George Orwell's '1984' revisited: What
Oceania and Israel have in common
For George Orwell, the appalling picture of
the future starkly depicted in '1984' was
not some imaginative exercise. 'Don’t let it
happen. It depends on you,' he warned
By Adam Raz
December 13, 2019 "Information
Clearing House"
- George
Orwell is one of the most widely read
English-language authors, and has certainly
been one of the most quoted ones for more
than a half-century. There is no need to
mention the many concepts associated with
him: “Newspeak,” “thought police,”
“Orwellian” and so on. At the same time, the
man who strove, as he himself said, to turn
political writing into an art and who
declared that everything he wrote after 1936
(subsequent to his participation in the
Spanish Civil War, against fascist forces)
was written against totalitarianism and in
favor of democratic socialism, continues to
be perceived, ultimately, as a storyteller.
In
contrast to the approach of the vast body of
writing that exists about Orwell, and about
his novel “1984” in particular, I will argue
here, in brief, that his output needs to be
seen as belonging to the realm of of
political theory. In other words, Orwell is
(also) a political theoretician (in the
conventional sense of the term: a person who
espouses a theory about the social reality).
Moreover, and especially in his 1949
dystopic novel, he contributed significantly
to the understanding of the dynamics of
modern politics and in particular of the
phenomenon the Roman historian Tacitus
called the “secrets of governing” (arcana
imperii). “Every new political theory, by
whatever name it called itself, led back to
hierarchy and regimentation,” Orwell wrote.
Any
consideration of Orwell’s writing cannot
ignore the fact that he chose the literary
genre as the most congenial for giving
expression to his views. Writing was for him
a tool for changing social reality, and the
literature he wrote was political. In fact,
it often seems as though the narrative
interferes with his attempt to set forth his
views about modern capitalism (and about
democracy, on the one hand, and fascism, on
the other). Indeed, when he encountered
difficulties in plot construction, he was
known to deal with them by devious literary
means, so as to retain his political point.
A
vivid example of this is his insertion of a
completely theoretical text running to
dozens of pages in “1984,” by means of a
literary stratagem of introducing a
fictitious book-within-a-book. The text,
“The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical
Collectivism,” is manifestly a
sociopolitical analysis of trends in modern
industrial society and a historic
description of the phenomenon called
“government.” Some people advised him to
remove the “book” from the book. Happily for
us, he ignored them.
‘It
depends on you’
Orwell did not in any systematic way read
the classic works of political thought and
theory (as opposed to contemporaneous
political writing, about which he was
extremely knowledgeable), and that may help
us understand why he chose the literary
genre rather than focusing on philosophy or
political science. In his works he gave
expression to, and provided an explanation
(theoretical) for, developments in modern
society. Shortly before his death, in 1950,
he made it unequivocally clear that the
appalling picture of the future starkly
depicted in “1984” was not some imaginative
exercise for him. “Don’t let it happen. It
depends on you,” he asserted toward the end
of his life. In his view, the dystopia had
already begun to materialize.
What is the “it” he warned against? He is
referring to the fact that in the struggle
to impose limits on political power, society
is at a disadvantage. Orwell went a few
steps further, developing the analysis of
José Ortega y Gasset, who in his book “The
Revolt of the Masses” (1932), wrote, “This
is the gravest danger that today threatens
civilization: State intervention; the
absorption of all spontaneous social effort
by the state… The result of this tendency
will be fatal. Spontaneous social action
will be broken up over and over again by
State intervention; no new seed will be able
to fructify. Society will have to live for
the State, man for the governmental
machine.” In “1984,” Orwell showed how that
scenario could be realized in everyday life.
His
writing from the 1930s onward displays a
persistent effort to identify the
socioeconomic forces that were pushing
toward the emergence of a society whose
features resemble those he would portray in
“1984” and to warn against them. For this
reason, Orwell’s final book was a very
frightening one. He was out to scare his
readers, because he wanted to make them
think about the direction in which modern
society was being led. “Power is not a
means, it is an end,” he wrote at the end of
“1984.”
Then, as now, the public had trouble
conceiving of the fact that there are
sociopolitical elements whose goal is to
preserve a class society. In other words,
precisely in an era in which technology is
creating great abundance, unparalleled in
human history, it is scarcity that rules.
(“In principle the war effort is always so
planned as to eat up any surplus that might
exist after meeting the bare needs of the
population. In practice the needs of the
population are always underestimated, with
the result that there is a chronic shortage
of half the necessities of life,” Orwell
wrote.)
