“If there is hope, it lies in the proles.” That’s what the protagonist Winston Smith thinks in George Orwell’s dystopian satire Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Winston thinks that the proles — the oppressed and exploited workers — could shake off the tyranny of the ruling party like a “horse shaking off flies.” All they needed to... Read More

I was too optimistic. Far too optimistic. I should have remembered what Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) wrote centuries ago: “When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.” And there was certainly a confederacy of dunces against the highly intelligent and... Read More