1984 and animal farm: the idealism of paranoia
by Sara Aronson
September 08, 2001
It's pretty much unanimous amongst those acquainted with the book 1984 that an Orwellian world is not somewhere one wants to live. For some reason, a country of coercion, widespread manipulation, brainwashing, and general acts against humanity does not appeal to many people. Unless, of course, they can be the pig holding the cards.
The phantasmagoric negative wonderland portrayed in George Orwell's most famous novels are enough to launch readers into feverish scrutiny of the strings that pull on them and the lens pieces that focus on them. Coining the term "Big Brother" to refer to the pathological voyeurs in power, he gave the world a new paradigm under which they could file such deception and propaganda. Before, people cried tyranny; they accused their leaders of scandal and decadence. The educated called what power plays they saw "Machiavellian", despotic but not necessarily a hierarchy of clandestine intent. Orwell gave the world words for the impotent helpless feeling of the represed and introduced a fuller way of thinking about the perceptual engineering of the ruling elite.
Famous not for his pleasant subject matter, but for his chilling tales of what the human race is capable of, Orwell creates metaphors that seem realer than real to his readers. But how real is this "Negative Utopia"? Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, Hitler, Milosevic, Castro . . . the lists goes on. Desire to control is by no means an endangered species, though Orwell's books might lead us to believe that free will has gone the way of the dodo bird. Is human nature intrinsically unable to resist control? Orwell seemed to insert his hopes that our race would rebel. Certainly 1984's Winston dissented, although in the end he was not strong enough to overcome the machinery of perfect control. Will humanity still search for truth and authenticity if all individual growth is repressed? Will generations that have never tasted the freedom of their own intellect know what they are missing?
In fact, the inconsistency of Orwell's world and the one that most of us perceive lies not in the strength of our character, will, determination or any of that other load of ego excrement. Truthfully, even the most machine-like dictatorship can never be perfect enough to reach such a level of organization that not a single, solitary hole can be found in their police state. What leader or set of leaders could construct a government with such foresight that nothing could overthrow it and no insurrections could be organized against it? Surely no one has seen such an example of such supreme planning skills. Even with the most extreme planning, even with large teams devoted to identifying all possible courses of action, even with highly coordinated agencies with billions of tax dollars to spend and years of experience behind them, even they can't predict every single future and plan alternate courses of action for anything that might happen. The world isn't an ideal place. That makes things very, very hard a mind that has been conditioned to the orderliness of military or bureaucratic environments to cope with. Conditions not within the realm of experience, by their very nature, cannot be accurately outlined, and, let us just say that there are many things Homo sapiens are unknowledgeable about. Worse than that, foreseen hazards and prevention thereof can fall by the wayside simply because of apathy, laziness, or gross lack of recognition of the problem so how can unforeseen problems be handled with such omnipotent accuracy and efficiency? Find one bureaucracy that actually seems to function over large periods of time. You really can't do it- you'll find more institutions that are renowned for being inefficient, indifferent, and ineffectual. Suppose one of the Ministries in 1984 had alerted another of a sighting of a pink piece of paper on a worker's desk. Even though they knew that Big Brother would never allow such a treasonous color to assault his loyal followers, the workers of say, Minipax, more than likely would be overworked and busy with a million other things (as most organizations monitoring every action of the entire populace generally are, because even if the quantity of help is increased, so is the quantity of the work load). That is, of course, if the Ministry who noticed the discrepancy even had the time or inclination to report the depravity, assuming, of course, that the people who saw the infraction weren't too paranoid themselves to report it. After all, the people monitoring all the personnel have hordes of people to look at, many things to do, and probably very little incentive to be alert enough in their job to notice one piece of paper out of the billions in that one building alone. In Orwell's world, this would be noticed. In the real world, the oversight of that paper would end up destroying the chance to catch an operative that is slipping passwords to a liberation movement. It's always the little things that cumulate, like the butterfly that flaps its wings and causes a hurricane.
All right now. Assume this is all wrong. Humans are capable of sophistication, cooperation, and the high level of organization needed to establish the control found in Orwell's novels. But can you imagine a group of people who can get along with each other well enough to mastermind a whole country wanting to manipulate people? If this group have the people skills to compromise and work together on such a massive scale without precarious infighting, wouldn't that preclude inherent avarice and domination? How could someone have learned how to interact with their peers but not learned to respect them? Furthermore, how could technology have developed to monitor everyone so closely without counter-technology springing up? Its hard to presume that so many people would devote time and effort so one-sidedly when there are just as many incentives to do them all.