In
his view, this state of affairs was not the
result of a mistake, a “hidden hand” or a
government of fools; it was a deliberate
policy advanced by an exploitative elite.
And it isn’t by accident that the masses
don’t grasp what is happening: “In the long
run, a hierarchical society was only
possible on a basis of poverty and
ignorance.” In other words, there are forces
whose vested interest is to preserve “high”
and “low.” The rationale for this was
explained as early as the 17th century by
the French statesman Cardinal Richelieu in
his “Political Testament”: “All students of
politics agree that when the common people
are too well off, it is impossible to keep
them peaceable… It would not be sound to
relieve them of all taxation and similar
charges, since in such a case they would
lose the mark of their subjection and
consequently the awareness of their
station.”
Orwell died young, aged 46 – younger than
the age at which many thinkers in the realms
of humanities and social sciences have
written their magnum opus. From this point
of view, it’s hard to imagine how our world
would look if Niccolo Machiavelli (who died
at 58), Karl Marx (at 64), Jean-Jacques
Rousseau (66), Immanuel Kant (79) or Thomas
Hobbes (91) had died when they were still in
their forties. By the same token, it’s
tempting to imagine how our world of ideas
would look if Orwell had lived another 40
years.
A
survey of his development as a thinker,
beginning from his period of service in the
Imperial Police in Burma (when he was in his
20s), shows one thing clearly: The issues
that troubled Orwell beginning in the 1930s
won a richer and more complete theoretical
expression in “1984.” Indeed, when we
consider the stage his intellectual progress
had reached in the autumn of his years, we
find new directions, not yet fully matured,
in his analysis of modern politics.
Mechanism of power
What I’ve written so far is meant to justify
my reading of “1984” as political theory,
and not just as a novel. The general
plotline is well known and needs no
elaboration. I will only mention that the
book covers a short period in the life of
Winston Smith, a citizen of Oceania (a
region congruent with much of today’s
Western world), which is under tight
totalitarian rule as part of a one-party
system and where life plays out under the
watchful eye of “Big Brother.”
Over the years, what has drawn the most
attention in the book – and is also
considered Orwell’s legacy – is the
description of the totalistic means of
supervision and control that exist in
Oceania, and in particular the “telescreen”
that monitors people nonstop and identifies
“deviations” from the government’s sadistic
path. And, of course, the notion of the
media as serving political interests. (“Most
of the material that you were dealing with
had no connection with anything in the real
world, not even the kind of connection that
is contained in a direct lie,” Orwell
wrote). In the wake of the technological and
political developments of recent decades,
references to him are only increasing, but
often those references miss the crux of the
book: not the mechanism of power, but the
motif that generates it.
Two
great questions arise from the book: How did
it happen and why did it happen? That is,
how did humanity reach a situation in which
a small elite possesses spiritual and
physical power over the entire population?
Or, in Orwell’s famous formulation in
“1984”: “I understand HOW: I do not
understand WHY.”
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“How” refers to the technique: the tools
that the development of modern industrial
society has placed at the disposal of the
rulers. Orwell offers a horrific account of
the means by which the rules control the
masses and bring about a totally regimented
society: atomic bombs, perpetual war,
Thought Police, social inequality, creation
of a “besieged city” atmosphere, “two
minutes of hate” fomented by the authorities
against specific groups, and more. These and
other means, Orwell makes clear, generate a
disciplined community of fear. “And even
technological progress only happens when its
products can in some way be used for the
diminution of human liberty,” he wrote,
explaining the logic of technological and
industrial development in Oceania.
He
was adept at describing the “how” in the
daily life of the country’s citizens:
Technological developments have placed in
the hands of an exploitative minority more
efficient means to control the masses. And
if in the past, the mechanisms of rule
required the presence of physical violence,
abuse, torture, executions and the like, the
new techniques had to a certain degree made
superfluous the Nazi Gestapo and the
Stalinist NKVD, which unleashed terror in
the streets. Authority in “1984” is
reflectled in a total inner capitulation to
the Moloch of government.
Orwell’s comments in this context are almost
prophetic: “Part of the reason for this was
that in the past no government had the power
to keep its citizens under constant
surveillance. The invention of print,
however, made it easier to manipulate public
opinion, and the film and the radio carried
the process further. With the development of
television, and the technical advance which
made it possible to receive and transmit
simultaneously on the same instrument,
private life came to an end.”
