Orwell’s
literary legacy leaves important lesson
Othman
Ramadan
George
Orwell, born Eric Arthur Blair in 1903,
was suitably situated both in era and setting
to write perhaps the world’s most
well known dystopian tale. Born in India,
then a colony of his mother country, England,
his path as a dissenter, inquisitor and
thought evoker was cultivated through his
vast life experiences.
Ironically, this brilliant man was once an unsatisfied and underachieving student
who grew up to be a serviceman for the Indian Imperial Police, a post he resigned
from in 1927 due to his growing dissension toward the policy and practice of
imperialism. Now history looks at him and his achievements through a vulnerable
plated lens—and justifiably so—yet the first half of his life,
in terms of accomplishments, leaves little to be revered.
He began writing professionally in the early 1930s, but he did perhaps his
best and undoubtedly his most famous work near the end of his life. Around
the end of World War II he wrote “Animal Farm,” his first words
on paper that made him famous in print. And in 1949, one year before he died
of tuberculosis, “1984,” his magnum opus, was published.
Orwell was neither a great student nor a dedicated soldier. He was—like
John Milton before him and perhaps Michael Moore of today—a politically
motivated and impassioned contemporary commentator. He questioned authority
with vehement vigor both in his actions and his literary works. He did it because
he truly believed before it morphed into cliché, in the old adage “power
to the people!”
In “1984” the central point George Orwell was attempting to convey
was power should and in fact needed to be in the hands of the people. “People,” meaning
the majority or the collective sum, can, if sufficiently aroused, demand to
govern themselves and do so with great success. And any failures that might
arise could only pale in comparison to the evils that invariably occur if complete
power is allowed to be caressed by a select elite.
To elucidate, as the historian Lord Acton famously said, “Absolute power
corrupts absolutely,” it then follows that power must be spread evenly
like an ocean tide scattered over the sands of a beach. Allowing any other
form of government would be equivalent to setting and then falling into your
own booby-trap.
I am sure Orwell would be satisfied to learn I understood his book to be a
horror story that would come to fruition if the people didn’t keep a
watchful eye on its government. My logic in coming to this conclusion is based
on the premise of the book.
Those in power seek to remain in power. And they will do just about anything
up to and including the exploitation of society’s deepest fears in order
to maintain their auspicious standing. This salient point was spelled out time
and again throughout the book. But it wasn’t until the book’s end
when the antagonist, O’Brien, leads the protagonist, Winston Smith, through
a didactic conversation in which he explains power not as a means to an end,
but as the end itself; government seeks power for its own self-interest, but
masks it in the guise of aid and care for its people. They have no valiant
goal in mind. They simply want power in order to execute power. It is a point
so simple, so lucid in logic, so paradoxically profound, it leaves the reader,
or at least myself, to wonder why I hadn’t thought of it.
Interestingly enough, Orwell performs on the fictional page exactly what he
castigates government for doing in public policy — recognizing the immense
galvanizing influence fear holds over an individual and, more so, a group of
people. He paints a futuristic nightmare through images of degradation, lies,
torture and entrapment. In doing so, he points out unremitting fear can create
an environment where anything is possible. The French philosopher Voltaire
said, “If you can get people to believe in absurdities, you can get them
to commit atrocities.” That is why the world created in “1984” is
possible. Fear can suffocate feelings of love, compassion, and most assuredly,
trust. It creates a world where the proletariat is lost and uncared for while
the lord or “big brother” is lionized.
The
book ends with Winston learning, like the
rest of the masses, to love his master.
It is an ending that deflates the reader.
It initially left me feeling angry yet impotent. Such an ending cements the
notion that, if allowed, evil can easily triumph over good and wrong can readily
trump what is right.
“ 1984” is an ominous warning to people who allow government to subordinate
individual liberties and subsequently transform those freedoms into stepping
stones for its own selfish ruling interests. It is and should be a frightful
world to imagine.
However, after some time away from the novel, I realized a possibility for
change exists and like the dying light of a candle, a flicker of hope remains.
Despite the forced mental suffocation, like a keyhole view through a door,
or the vapid space between President George W. Bush’s ears, there remains
a window through which a different world can be imagined. It is a world where
individual liberties aren’t traded for national security, a world where
asking “Why?” makes you patriotic and not an apologist, a world
where fear isn’t utilized as a tool for mass manipulation. Orwell allows
readers to believe such a world is possible. He says, and I believe, “If
there is hope, it lies in the Proles.”
Othman
Ramadan is a senior journalism major.
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