Orwell on the will to power for power’s sake
I read George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four when I was about twelve years old.
You might say that’s too early to truly understand it. And if you said that, you’d probably be right.
But even then, I understood it well enough. I lacked some of the history to make it resonate. But I read it in the thick of the Cold War at a time when a great deal was already known about Communism and its evils. And it made a very deep impression on me.
One of the many discussions we can have and have had about the left is the extent to which it is populated by true-believing Utopian idealists who are willing to do evil because the ends justify the means (or because they don’t even recognize it as evil), and those who are in it for the raw power and don’t care one whit about people or their welfare. The first are the fools or useful idiots, and the second are the knaves in the old “fools vs. knaves” argument.
Nineteen Eighty-Four isn’t just a masterpiece, it’s a complex masterpiece. It is partly an extension of what Orwell personally observed in Communism and its dangers. It is partly a discussion of tyranny as a whole, and in particular tyranny enabled by modern inventions (he imagined the telescreen, but that was just a stand-in for all the ways a technically advanced government can snoop on its people). It is partly a discussion of the use of language to control minds. And it is truly terrifying, one of the most deeply terrifying books I’ve ever read.
Here is Orwell describing the motives of those in power in his dystopia, in which he differentiates them from their Nazi and/or Soviet predecessors:
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were- cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?
In his book, Orwell posits a perfectly and completely evil impulse, but he seems to be crediting all the real movements in historical time such as Communism as having at least initially been spurred by some dream of idealist Utopia. It is as though Orwell immersed himself in Communism and its horrors and concluded that in it was the seeds of an even more pure form of horror.
Hi,
I have some background regarding religious history and how they evolved. I too read 1984 at a young age. What strikes me is how often any organization evolves following the path Orwell describes.
Reading about the private life of Karl Marx as a young man, and as a struggling revolutionary, leaves a pretty clear impression that he was from the time of his youth, driven by resentment and rage and envy, which manifested in practice as a will to disruptive power; rhetorically couched as the procedural precursor to an end of history utopia in which “the problem of alienation” no longer existed.
What one is to make of the Marx of his last years, living, at least superficially one reads, a bourgeois dream which had evaded him most of his life, I cannot say. But I think the fate of his children demonstrates that his warping and malevolent influence was more profound than was the effect of him strolling with the family to the park, or reading the classics by the fireside … a retired revolutionary.
The modern left is working from another new eschatology, recognized as and referred to by many here as a secular religion. It takes the form of an emergent evolution drama, in which the progressives assign themselves starring roles as members of the vanguard and social engineering class, dedicated to bringing to life another “new man”, or … “peoplekind”.
They are religious nuts sans the supernatural: sprung of the same neurotic impulses found in the burnt over districts of the mid 1800s
John on September 24, 2019 at 12:07 pm said:
Hi,
I have some background regarding religious history and how they evolved. I too read 1984 at a young age. What strikes me is how often any organization evolves following the path Orwell describes.
* * *
There are plenty of studies and writings about that.
Pournelle’s Law is operative in most organizations.
https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
Specifically, and relative to the Maspeth High post today (from another post linked in the above): “Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent.”
If you give coercive power to the second group, usually but not always under some pretext of law or necessity, you inevitably end up with Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Pol Pot, Mao, and so forth.
Religious organizations are not exempt from the “two types of person” rule, which is why we have the First Amendment prescribing that the State shall not establish (sponsor or mandate) any particular religious organization, that is, supply it with coercive powers.
The Lenins always kill the Trotskys. The desire for power is understood and manageable. The desire to “help the people” is amorphous and cannot be counted on. The only way control political leaders is to limit their authority and change them often.
Political leaders are like diapers. They should be changed frequently… and for the same reason.
What O’Brien describes is a society predicated on the elimination of eros. Which, of course, impossible — without eliminating all human beings simultaneously. That’s Marx’s deal though: nature has to go. It’s too unruly.
https://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/2019/09/18/neurosurgeon-visits-theosophical-society/
It’s a good presentation by a neurosurgeon on beyond death experiences.
https://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/2019/09/19/antarctica-and-boleshevism/
This is my analysis of Bolshevism and why it is such a cancer upon the human body when ever it incubates.
