
Saudi Arabia to Introduce Sugar-Content Based Tax on Sweetened Drinks from January 2026
Saudi Hotels Prepare for New Hospitality Roles as Alcohol Curbs Ease
Global Airports Forum Highlights Saudi Arabia’s Emergence as a Leading Aviation Powerhouse
Saudi Arabia Weighs Strategic Choice on Iran Amid Regional Turbulence
Saudi Arabia Condemns Sydney Bondi Beach Shooting and Expresses Solidarity with Australia
Washington Watches Beijing–Riyadh Rapprochement as Strategic Balance Shifts
Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 Drives Measurable Lift in Global Reputation and Influence
Alcohol Policies Vary Widely Across Muslim-Majority Countries, With Many Permitting Consumption Under Specific Rules
Saudi Arabia Clarifies No Formal Ban on Photography at Holy Mosques for Hajj 2026
Libya and Saudi Arabia Sign Strategic MoU to Boost Telecommunications Cooperation
Elon Musk’s xAI Announces Landmark 500-Megawatt AI Data Center in Saudi Arabia
Israel Moves to Safeguard Regional Stability as F-35 Sales Debate Intensifies
Cardi B to Make Historic Saudi Arabia Debut at Soundstorm 2025 Festival
U.S. Democratic Lawmakers Raise National Security and Influence Concerns Over Paramount’s Hostile Bid for Warner Bros. Discovery
Hackers Are Hiding Malware in Open-Source Tools and IDE Extensions
Traveling to USA? Homeland Security moving toward requiring foreign travelers to share social media history
Wall Street Analysts Clash With Riyadh Over Saudi Arabia’s Deficit Outlook
Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Cement $1 Trillion-Plus Deals in High-Profile White House Summit
Saudi Arabia Opens Alcohol Sales to Wealthy Non-Muslim Residents Under New Access Rules
U.S.–Saudi Rethink Deepens — Washington Moves Ahead Without Linking Riyadh to Israel Normalisation
Saudi Arabia and Israel Deprioritise Diplomacy: Normalisation No Longer a Middle-East Priority
As Trump Deepens Ties with Saudi Arabia, Push for Israel Normalization Takes a Back Seat
×