ourlongroad
05-05-2009, 07:58 AM
We can continue down this path of self-destruction, being guided by a few
sociopaths who crave power, or we can regain control and thwart their demonic intentions. Let me
illustrate what we face by quoting from an exchange between O’Brien and Winston in the book, 1984,
where O’Brien says:
‘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.’
sociopaths who crave power, or we can regain control and thwart their demonic intentions. Let me
illustrate what we face by quoting from an exchange between O’Brien and Winston in the book, 1984,
where O’Brien says:
‘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.’