Suppose that, although the words said that the men were but men and the animals only animals, that the authority was of a divine nature. Looking at it like that would create metaphors upon metaphors in Animal Farm and an underlying layer of substance in 1984. Big Brother is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent yet secluded from the everyday world in a more heavenly realm of influence, and the protector of his people. The traditional notion of God shows him as omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent yet secluded from the everyday world in a more heavenly realm of influence, and the protector of his people. Now, what conclusions can be drawn from this? One could gather that Orwell wrote of the anxieties of being judged upon death. Or perhaps Big Brother was an absentee deity that gave his minions free rein to terrorize the world in His name.
Although we see atrocities, oppression, manipulation and autocracy in the world, there is no Big Brother (unless you count that pitiful excuse for reality TV). There are no perfect masters, let alone perfect slaves. Just as it is impossible to create a perpetual motion machine, it is beyond anyone's grasp to effectively make so many people unwittingly do their bidding without being replaced by someone just as power-hungry, but more conniving. Our species just isn't up to that kind of perfection, even if its dystopian perfection.
Sorry, Mr. Orwell, it looks like you were a little optimistic. This bunch of evolutionary rejects just isn't up to fulfilling your nightmares.
(and santa claus doesn't exist either)
R
ronson
(view)
1984 and animal farm: the idealism of paranoia
by Sara Aronson
September 08, 2001
It's pretty much unanimous amongst those acquainted with the book 1984 that an Orwellian world is not somewhere one wants to live. For some reason, a country of coercion, widespread manipulation, brainwashing, and general acts against humanity does not appeal to many people. Unless, of course, they can be the pig holding the cards.
The phantasmagoric negative wonderland portrayed in George Orwell's most famous novels are enough to launch readers into feverish scrutiny of the strings that pull on them and the lens pieces that focus on them. Coining the term "Big Brother" to refer to the pathological voyeurs in power, he gave the world a new paradigm under which they could file such deception and propaganda. Before, people cried tyranny; they accused their leaders of scandal and decadence. The educated called what power plays they saw "Machiavellian", despotic but not necessarily a hierarchy of clandestine intent. Orwell gave the world words for the impotent helpless feeling of the represed and introduced a fuller way of thinking about the perceptual engineering of the ruling elite.
Famous not for his pleasant subject matter, but for his chilling tales of what the human race is capable of, Orwell creates metaphors that seem realer than real to his readers. But how real is this "Negative Utopia"? Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, Hitler, Milosevic, Castro . . . the lists goes on. Desire to control is by no means an endangered species, though Orwell's books might lead us to believe that free will has gone the way of the dodo bird. Is human nature intrinsically unable to resist control? Orwell seemed to insert his hopes that our race would rebel. Certainly 1984's Winston dissented, although in the end he was not strong enough to overcome the machinery of perfect control. Will humanity still search for truth and authenticity if all individual growth is repressed? Will generations that have never tasted the freedom of their own intellect know what they are missing?
In fact, the inconsistency of Orwell's world and the one that most of us perceive lies not in the strength of our character, will, determination or any of that other load of ego excrement. Truthfully, even the most machine-like dictatorship can never be perfect enough to reach such a level of organization that not a single, solitary hole can be found in their police state. What leader or set of leaders could construct a government with such foresight that nothing could overthrow it and no insurrections could be organized against it? Surely no one has seen such an example of such supreme planning skills. Even with the most extreme planning, even with large teams devoted to identifying all possible courses of action, even with highly coordinated agencies with billions of tax dollars to spend and years of experience behind them, even they can't predict every single future and plan alternate courses of action for anything that might happen. The world isn't an ideal place. That makes things very, very hard a mind that has been conditioned to the orderliness of military or bureaucratic environments to cope with. Conditions not within the realm of experience, by their very nature, cannot be accurately outlined, and, let us just say that there are many things Homo sapiens are unknowledgeable about. Worse than that, foreseen hazards and prevention thereof can fall by the wayside simply because of apathy, laziness, or gross lack of recognition of the problem so how can unforeseen problems be handled with such omnipotent accuracy and efficiency? Find one bureaucracy that actually seems to function over large periods of time. You really can't do it- you'll find more institutions that are renowned for being inefficient, indifferent, and ineffectual. Suppose one of the Ministries in 1984 had alerted another of a sighting of a pink piece of paper on a worker's desk. Even though they knew that Big Brother would never allow such a treasonous color to assault his loyal followers, the workers of say, Minipax, more than likely would be overworked and busy with a million other things (as most organizations monitoring every action of the entire populace generally are, because even if the quantity of help is increased, so is the quantity of the work load). That is, of course, if the Ministry who noticed the discrepancy even had the time or inclination to report the depravity, assuming, of course, that the people who saw the infraction weren't too paranoid themselves to report it. After all, the people monitoring all the personnel have hordes of people to look at, many things to do, and probably very little incentive to be alert enough in their job to notice one piece of paper out of the billions in that one building alone. In Orwell's world, this would be noticed. In the real world, the oversight of that paper would end up destroying the chance to catch an operative that is slipping passwords to a liberation movement. It's always the little things that cumulate, like the butterfly that flaps its wings and causes a hurricane.
