It's also worth reading Asimov review of Orwell's 1984 (http://www.newworker.org/ncptrory/1984.htm).

There's a kind of person out there who really likes George Orwell, Steven Pinker, David Foster Wallace, Christopher Hitchens, etc. which all pander to a political sensibility that is very self-congratulatory about inaction, and consistently says "things are fine, don't rock the boat, you'll make things worse".

It's ironic that on HN, critics of Orwell's work are said to be "your typical critics", but really, it's Orwell and Pinker and co. that consistently push/pushed out tracts that are critical takedowns of third parties. So their readers are now smugly self-satisfied twice over: once when agreeing with the authors, once while dismissing their critics.