I just reread George Orwell's '1984' and the novel is scarier than ever

It's been 75 years since author George Orwell penned his final novel: "1984." I reread the novel this year and Orwell's vision of a totalitarian society is scarier than ever.

Today’s version of Big Brother, of course, propagated and strengthened by social media, is cancel culture.  The first step toward totalitarianism is allowing other people to think for us or to redefine words so that their real meanings are lost. If we aren’t careful, freedom itself, as Orwell would have said, will slide right down the memory hole. New York Times bestselling author Michael Levin runs www.MichaelLevinWrites.com, a book ghostwriting firm.

Orwell sought to demonstrate the dangers not just of totalitarianism but of a world where words lose their meaning. Many of the terms he coined for the novel have since entered common discourse -- "thought police," "Big Brother," "doublethink," and the "memory hole," to name a few. And of course the adjective "Orwellian" comes to us because of this book. All of them point to the loss of our most precious freedom -- freedom of thought. And unfortunately, that’s where we as a society appear to be headed today.