All right now. Assume this is all wrong. Humans are capable of sophistication, cooperation, and the high level of organization needed to establish the control found in Orwell's novels. But can you imagine a group of people who can get along with each other well enough to mastermind a whole country wanting to manipulate people? If this group have the people skills to compromise and work together on such a massive scale without precarious infighting, wouldn't that preclude inherent avarice and domination? How could someone have learned how to interact with their peers but not learned to respect them? Furthermore, how could technology have developed to monitor everyone so closely without counter-technology springing up? Its hard to presume that so many people would devote time and effort so one-sidedly when there are just as many incentives to do them all.
Suppose that, although the words said that the men were but men and the animals only animals, that the authority was of a divine nature. Looking at it like that would create metaphors upon metaphors in Animal Farm and an underlying layer of substance in 1984. Big Brother is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent yet secluded from the everyday world in a more heavenly realm of influence, and the protector of his people. The traditional notion of God shows him as omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent yet secluded from the everyday world in a more heavenly realm of influence, and the protector of his people. Now, what conclusions can be drawn from this? One could gather that Orwell wrote of the anxieties of being judged upon death. Or perhaps Big Brother was an absentee deity that gave his minions free rein to terrorize the world in His name.
Although we see atrocities, oppression, manipulation and autocracy in the world, there is no Big Brother (unless you count that pitiful excuse for reality TV). There are no perfect masters, let alone perfect slaves. Just as it is impossible to create a perpetual motion machine, it is beyond anyone's grasp to effectively make so many people unwittingly do their bidding without being replaced by someone just as power-hungry, but more conniving. Our species just isn't up to that kind of perfection, even if its dystopian perfection.
Sorry, Mr. Orwell, it looks like you were a little optimistic. This bunch of evolutionary rejects just isn't up to fulfilling your nightmares.
by Sara Aronson
September 08, 2001
It's pretty much unanimous amongst those acquainted with the book 1984 that an Orwellian world is not somewhere one wants to live. For some reason, a country of coercion, widespread manipulation, brainwashing, and general acts against humanity does not appeal to many people. Unless, of course, they can be the pig holding the cards.
The phantasmagoric negative wonderland portrayed in George Orwell's most famous novels are enough to launch readers into feverish scrutiny of the strings that pull on them and the lens pieces that focus on them. Coining the term "Big Brother" to refer to the pathological voyeurs in power, he gave the world a new paradigm under which they could file such deception and propaganda. Before, people cried tyranny; they accused their leaders of scandal and decadence. The educated called what power plays they saw "Machiavellian", despotic but not necessarily a hierarchy of clandestine intent. Orwell gave the world words for the impotent helpless feeling of the represed and introduced a fuller way of thinking about the perceptual engineering of the ruling elite.
Famous not for his pleasant subject matter, but for his chilling tales of what the human race is capable of, Orwell creates metaphors that seem realer than real to his readers. But how real is this "Negative Utopia"? Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, Hitler, Milosevic, Castro . . . the lists goes on. Desire to control is by no means an endangered species, though Orwell's books might lead us to believe that free will has gone the way of the dodo bird. Is human nature intrinsically unable to resist control? Orwell seemed to insert his hopes that our race would rebel. Certainly 1984's Winston dissented, although in the end he was not strong enough to overcome the machinery of perfect control. Will humanity still search for truth and authenticity if all individual growth is repressed? Will generations that have never tasted the freedom of their own intellect know what they are missing?
