In a move that probably has George Orwell either spinning in his grave or saying “I told you so,” the University of Northampton, England, has put a “trigger warning” on Orwell’s “1984” because it has “explicit material which some students may find offensive and upsetting,” according to a report in The Daily Mail.

“1984,” published in 1949, is a dystopian science-fiction story in which a totalitarian state run by the Party and Big Brother rules over everyone’s thoughts, monitors everyone’s move, changes any history the Party doesn’t agree with, and anyone who steps out of line becomes an “unperson” and is dealt with harshly. The novel put many terms into our common lexicon, such as “doublethink,” in which a subject is expected to accept two contradictory beliefs as correct, often at odds with their own memories or reality; and “newspeak,” a controlled language that limits the ability to think for yourself and eliminates concepts the Party finds “subversive,” such as free will.

It is a harsh and difficult story. It has been on many best 100 novels list, and is required reading for many high school and college students. This is not the first time that it has been marked as inappropriate, nor will it be the last.

Orwell wrote many essays upon which “1984” expands, especially on the dangers of obsessive nationalism, propaganda and censorship and poverty.

None of those ideas is fun to tackle, but college is the time to do that. It is also important for them to learn to face difficult, frightening things. As you might remember, that is exactly what some of the characters in “1984” did, and it led right to the horrific future Orwell imagined.