Now, Orwell maintained in “1984,” the new
technologies made it possible to control the
individual’s thought. “In the end we shall
make thoughtcrime literally impossible,
because there will be no words in which to
express it.” Tweeters would do well to make
this their motto (it also helps one stay
below character limits). Absurdly, a
theoretical possibility that frightened many
when the book was published is today
legitimized by a public which considers
itself enlightened, liberal and democratic.
In
this sense, Oceania is so frightening
because the totalitarianism of rule has
resulted in the emergence of a totally
static society, where no social change is
possible. History indeed ended with the
emergence of Oceania, which is also why the
novel’s original title was “The Last Man in
Europe” – Winston is the last person who
still thinks. “‘If you are a man, Winston,
you are the last man. Your kind is extinct;
we are the inheritors,’” says O’Brien, who
is out to mend Winston’s sick (and
skeptical) mind.
Relentless war
One
of the most illuminating aspects of “1984”
is Orwell’s perceptive description of the
relationship between domestic policy and
foreign policy. The world of “1984” is
divided into three powers – Oceania, Eurasia
and Eastasia – which wage unceasing wars on
each other. The parallel to the blocs of the
Cold War is perfectly clear. The wars,
however, have limited goals and the
adversaries are not capable of or interested
in truly destroying one another. “To
understand the nature of the present war –
for in spite of the regrouping which occurs
every few years, it is always the same war –
one must realize in the first place that it
is impossible for it to be decisive.” This
principle is surely fraught with great
meaning for people living in Israel, and we
would be doing justice to Orwell’s memory to
consider it more closely.
In
the world depicted in “1984” (and by this
Orwell meant everywhere) foreign policy is
an instrument of domestic policy. As such,
in his view, foreign policy is a
continuation or projection of internal
policy. Why? Because the former is
implemented by the same elite that rules the
country, and it has the same goals in
foreign policy as it does in domestic
policy. This is one of the splendid
theoretical contributions of “1984.” In
contrast to the realistic description that
is common in political science faculties
(dealing with confirmation and preservation
of the existing order), according to which
foreign policy is activity by state A (as
subject) directed at state B (as object) for
the benefit of citizens of the former –
Orwell shows that the division between
domestic and foreign policy is formal
(illusory) and is only presented to the
public as the form in which decisions are
made by the political echelon. In fact, he
maintains, the whole purpose of foreign
policy is internal. Meaning, the
implementation of power by the rulers is in
fact aimed toward the population within a
given country, and not toward populations in
other countries, which are not the object of
that specific government.
War
is the direct expression of foreign policy,
Orwell explains, but it is entirely aimed at
influencing the domestic situation at home:
“War, it will be seen, is now a purely
internal affair… The war is waged by each
ruling group against its own subjects, and
the object of the war is not to make or
prevent conquests of territory, but to keep
the structure of society intact.” The
citizen doesn’t know much about the wars the
state is fighting, even though his whole
being is mobilized for that end, Orwell
avers. The antennas broadcast to the masses
what the elite wishes them to hear: “The
enemy of the moment always represented
absolute evil.” The ruling groups know that,
“it is necessary that the war should
continue everlastingly and without victory.”
This state of affairs creates the ultimate
man of the masses for the rulers – imbecilic
masses whose psychological makeup is
appropriate for the perpetuation of a
hierarchical society. Fear, which is largely
invented, is the means of control by which
the society is organized.
“But when war becomes literally continuous,
it also ceases to be dangerous,” Orwell
writes. In practice, because war is
ceaseless, “there is no such thing as
military necessity.” War is life (itself).
It’s worth noting that Orwell coined the
term “Cold War” (in a brilliant October 1945
article, “You and the Atom Bomb”). A reading
of “1984” shows exactly what he meant: The
aim of war is not a conquest of one kind or
another, but the preservation of a
hierarchical society of “high” and “low.” In
fact, Orwell contended, we should talk about
“continuous warfare” (and not about “war”
that takes place in a given time) that
serves the balance of forces in every
country and allows the continuation of
social inequality. This means, he notes, “is
also useful in keying up public morale to
the necessary pitch.”
War
needs to be managed – not resolved, Orwell
explains (and one is compelled to mention
here the grotesque concept that is dominant
in these parts, that of “conflict
management”). In practice, “It does not
matter whether the war is actually
happening, and, since no decisive victory is
possible, it does not matter whether the war
is going well or badly. All that is needed
is that a state of war should exist.”