In fact, the inconsistency of Orwell's world and the one that most of us perceive lies not in the strength of our character, will, determination or any of that other load of ego excrement. Truthfully, even the most machine-like dictatorship can never be perfect enough to reach such a level of organization that not a single, solitary hole can be found in their police state. What leader or set of leaders could construct a government with such foresight that nothing could overthrow it and no insurrections could be organized against it? Surely no one has seen such an example of such supreme planning skills. Even with the most extreme planning, even with large teams devoted to identifying all possible courses of action, even with highly coordinated agencies with billions of tax dollars to spend and years of experience behind them, even they can't predict every single future and plan alternate courses of action for anything that might happen. The world isn't an ideal place. That makes things very, very hard a mind that has been conditioned to the orderliness of military or bureaucratic environments to cope with. Conditions not within the realm of experience, by their very nature, cannot be accurately outlined, and, let us just say that there are many things Homo sapiens are unknowledgeable about. Worse than that, foreseen hazards and prevention thereof can fall by the wayside simply because of apathy, laziness, or gross lack of recognition of the problem so how can unforeseen problems be handled with such omnipotent accuracy and efficiency? Find one bureaucracy that actually seems to function over large periods of time. You really can't do it- you'll find more institutions that are renowned for being inefficient, indifferent, and ineffectual. Suppose one of the Ministries in 1984 had alerted another of a sighting of a pink piece of paper on a worker's desk. Even though they knew that Big Brother would never allow such a treasonous color to assault his loyal followers, the workers of say, Minipax, more than likely would be overworked and busy with a million other things (as most organizations monitoring every action of the entire populace generally are, because even if the quantity of help is increased, so is the quantity of the work load). That is, of course, if the Ministry who noticed the discrepancy even had the time or inclination to report the depravity, assuming, of course, that the people who saw the infraction weren't too paranoid themselves to report it. After all, the people monitoring all the personnel have hordes of people to look at, many things to do, and probably very little incentive to be alert enough in their job to notice one piece of paper out of the billions in that one building alone. In Orwell's world, this would be noticed. In the real world, the oversight of that paper would end up destroying the chance to catch an operative that is slipping passwords to a liberation movement. It's always the little things that cumulate, like the butterfly that flaps its wings and causes a hurricane.
All right now. Assume this is all wrong. Humans are capable of sophistication, cooperation, and the high level of organization needed to establish the control found in Orwell's novels. But can you imagine a group of people who can get along with each other well enough to mastermind a whole country wanting to manipulate people? If this group have the people skills to compromise and work together on such a massive scale without precarious infighting, wouldn't that preclude inherent avarice and domination? How could someone have learned how to interact with their peers but not learned to respect them? Furthermore, how could technology have developed to monitor everyone so closely without counter-technology springing up? Its hard to presume that so many people would devote time and effort so one-sidedly when there are just as many incentives to do them all.
Suppose that, although the words said that the men were but men and the animals only animals, that the authority was of a divine nature. Looking at it like that would create metaphors upon metaphors in Animal Farm and an underlying layer of substance in 1984. Big Brother is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent yet secluded from the everyday world in a more heavenly realm of influence, and the protector of his people. The traditional notion of God shows him as omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent yet secluded from the everyday world in a more heavenly realm of influence, and the protector of his people. Now, what conclusions can be drawn from this? One could gather that Orwell wrote of the anxieties of being judged upon death. Or perhaps Big Brother was an absentee deity that gave his minions free rein to terrorize the world in His name.
Although we see atrocities, oppression, manipulation and autocracy in the world, there is no Big Brother (unless you count that pitiful excuse for reality TV). There are no perfect masters, let alone perfect slaves. Just as it is impossible to create a perpetual motion machine, it is beyond anyone's grasp to effectively make so many people unwittingly do their bidding without being replaced by someone just as power-hungry, but more conniving. Our species just isn't up to that kind of perfection, even if its dystopian perfection.
Sorry, Mr. Orwell, it looks like you were a little optimistic. This bunch of evolutionary rejects just isn't up to fulfilling your nightmares.
