I RECENTLY popped into a large Portuguese chain-store and found that it contained a sizable display of dystopian texts, so despite the place being full of sleepwalking customers with more interest in electronic gadgetry I made the logical assumption that either these books are becoming increasingly popular or, as is the more likely option, that they are part of a deliberate sales-pitch.

What does that say about contemporary society, I wonder? And what of the fact that a statue of George Orwell stands right outside London’s Broadcasting House, the very headquarters of the decidedly Orwellian BBC? This, remember, is a global corporation upon which he modelled his own Ministry of Truth. Imagine if Orwell himself had been similar to Emmanuel Goldstein and that his Nineteen Eighty-Four is really an Establishment blueprint that had been written to order. More realistically, perhaps, the powers-that-be have simply noted the value of manipulating populations through the forms of extreme surveillance, thought-control and linguistic paradox that he so brilliantly described.

And what if Margaret Atwood, authoress of The Handmaid’s Tale – itself modelled on Orwellian dystopianism – were really a ‘handmaid’ of a secret cabal whose feminist methods have long been destined for the mainstream? These were just two of the writers featured in the display.

We are told that forewarned is forearmed, but it remains a fact that many of the issues discussed in repressive fiction become self-fulfilling prophecies. Furthermore, this is precisely why oppressive Western governments need dystopian fiction – it makes them seem comparatively more just. It even appears that many of these notions are set loose in the public imagination so that, over time, we resign ourselves to the perceived inevitability of a totalitarian future. If we capitulate to the whining victimhood that one finds at each end of the political spectrum, be it left or right, we may as well give up now.

These are very repressive times, but there are many things that we can do to restore the Natural Order and shove a large pointy stick in the all-seeing Eye of Sauron at the same time. Regardless whether it is Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia or so-called liberal-democracy, totalitarian systems are based on fear and we must not lose sight of the fact that it is they who fear us.