Since George Orwell pub­lished his land­mark polit­i­cal fable 1984, each gen­er­a­tion has found ample rea­son to make ref­er­ence to the grim near-future envi­sioned by the nov­el. Whether Orwell had some prophet­ic vision or was sim­ply a very astute read­er of the insti­tu­tions of his day—all still with us in mutat­ed form—hardly mat­ters. His book set the tone for the next 70-plus years of dystopi­an fic­tion and film. Orwell’s own polit­i­cal activities—his stint as a colo­nial police­man or his denun­ci­a­tion of sev­er­al col­leagues and friends to British intel­li­gence—may ren­der him sus­pect in some quar­ters. But his night­mar­ish fic­tion­al pro­jec­tions of total­i­tar­i­an rule strike a nerve with near­ly every­one on the polit­i­cal spec­trum because, like the spec­u­la­tive future Aldous Hux­ley cre­at­ed, no one wants to live in such a world. Or at least no one will admit it if they do. Even the insti­tu­tions most like­ly to thrive in Orwell’s vision have co-opt­ed his work for their own pur­pos­es. The C.I.A. rewrote the ani­mat­ed film ver­sion of Ani­mal Farm. And if you’re of a cer­tain vin­tage, you’ll recall Apple’s appro­pri­a­tion …