does 1984 critique real-life totalitarianism, communism, etc.
Warner suggests (127): "1984 is [...] easier to read as the negative image against which liberal society defines itself than a plausible critique of existing alternatives"
"Orwell's dystopia stirs readers because the frustration it asks them to imagine is common enough not just behind the old Iron Curtain but here in the land of freedom, under civil-society conditions, whenever the available genres and publics of possible address do not readily lend themselves to a world-making project"