When “The Party” fails and freedom reigns.

This post is inspired by “1984″ by George Orwell, a book I’ve just finished reading.

The Party, as described in the book 1984 by George Orwell, is a system of government based entirely on the assumption that organization of humans can with their collective mind create the reality of its own while at the same time acknowledging the existence of the, often contradictory, reality outside of it. Its own reality is adjusted to the purposes of The Party, namely the integrity and perfection of its structure. Its own reality is collective, projected over all of the minds that comprose The Party. It is almost literally The Borg, only with different technical methods of functioning. It would seem that, if it were ever given a chance, it would literally transform into The Borg, except that the existence of the Borg Queen would be questionable.

As described in the book, the system on occasions poses a genuine impression of infallibility. Of course, the system itself, this collective mind, will claim its own infallibility with great fervor. Not long after becoming impressed with how complete and seemingly perfect the system was devised to be, a question begins to arise, the question of motives that its creators have. It is relevant to note that even its very creators voluntarily took part of the system and all of its oppressing characteristics. There is no emperor. There is no man above it all holding all the strings. The ruler IS the collective itself. Big Brother and his image is merely a representation, not a person. It is as if the inventor of The Borg became a drone himself, giving up his own freedom for the sake of the collective that he set out to build.

Why would anyone give up his own freedom, his own potential of luxury, his own selfish being, indeed his own power to be a part of a collective that functions by oppressing himself? Apparently, in the book, the answer is in that by giving his own power to the collective, becoming one with it, the power of the collective becomes his own – as the self and the collective is now inseparable. He further adds a sense of eternal existance and omnipotence to his power. Ultimately, it essentially becomes religious, as this pure power is perceived as God. He is part of God hence he is God – and God is called “Big Brother”.

This makes me think that the ultimate result of greed for power is exactly this – collectivism in its purest form. Yet this is not what we usually imagine when we imagine greed. We usually imagine the ambition to own everything and control everything while yourself being outside of such control – yet Orwell would seem to suggest that the ultimate result is actually becoming an involuntary cell in an organism that feeds on its own collective power.

Moving further, philosophically, with this, I can’t help but observe that what “power” in this context starts to mean is merely the largeness, the size. If you are merely a cell within such an organism, simultaneously as you have the power over others within it, others have the power over yourself. You still accept it, you still feed off of it, because ultimately the power of the organism is your own. This is why it seems logical to conclude that what power within such an organism is – is nothing but lifeblood of it, meaningless to the outside world if it doesn’t control anyone in it. Even worse, in order for this organism to live, in order to have ANY power over itself and within itself it has to “eat” – the resources of the Earth upon which it lives.

However, in the book, the life of the organism that is The Party depends on freezing history as well as all technological developments unnecessary to the continuous but meaningless war (and to a point even war-related developments). Because of this The Party becomes unadaptable to any conditions on the Earth except those in which it currently is. Yet they still continue to drain resources – the coal, the oil etc. These resources are finite. And note that we are not talking about the age in which solar power and such renewable energies are a part of the way socieities power themselves – and by freezing their developments they prevented themselves from ever reaching such a stage of development.

This means that The Party as such is easily fallible, as soon as the resources it consumes are depleted. It would weaken its structure, for the reality outside of the reality they created collectively for themselves would in such a case invade their own – in a way that is disruptive to the whole structure.

And this is just one way in which the reality as it is can disrupt the reality that is essentially imagined and assumed real. Other banal examples could include natural disasters, an astronomical phenomenon or even, albeit at a stretch, a mere silent yet significant evolutionary change within the proletariat upon which The Party feeds on and which are the resource that could speak up.

What does this tell us about the world today, in the 21st century? I think it at least poses a reason to question the possibility of an infallible dystopian system. Furthermore I think the reason why it is always fallible is in that it has to employ literally unrealistic devices such as “doublethink”, paradoxical and contradictory in nature, to exist. It is literally not based in reality, yet as 1984 shown could be constructed nevertheless. But it is simply utterly doubtful that such a construct would ever last for long, and even that it would ever be worth attempting to construct it.

And the biggest point I could probably make about this is that the fundamental reason why dystopian systems could not be built without distorting reality is that the part of real reality is human nature which is ultimately reality-oriented, inquisitive, exploratory, logical, emotional. This leads me to a conclusion that is essentially the same as in my last post here, that the best way we can resist a dystopia or any conceivable appearance of one, is by truly being human – full blooded real humans, thinking for ourselves, seeking our own personal empowerment by helping others be themselves too.

I mean, what else is a total contradiction of Orwellian organism? Orwellian is an outside-in, closed ended and closed minded – totally unadaptive and un-evolutionary. It depends on making humans less human. Conversely, an organism in which cells are *real true human beings* is one in which it is in the interest of each human to empower himself just as others and others just as himself – in fact by empowering himself THROUGH empowering others. Only way to do this is through freedom as defined by the simple and intuitive “whatever floats your boat as long as it doesn’t sink mine” notion. Such an organism is outward, open minded, in a constant state of expansion of its understanding of self as well as the REAL WORLD around it – this makes it utterly evolutionary and adaptive.

And what else can truly guarantee its eternal existence than that?

Freedom wins again.

Thank you.

Tags: Philosophy