Fleming's Not Orwell's World

In today's Times, there's an interesting piece on the latest book by literary critic and theorist Tzvetan Todorov. In his book, Todorov puts forward a somewhat surprising argument, that Europe itself has to rearm. To read the article, click here. Unfortunately, the article doesn't so much engage Todorov as it reports him, but it's worth a read, anyway. Todorov's observation that we've moved from the world of Orwellian governmental conflicts to Flemingesque super-villainy has something very much to it, which we should all find very disturbing indeed, mainly because we're then firmly ensconced in the world of the cult of personality, and the world of the daisy chain of bad guys.