Commentary
Towards the beginning of “Nineteen-Eighty-Four,” George Orwell has his unhappy protagonist Winston Smith jot down what he describes as an “axiom.”
“Freedom,” he writes, “is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
That seemingly simple, in reality deep, observation is akin to Bishop Butler’s bijou that “everything is what it is, and not another thing.”
How much mischief could have been avoided if people, especially people in power, were to take such commonsense wisdom to heart?
Italy’s new prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, seems to be a rare member of the genus homo politicus in embracing such commonsensical positions….