- ...The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable.
The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle
is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an
aim -- for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too
much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything
outside their daily lives -- is to abolish all distinctions and create
a society in which all men shall be equal. Thus throughout history a struggle
which is the same in its main outlines recurs over and over again.
-
- ...By the late nineteenth century the recurrence of this
pattern had become obvious to many observers. There then rose schools of
thinkers who interpreted history as a cyclical process and claimed to show
that inequality was the unalterable law of human life. This doctrine, of
course, had always had its adherents, but in the manner in which it was
now put forward there was a significant change. In the past the need for
a hierarchical form of society had been the doctrine specifically of the
High. It had been preached by kings and aristocrats and by the priests,
lawyers, and the like who were parasitical upon them, and it had generally
been softened by promises of compensation in an imaginary world beyond
the grave. The Middle, so long as it was struggling for power, had always
made use of such terms as freedom, justice, and fraternity. Now, however,
the concept of human brotherhood began to be assailed by people who were
not yet in positions of command, but merely hoped to be so before long.
In the past the Middle had made revolutions under the banner of equality,
and then had established a fresh tyranny as soon as the old one was overthrown.
The new Middle groups in effect proclaimed their tyranny beforehand.
-
- ...As for the problem of overproduction, which has been
latent in our society since the development of machine technique, it is
solved by the device of continuous warfare (see Chapter III), which is
also useful in keying up public morale to the necessary pitch. From the
point of view of our present rulers, therefore, the only genuine dangers
are the splitting-off of a new group of able, underemployed, power-hungry
people, and the growth of liberalism and scepticism in their own ranks.
The problem, that is to say, is educational. It is a problem of continuously
moulding the consciousness both of the directing group and of the larger
executive group that lies immediately below it. The consciousness of the
masses needs only to be influenced in a negative way.
-
- ...Thoughts and actions which, when detected, mean certain
death are not formally forbidden, and the endless purges, arrests, tortures,
imprisonments, and vaporizations are not inflicted as punishment for crimes
which have actually been committed, but are merely the wiping-out of persons
who might perhaps commit a crime at some time in the future. A Party member
is required to have not only the right opinions, but the right instincts.
Many of the beliefs and attitudes demanded of him are never plainly stated,
and could not be stated without laying bare the contradictions inherent
in Ingsoc. If he is a person naturally orthodox (in Newspeak a goodthinker),
he will in all circumstances know, without taking thought, what is the
true belief or the desirable emotion. But in any case an elaborate mental
training, undergone in childhood and grouping itself round the Newspeak
words crimestop, blackwhite, and doublethink, makes him unwilling and unable
to think too deeply on any subject whatever.
-
- ...The alteration of the past is necessary for two reasons,
one of which is subsidiary and, so to speak, precautionary. The subsidiary
reason is that the Party member, like the proletarian, tolerates present-day
conditions partly because he has no standards of comparison. He must be
cut off from the past, just as he must be cut off from foreign countries,
because it is necessary for him to believe that he is better off than his
ancestors and that the average level of material comfort is constantly
rising. But by far the more important reason for the readjustment of the
past is the need to safeguard the infallibility of the Party. It is not
merely that speeches, statistics, and records of every kind must be constantly
brought up to date in order to show that the predictions of the Party were
in all cases right. It is also that no change in doctrine or in political
alignment can ever be admitted. For to change one's mind, or even one's
policy, is a confession of weakness. If, for example, Eurasia or Eastasia
(whichever it may be) is the enemy today, then that country must always
have been the enemy. And if the facts say otherwise then the facts must
be altered. Thus history is continuously rewritten. This day- to-day falsification
of the past, carried out by the Ministry of Truth, is as necessary to the
stability of the regime as the work of repression and espionage carried
out by the Ministry of Love.
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