And now it’s time to finish our critical read of TPOC. Please leave your thoughts and questions in the comments and I’ll do an omnibus reply later this week.
In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist… In all the useful arts the world is either standing still or going backwards. The fields are cultivated with horse-ploughs while books are written by machinery. But in matters of vital importance — meaning, in effect, war and police espionage — the empirical approach is still encouraged, or at least tolerated.
This “compartmentalization” is readily visible in today’s world as well. Think about all of the brilliant scientists who just repeat popular platitudes when they talk about public policy. Or the major political parties’ eager use of statistics to plan their electoral strategies, but not to guide their policy platforms.
The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought. There are therefore two great problems which the Party is concerned to solve. One is how to discover, against his will, what another human being is thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundred million people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand…
Why would these be the Party’s two aims? Power-hunger, of course. If this is such a relatable motive, how come almost no one talks about it? Social Desirability Bias, of course.
What is more remarkable is that all three powers already possess, in the atomic bomb, a weapon far more powerful than any that their present researches are likely to discover. Although the Party, according to its habit, claims the invention for itself, atomic bombs first appeared as early as the nineteen-forties, and were first used on a large scale about ten years later… The effect was to convince the ruling groups of all countries that a few more atomic bombs would mean the end of organized society, and hence of their own power. Thereafter, although no formal agreement was ever made or hinted at, no more bombs were dropped.
This is probably the least plausible feature of Orwell’s scenario. The leaders of the totalitarian superpowers were fanatical and reckless enough to engage in nuclear war, but pragmatic and calculating enough to simultaneously realize that they’re a “few bombs” away from destruction? During wartime, the first high-ranking leader to suggest de-escalation would probably be denounced as a traitor. And even if his peers listened patiently, the obvious objection is: “If we sue for a cease-fire now, the other side will think we’re weak and impose highly unfavorable terms. And even if they agree, they’ll probably double-cross us very soon.” Yes, you can appeal to doublethink. But the bottom line is that “Back down once you’re a few bombs away from the end of organized society” simply isn’t a focal point.
Moreover, no fighting ever occurs except in the disputed areas round the Equator and the Pole: no invasion of enemy territory is ever undertaken. This explains the fact that in some places the frontiers between the superstates are arbitrary. Eurasia, for example, could easily conquer the British Isles, which are geographically part of Europe, or on the other hand it would be possible for Oceania to push its frontiers to the Rhine or even to the Vistula. But this would violate the principle, followed on all sides though never formulated, of cultural integrity. If Oceania were to conquer the areas that used once to be known as France and Germany, it would be necessary either to exterminate the inhabitants, a task of great physical difficulty, or to assimilate a population of about a hundred million people…
In Orwell’s scenario, all of the super-states are extremely multicultural already. Oceania includes all of the Americas; Eurasia stretches from Portugal to Siberia. Since none of them are supposed to have notable ethnic or regional tensions, these countries are supernaturally great at culturally assimilating disparate populations.
War prisoners apart, the average citizen of Oceania never sets eyes on a citizen of either Eurasia or Eastasia, and he is forbidden the knowledge of foreign languages. If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred, and self-righteousness on which his morale depends might evaporate.
These echoes Stalin’s policy of arresting anyone with foreign contacts. But the better story is not that contact with foreigners would seriously endanger the totalitarian system, but that the leadership is paranoid.
Under this lies a fact never mentioned aloud, but tacitly understood and acted upon: namely, that the conditions of life in all three super-states are very much the same. In Oceania the prevailing philosophy is called Ingsoc, in Eurasia it is called Neo-Bolshevism, and in Eastasia it is called by a Chinese name usually translated as Death-Worship, but perhaps better rendered as Obliteration of the Self. The citizen of Oceania is not allowed to know anything of the tenets of the other two philosophies, but he is taught to execrate them as barbarous outrages upon morality and common sense. Actually the three philosophies are barely distinguishable, and the social systems which they support are not distinguishable at all.
This is clearly inspired by the strong family resemblance between Nazism and Stalinism. To insiders – the Nazis and Stalinists themselves – the minor details are obviously a matter of life and deaths. But they’re deluded. It takes an outsider to see the ideological landscape as it really is. Atheists know (I repeat, know) that Catholics and Protestants fighting during the Wars of Religion were ideological siblings. And confirmed enemies of totalitarianism know (I repeat, know) that the Nazis and Stalinists were ideological siblings. Or dare I say, moral approximates.
Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure, the same worship of semi-divine leader, the same economy existing by and for continuous warfare. It follows that the three super-states not only cannot conquer one another, but would gain no advantage by doing so. On the contrary, so long as they remain in conflict they prop one another up, like three sheaves of corn… Here it is necessary to repeat what has been said earlier, that by becoming continuous war has fundamentally changed its character.
Again, we need not and should not accept the silly story that totalitarian regimes preserve their power by keeping their subjects “stupefied by poverty.” Instead, we should accept the sensible and parsimonious story that totalitarian regimes preserve their power by filling their subjects heads full of fear of vicious external enemies.
In past ages, a war, almost by definition, was something that sooner or later came to an end, usually in unmistakable victory or defeat… War was a sure safeguard of sanity, and so far as the ruling classes were concerned it was probably the most important of all safeguards. While wars could be won or lost, no ruling class could be completely irresponsible.
But when war becomes literally continuous, it also ceases to be dangerous. When war is continuous there is no such thing as military necessity. Technical progress can cease and the most palpable facts can be denied or disregarded…
The rulers of such a state are absolute, as the Pharaohs or the Caesars could not be. They are obliged to prevent their followers from starving to death in numbers large enough to be inconvenient, and they are obliged to remain at the same low level of military technique as their rivals; but once that minimum is achieved, they can twist reality into whatever shape they choose.
Overstated, but still insightful. In particular, one of the top laws of modern geopolitics is that no one invades a nuclear power. No matter how backward North Korea becomes relative to the rest of the world, their nukes allow the Kims to stonewall world opinion about their domestic policies. Given these incentives, we should be amazed that nuclear proliferation hasn’t gone much further already.
The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs.
Yes, but to repeat, the essence of the “special mental atmosphere” is fanatical group cohesion, not “stupefication via poverty.”
READER COMMENTS
John
Feb 22 2021 at 12:59pm
It is often said that 1984 was written as a novel and not as a manual, yet it remains a constant reminder of the threat to free speech:
“…every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped.”
David Henderson
Feb 22 2021 at 1:20pm
Good analysis.
I was expecting, when I saw that you had a link to the statement “It takes an outsider to see the ideological landscape as it really is,” that you would reference Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. I’m disappointed that you didn’t. You might argue that, coming from Austria, which was so close to Germany, Hayek was not clearly an outsider. But that makes his accomplishment all the more impressive.
Angel
Feb 22 2021 at 4:11pm
Is a zoom meeting for this club material or any interest in having a live discussion?
Henri Hein
Feb 23 2021 at 2:34am
I was thinking it was a reference to the flavors of Communism. Nazism is not on that list, but they all seem to hate each other with equal fervor.
Conversely, those with the technology has an incentive to keep it to themselves.
Henri Hein
Feb 23 2021 at 3:26am
Aside from the Floating Fortress idea, his description of military technology is somewhat prescient.
I thought that was a bit dismissive of heroes like Euclid, Pythagoras, Al-Khwarizmi, Galileo, Newton, etc, etc.
I agree that the Thought Police is efficient in fictional Oceania, but I have often found this to be one of the less plausible constructs in the novel. If government is so inefficient at everything, why should it be able to run an efficient Thought Police? I understand that the Russian equivalent was frightening, and somewhat effective, but given the powers and resources they were given, I don’t see any reason to accept they were efficient.
KevinDC
Feb 23 2021 at 12:12pm
I feel like Orwell is contradicting himself a bit here. He tells us at first that one of the primary aims of the Party is “to conquer the whole surface of the earth,” and a few paragraphs later says “the three super-states not only cannot conquer one another, but would gain no advantage by doing so. On the contrary, so long as they remain in conflict they prop one another up.” Is the implication that the Party really does want to conquer the world, and doesn’t realize that doing so would be against their interest? Or that the Party merely pretends to want world domination but isn’t sincerely pursing it?
Henri Hein
Feb 23 2021 at 10:18pm
I have struggled a bit with that as well. I wonder if it is on purpose. A citizen of Oceania who wanted to reason about what is really going on would not be able to get very far. They start from little information and would quickly get into an endless “on the other hand” type loop. By writing the Oligarchical Collectivism handbook this way, Orwell manages to give the reader a similar experience of confusion. Is the war real or not? If it is real, what exactly are the aims? How important truly is the enmity with the other nations? The handbook gives conflicting answers to the reader pondering those questions, which leaves the reader in a similar situation as the fictional citizen doing the same.
