PDA

View Full Version : 1984 Revisted: Big Brother tells Why




InterestedParticipant
03-11-2009, 10:04 AM
O'brien speaking to Winston....


"There are three stages in your reintegration," said O'Brien. "There is learning, there is understanding, and there is acceptance. It is time for you to enter upon the second stage."
We are also in the 2nd stage.... right now.

Now here O'brien asks then explains Why society works as it does...

"And now let us get back to the question of 'how' and 'why'. You understand well enough how the Party maintains itself in power. Now tell me why we cling to power. What is our motive? Why should we want power? Go on, speak," he added as Winston remained silent.
.
.
.
"Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. 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? You are thinking," O'Brien said, "that my face is old and tired. You are thinking that I talk of power, and yet I am not even able to prevent the decay of my own body. Can you not understand, Winston, that the individual is only a cell? The weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism. Do you die when you cut your fingernails? We are the priests of power," he said. "God is power. But at present power is only a word so far as you are concerned. It is time for you to gather some idea of what power means. The first thing you must realize is that power is collective. The individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an individual.

You know the Party slogan: 'Freedom is Slavery'. Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is freedom. Alone - free - the human being is always defeated. It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he is the Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal. The second thing for you to realize is that power is power over human beings. Over the body, but, above all, over the mind. Power over matter - external reality, as you would call it - is not important. Already our control over matter is absolute. We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation - anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature.

smithtg
03-11-2009, 10:06 AM
i just got done reading this book for the first time and vividly remember this part. In the context of today's society 1984 is scary considering is was written when? 40 years ago?

Original_Intent
03-11-2009, 10:12 AM
i just got done reading this book for the first time and vividly remember this part. In the context of today's society 1984 is scary considering is was written when? 40 years ago?

pub. 1949 is what I found on Google :)

diggronpaul
03-11-2009, 10:51 AM
A minority of one doesn't make you mad.

- Winston, 1984

humanic
03-11-2009, 02:16 PM
i just got done reading this book for the first time and vividly remember this part. In the context of today's society 1984 is scary considering is was written when? 40 years ago?

It was published in 1949 but he completed it in 1948. That's how I always remember... just reverse the digits (84-->48).

Lovecraftian4Paul
03-11-2009, 06:01 PM
Brave New World is another one with many frightening parallels. I believe our society is some horrendous mixture of the 1984 and Brave New World models, augmented with technologies that will ultimately give the state god like powers over their subjects if they are allowed to continue down the path they're going.

diggronpaul
03-23-2009, 02:18 PM
Bump