In
this connection, a prime principle in
Orwell’s politological analysis is the
difference between formal posturing/speech
(aimed at the masses in order to mobilize
public opinion) and realistic
posturing/speech. War is “waged for purposes
quite other than the declared ones.” This,
in Orwell’s view, is one of the “secret(s)
of rulership.”
Indeed, in Oceania – as in Israel – there is
no threat of destruction, even though it’s
hammered into the public’s head relentlessly
that the Sword of Damocles is hovering over
everyone. Occasionally, in Oceania – as in
Israel – a missile falls and creates panic.
This is the meaning of continuous war today,
and it achieves its goal: constant
deprivation, perpetuation of distress and
the heightening of the fear level. Orwell
explains the politics underlying the
missile: “because a general state of
scarcity increases the importance of small
privileges and thus magnifies the
distinction between one group and another.”
This is what rulers want, he argues.
However, the big question Orwell tries to
answer is the “why”: Why did a society come
into being in which “God is power” and in
which political power is concentrated in the
hands of a “small privileged caste”? This
question perturbed Orwell for the last 15
years of his life, and in “1984” he
addresses that complex issue: “But there is
one question which until this moment we have
almost ignored. It is; WHY should human
equality be averted?... what is the motive
for this huge, accurately planned effort to
freeze history at a particular moment of
time?”
A
reading of “1984” shows that Orwell did not
think, as is usually thought today, that the
difference between the rulers and the ruled
lies only in only a division of labor (as if
the ruler punches a card in the elected
institutions). In his view, society’s
division into a working class (tasked with
the industrial production that is the
foundation of modern society) and a ruling
class (whose role is to rule and to swallow
up the profits the workers create) is a
historical phenomenon that demands
explanation. He is critical of the
establishment scholars “who interpreted
history as a cyclical process and claimed to
show that inequality was the unalterable law
of human life.”
Answering the ‘why’
Already in the opening of the
book-within-a-book, “Oligarchical
Collectivism,” Orwell explains that rule,
enslavement and exploitation are a
phenomenon that has characterized human
society “probably since the end of the
Neolithic Age.” In other words, in the
period of the agricultural revolution some
10,000 years ago, the social structures were
created that institutionalized exploitation
of the community by a ruling elite. In terms
of Homo Sapiens, this is a new phenomenon.
Herein lies the heart of the matter of
“1984” and of the “why” – the reason for the
continued existence of a hierarchical
society, of an exploitative minority and an
exploited majority. Orwell noted that the
growth in social wealth (which already was a
fact at the time the book was written, and
remains so today) and the way that wealth is
distributed is destined to wreak destruction
on the class society. Why? “It was possible,
no doubt, to imagine a society in which
wealth, in the sense of personal possessions
and luxuries, should be evenly distributed,
while power remained in the hands of a small
privileged caste. But in practice such a
society could not long remain stable. For if
leisure and security were enjoyed by all
alike, the great mass of human beings who
are normally stupefied by poverty would
become literate and would learn to think for
themselves; and when once they had done
this, they would sooner or later realize
that the privileged minority had no
function, and they would sweep it away.”
This is why continuous war is needed, why
rule by fear is essential. And this is where
Orwell’s greatness resides: in his
horrifying account of the everyday existence
of a person living in a society where fear
rules and war never ends. “‘If you want a
picture of the future, imagine a boot
stamping on a human face – for ever,’”
O’Brien tells Winston near the end of the
book.
I
am obliged here to recall Jack London’s
hair-raising passage in his masterful novel
“The Iron Heel” (1907), which Orwell read
and very much esteemed: “We will grind you
revolutionists down under our heel, and we
shall walk upon your faces. The world is
ours, we are its lords, and ours it shall
remain. As for the host of labor, it has
been in the dirt since history began, and I
read history aright. And in the dirt it
shall remain so long as I and mine and those
that come after us have the power. There is
the word. It is the king of words – Power.
Not God, not Mammon, but Power. Pour it over
your tongue till it tingles with it. Power.”
The
author of Ecclesiastes seems to have had
thoughts along the same line when he wrote
(8:4), “Inasmuch as a king’s command is
authoritative, and none can say to him,
‘What are you doing?’” Indeed, who can say?
Adam Raz. Adam has authored the books Kafr
Qassim Massacre: a Political Biography
(2018), Herzl (2017, with Yigal Wagner) and
The Struggle for the Bomb (2015).
This article was originally published by "Haaretz"
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