I think in terms of Russian style Literature as Life, Ayn Rand’s books were closer to the mark. Even though they weren’t particularly accurate in terms of novelization and characterization. She put the literature as greater than life, whereas as Russian Sol wrote down the life and it became a literature/culture of Russia, that was larger than the lives lived and died.
Orwell’s work is a bit strange in this sense. It is perhaps our closest version to what the Russians see in their culture/life/literature. A signature book, just as Marx’s works were, but a warning by a socialist rather than a road map to dictatorial control (Marx’s proletariat revolution).
The irony is thus… that many generations of children read that book and thought that the totalitarians were the Republicans or some “political/racial Other” that looked and behaved differently than their Elect, Perfect, Righteous ego driven selves. The self that is ridden and controlled by Satan, believes itself free and in control, much as a slave thinks itself free in Slavery 3.0.
The problem is not with totalitarianism or economic theories like socialism. The problem is the human soul and the human distortion, the corrupt taint that must be purified before it will get any better. Left to its own devices, Satan’s natural instincts will drive humanity into an ever spiraling downwards road away from the Divine Plan. Satan is not Lucifer, btw, just to clear that up. Lucifer is a Roman Bishop and his original Hebrew name was Heyl-el, alt translated as The Howling Star.
Humanity is trapped and has trapped the divine spark on this realm of materialism, greed, self righteous beliefs and ego driven “will to power”. In order to liberate the soul rider from the human consciousness, much work had been invested, which will soon be seen as worth it or not in the end. The fate and ending is up to humanity, each and every aggregate soul.
If they fall to the strategies of Bolshevism and Satan, then they will learn from their enemies to defeat their enemies. The plan is to quagmire trap humanity, not to defeat humanity. Humanity is trapped in this Veil of Illusion, this Maya, this Matrix, this simulation, but it thinks it is free. And it thinks some “god” is to blame… or some “marxist economic theory” is to blame.
Look in the mirror. That is your greatest and truest enemy.
“The irony is thus… that many generations of children read that book and thought that the totalitarians were the Republicans or some “political/racial Other” that looked and behaved differently than their Elect, Perfect, Righteous ego driven selves. ” – Ymarsakar
Bingo.
Although, given the Greta-post’s example, I think I would make that “many generations of children read that book and were told by their teachers (or parents, less commonly) that the totalitarians were” whatever group constituted the Deplorables in that generation.
Neo, did you ever discuss 1984 with your Commie uncle?
” Utopian idealists who are willing to do evil because the ends justify the means (or because they don’t even recognize it as evil),”
Non-recognition seems to be a bigger factor than one would supposed. I think it was in the article cited here last week, How the Great Truth Dawned, that Solzhenitsyn explains: “To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. . . . it is in the nature of a human being to seek a justification for his actions.”
Ymarsakar:
Thanks very much for that link to Dr. Eben Alexander’s lecture to the Theosophical Society.
A truly fascinating story. I just watched the whole thing and plan to check him out at his website.
“The will to power” includes moving goalposts as needed.
https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2019/09/24/democrats-shift-goal-posts-demand-more-than-phone-call-transcript-after-trump-says-hell-release-it/
Seems like we’ve seen this maneuver before.
Apparently, the Left thinks that smoke creates fire, instead of vice versa.
The power to move goalposts at will.
Reversals are not unique to this situation, btw.
A commenter at Breitbart, on the UK Supreme Court ruling Boris’s prorogation was illegal, had this to say:
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/09/24/a-sinister-shadow-government-is-killing-brexit/#comment-4627712845
Delingpole’s article is a must-read, of course.
Fair and balanced principles ordain that the Beeb has to have a chance to weigh-in as well. The Court’s ruling seems judiciously judicial, until you start to think about what it means for the judges to have the final word on whether or not a Government action is “without reasonable justification” — sounds a lot like the courts here ruling that an EO is okay if one president does it, but not if another (Trump) does, because he has “wrong think” motives.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49810680
I’ve spent most of my life studying True Evil. The horrors of communism outrank ALL.
Lenin’s term for the kind of thing we’re seeing from the American Left now: Useful Idiots.
My God, in our unique Liberty based country, we see the daily carnage to our culture & the mass Koolaid consumption by our young.
