Why Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act

Waking up every morning in what feels like a dystopian nightmare, I’ve been thinking about the warnings left behind by two of the 20th century’s most prophetic writers: George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. Though their dystopias looked different—1984 ruled by fear and control, Brave New World by pleasure and passivity—they shared a common plea: Pay attention. Use your voice. Resist erasure.

Orwell didn’t write to entertain. He wrote to expose. He believed in language as a weapon against tyranny, and he wielded it with purpose. “In a time of deceit,” he said, “telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” That single sentence should be a manifesto for all of us.

His books still resonate because the threats he warned us about—surveillance, censorship, propaganda, the erasure of history—are not just theoretical. They’re real. And they’re here.

In 1984, truth becomes whatever the state says it is. Reality is rewritten in real-time. In Animal Farm, those in power rewrite the rules until the revolution becomes indistinguishable from the oppression it sought to overthrow. Orwell shows us that language isn’t neutral. Words are a tool of power. And if we don’t use them with integrity, others will use them against us.

And perhaps one of Orwell’s most urgent lessons: “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” We see this happening everywhere—from the banning of books to the rewriting of curricula. When we tell the truth about our communities, our pasts, and our lived realities, we’re documenting history and preserving humanity for future generations.

Huxley’s Brave New World offers a different kind of warning—one that feels increasingly urgent. In Huxley’s dystopia, the truth isn’t beaten out of people; it’s drowned in comfort, entertainment, and distraction. There’s no need for censorship when no one wants to read. No need to rewrite history when people are too entertained to remember it.

Huxley feared a future where people would come to love their own oppression, distracted by endless consumption and pacified by superficial pleasures. Where truth would be ignored, rather than forbidden.

This is what makes our work as writers and activists so vital today. Whether we’re writing essays, organizing communities, or sharing truths on social media, we are up against both Orwellian manipulation and Huxleyan distraction. One wants to silence us. The other wants to lull us into indifference.

But language is power. Stories are resistance. And truth, in the hands of those brave enough to wield it, can still cut through the noise.

As writers, we embrace clarity. Orwell’s advice—“Never use a long word where a short one will do”—isn’t just about style. It’s about making your message impossible to distort. Keep your sentences sharp, your ideas accessible, and your purpose front and center.

As activists, we take that same clarity and match it with courage. Because speaking the truth comes with risks. Pushback. Erasure. Burnout. Orwell understood that too: “The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.” But he also knew the price of staying silent.

We don’t just fight for justice in the streets—we fight for it in our stories. In our essays, poems, op-eds, speeches, and social media posts. Every word we write, every image we post, every article we share is a chance to resist the narratives that seek to erase, divide, or pacify us.

Activism rooted in storytelling has always been one of the most powerful tools for social change. Who gets to tell the story shapes who is seen as human, who is believed, and who is remembered.

Speak the truth, even when it’s unpopular.
Write with courage, even when it’s risky.
Create stories that don’t just inform—but awaken.

Because the world doesn’t just need more content. It needs more clarity.
It doesn’t need more noise. It needs meaning.
It needs our stories, and people brave enough to tell them.

Because telling the truth isn’t just an act of bravery. It’s an act of resistance. And possibly the only hope we have for liberation.