Jason Ford
Feb 23 2021 at 8:20pm
“Actually the three philosophies are barely distinguishable, and the social systems which they support are not distinguishable at all.”
The larger point, and Orwell touches on this, is the drive for power makes philosophies and social systems indistinguishable. If the Soviet system had developed into a Swedish-style state, for example, few would say that it was like Nazism even though they shared socialistic aspects. But once power becomes the driving goal, the need for power overwhelms all other concerns. Different governments with the same need for power will behave similarly, even if underlying philosophies are very different.
Absent the drive for power, it’s generally incorrect to say that different religions and philosophies are fundamentally the same. If someone said “I’ve got Amish on one side of me and Quakers on the other and they’re really both the same thing”, people would think that’s an odd comment even though both religions embrace nonviolence and simplicity. Because neither religion is particularly interested in power, the contrasts are far more apparent than the similarities.
John Alcorn
Feb 24 2021 at 9:27am
Bryan Caplan & commenters, Thank you for the Book Club, full of insights about totalitarianism. Alas, newly timely.
Scattered comments:
a) Orwell’s thesis, that cultural otherness deters the 3 great totalitarian from invading one another, is implausible. By contrast, risk of nuclear retaliation against invasion is a plausible deterrent. Each of Orwell’s 3 totalitarian States has nuclear weapons.
b) Re: Party paranoia about exposure to foreigners, even though exposure wouldn’t induce envy or emulation, since standards of living are low everywhere. A question arises about the real history of totalitarianism. The Soviet bloc had prudential reasons — in addition to paranoia — to fear broad exposure to the West (societies marked by constitutional democracy, capitalism, and cultural openness and innovation. Sideward glances could induce envy and dissent — and loss of totalitarian nerve; and emulation of the West.
c) Re: Typology of regimes; “strong family resemblance of Nazism and Stalinism.” Consider a somewhat different interpretation of interwar and WWII periods. Societies may differ in basic political and economic institutions. The rival institutions were:
1) constitutional democracy vs dictatorship (Party rule)
2) capitalism vs socialism (collectivization, central planning)
Abstractly, there were 4 combinatorial possibilities: democratic capitalism, democratic socialism, fascism (capitalism with dictatorship), and communism. In practice, democratic socialism wasn’t in the mix. Therefore, international relations — coalition-formation among States — involved democratic capitalism, fascism, and communism.
Democratic capitalism and communism lacked institutional overlap. Fascism and democratic capitalism had capitalism in common. Fascism and communism had dictatorship in common.
There were frictions among democratic-capitalist States, and also between Mussolini and Hitler, but in the end, democratic-capitalist States stuck together, and the fascist States (Italy and Germany) formed the Axis. Like + like.
Until the mid-1930s, democratic-capitalist States focussed on capitalism and therefore favored fascism as a hedge against communism. Then they came to fear expansionism by fascism (Italy and Germany). There followed a coalition of dictatorships (the Hitler-Stalin Pact), i.e., fascism and communism, despite heterogeneity over capitalism. Then Hitler’s invasion of the USSR triggered what had seemed the unlikeliest coalition before the War: democratic capitalism + communism, against fascism.
The wild card was culture: Racism. Hitler’s determination to subjugate Slavs (and to exterminate Jews) confounded the other basic institutional contrasts (democracy vs dictatorship; and capitalism vs collectivization). Does the primacy of racism in Nazism square with Bryan Caplan’s insistence on “the strong family resemblance between Nazism and Stalinism”?
d) Re: “we should accept the sensible and parsimonious story that totalitarian regimes preserve their power by filling their subjects’ heads full of fear of vicious external enemies.” To reconcile parsimony and realism, we should recognize also another fundamental way in which totalitarian regimes preserve the power; namely, by filling their subjects’ heads with fear of vicious internal enemies. Look around!
Miguel Madeira
Feb 25 2021 at 3:33pm
This could change if we add a 3rd dimension, more cultural than institutional, like:
3) materialism and rationalism vs. search for honor and glory
And, now, we have the overlapp between democratic capitalism and comunism against fascism
John Alcorn
Feb 25 2021 at 4:40pm
Miguel Madeira,
Yes, my point was that we need the 3rd dimension — culture — to make sense of coalition-formation, when push came to shove. You express the idea much better than I did!
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