Read Robert Conquest’s great work: “Kolyma:The Arctic Death Camps”., for a glimpse of what the Left hath sown.
Koestler’s Darkness at Noon makes a good companion work to 1984.
I was trying to understand what “revolution” meant when I was 13 years old, as it was the 1960s and the word was everywhere then. I first studied the French Revolution of 1789 and then the Russian Revolution of 1917. Sure, I only went into this very superficially back then.
The Moscow Trials of 1937-38 put me on the road to hating Stalin and everything about the Soviets.
Gringo:
I never discussed politics with my Soviet-phile uncle.
First of all, I was quite young when these discussions occurred. But that wasn’t the main reason. The real reason was that I was a listener, not a participant. These were usually bitter bitter arguments, with the adults yelling and angry at each other. The uncle was alone in his opinion, and nothing—and I mean nothing—that anyone said reached him in any way. He had an answer and excuse for everything. His belief was impenetrable. If all the adults couldn’t reach him, it never occurred to me that I could. Plus, at the time, I just wished they’d all stop fighting and talk about something else.
there are two kinds of power people
those that do not need to feel it
and so are not sure they have it
and those that do need to feel it
and are sure they have it
the only way to feel power is to force people to do things they dont want to do
the more powerful the more people
I read 1984 when I was in high school. Looking back on it, it was remarkable how much Orwell got right. He knew human nature and the evil of anti-democratic government.
“Got right”? IMHO
Perhaps if we look at 1984 as thinly veiled history, “upgraded” in the trappings of
inevitable “tech improvements” just around the corner at the time.
Kinda’ like Ayn Rand.
Of course, there’s a plethora of authors with such clever stuff, but only get the “acclaim” from a limited crowd nerds and geeks, because they don’t/ didn’t have “exotic” cachet with the ersatz-intellectual crowd , like you know….Russian!
One of the great things about “1984” is the relative lack of any real ideology on the part of the State; it could Communist, Fascist, Theocratic, or something completely different. It’s the Totalitarianism that matters.
We now act exactly as you would guess we would act in order to survive @330,000 years in small tribes of 50-150 people. We must have been dying all the time. We were terrified all the time. We were sick and miserable and cold and hot and racked with pain and sore feet and infections a lot. We had to get rid of people who did not cooperate or were a pain. We had to protect our kids for many years. We had to protect our pregnant women and those with children fiercely. We had to develop social structures that were congruous with the above.
We probably were hard wired for fairness—don’t psychologist claim this? —but not for equality and we must have been harsh to heretics. I bet democracy was not in there.
Design for survival and add those parts you need and that’s where we are today. 10,000 years since the agricultural revolution doesn’t give us enough time to really evolve into modernity.
This came up via the Impeachment post today.
Daniel Greenfield is on the same wavelength as Orwell.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/09/disturbing-reason-why-dems-really-want-impeach-daniel-greenfield/
A Case for Jefferson
Harrison loves my country too,
But wants it made all over new.
He’s Freudian Viennese by night.
By day he’s Marxian Muscovite.
It isn’t because he’s Russian Jew.
He’s Puritan Yankee through and through.
He dotes on Saturday pork and beans.
But his mind is hardly out of his teens:
With him the love of country means
Blowing it all to smithereens
And having it all made over new.
Robert Frost, 1947
“Animal Farm” is more concise and teaches the same message, but I think “1984” has an atmosphere which grips the imagination and persists. I also read 1984 in 7th or 8th grade mid-60s, and was assured that it was about the older people, the status quo, who were leading us down totalitarian paths. Not to worry, though. A new generation of freedom-loving kids was growing up and we were UP TO THE TASK, if only the few good ‘uns could hold ’em off long enough for us to grow up. I essentially believed that until the 80s, as my children grew older and I had to work at a thankless job. Even then, the change came slowly.
Remember the words of then-activist Democrat Ron Silver in 1993 during Clinton’s inauguration, initially a bit freaked at the jets passing overhead in formation. “Those are our planes now.” They still don’t see that this is who they are.
fghdcp:
See this post of mine, in which I discuss that Frost poem.
Very interesting insights into Frost’s life – thanks for the links.