In a letter, George Orwell explains why he wrote 1984 (foreshadowing):

[Are_grits_groceries]

In 1944, three years before writing and five years before publishing 1984, George Orwell penned a letter detailing the thesis of his great novel. The letter, warning of the rise of totalitarian police states that will ‘say that two and two are five,’ is reprinted from George Orwell: A Life in Letters, edited by Peter Davison and published today by Liveright.

18 May 1944
10a Mortimer Crescent NW 6

Dear Mr Willmett,
Many thanks for your letter. You ask whether totalitarianism, leader-worship etc. are really on the up-grade and instance the fact that they are not apparently growing in this country and the USA.

I must say I believe, or fear, that taking the world as a whole these things are on the increase. Hitler, no doubt, will soon disappear, but only at the expense of strengthening (a) Stalin, (b) the Anglo-American millionaires and (c) all sorts of petty fuhrers° of the type of de Gaulle. All the national movements everywhere, even those that originate in resistance to German domination, seem to take non-democratic forms, to group themselves round some superhuman fuhrer (Hitler, Stalin, Salazar, Franco, Gandhi, De Valera are all varying examples) and to adopt the theory that the end justifies the means. Everywhere the world movement seems to be in the direction of centralised economies which can be made to ‘work’ in an economic sense but which are not democratically organised and which tend to establish a caste system. With this go the horrors of emotional nationalism and a tendency to disbelieve in the existence of objective truth because all the facts have to fit in with the words and prophecies of some infallible fuhrer. Already history has in a sense ceased to exist, ie. there is no such thing as a history of our own times which could be universally accepted, and the exact sciences are endangered as soon as military necessity ceases to keep people up to the mark. Hitler can say that the Jews started the war, and if he survives that will become official history. He can’t say that two and two are five, because for the purposes of, say, ballistics they have to make four. But if the sort of world that I am afraid of arrives, a world of two or three great superstates which are unable to conquer one another, two and two could become five if the fuhrer wished it.1 That, so far as I can see, is the direction in which we are actually moving, though, of course, the process is reversible.

As to the comparative immunity of Britain and the USA. Whatever the pacifists etc. may say, we have not gone totalitarian yet and this is a very hopeful symptom. I believe very deeply, as I explained in my book The Lion and the Unicorn, in the English people and in their capacity to centralise their economy without destroying freedom in doing so. But one must remember that Britain and the USA haven’t been really tried, they haven’t known defeat or severe suffering, and there are some bad symptoms to balance the good ones. To begin with there is the general indifference to the decay of democracy. Do you realise, for instance, that no one in England under 26 now has a vote and that so far as one can see the great mass of people of that age don’t give a damn for this? Secondly there is the fact that the intellectuals are more totalitarian in outlook than the common people. On the whole the English intelligentsia have opposed Hitler, but only at the price of accepting Stalin. Most of them are perfectly ready for dictatorial methods, secret police, systematic falsification of history2 etc. so long as they feel that it is on ‘our’ side. Indeed the statement that we haven’t a Fascist movement in England largely means that the young, at this moment, look for their fuhrer elsewhere. One can’t be sure that that won’t change, nor can one be sure that the common people won’t think ten years hence as the intellectuals do now. I hope 3 they won’t, I even trust they won’t, but if so it will be at the cost of a struggle. If one simply proclaims that all is for the best and doesn’t point to the sinister symptoms, one is merely helping to bring totalitarianism nearer.

You also ask, if I think the world tendency is towards Fascism, why do I support the war. It is a choice of evils—I fancy nearly every war is that. I know enough of British imperialism not to like it, but I would support it against Nazism or Japanese imperialism, as the lesser evil. Similarly I would support the USSR against Germany because I think the USSR cannot altogether escape its past and retains enough of the original ideas of the Revolution to make it a more hopeful phenomenon than Nazi Germany. I think, and have thought ever since the war began, in 1936 or thereabouts, that our cause is the better, but we have to keep on making it the better, which involves constant criticism.

Yours sincerely,
Geo. Orwell
http://thebea.st/1cwx0bO

[Motown_Johnny]

1. Oh, I thought the letter would be "W".

Silly me.

[orpupilofnature57]

2. +1000 !!!!

' Down and out in Paris and London ' was my first real look at the destitution unchecked, apathetic wealth wrought the world .

[DonCoquixote]

3. a golden quote

our cause is the better, but we have to keep on making it the better, which involves constant criticism.

[Scuba]

24. +1

[Pholus]

26. I'll take it! Thanks! nt.

[Puzzledtraveller]

4. k&r!

[zeemike]

5. Orwell is looking more and more like a modern day prophet.

He obviously understood human nature and political systems better than anyone.

[Dustlawyer]

7. I wonder what he would think of America now?

[Taitertots]

39. Cell phones are mobile telescreens with GPS trackers

Surprised that the government lets the corporations control the propaganda services.

Not surprised the We attacked an innocent nation, starting a decade long war. A war that was conveniently used as an excuse to justify horrible policies. We don't even need a war with Eurasia, we have the "global war on terror".

Our whole language is perverted by double think. The super rich are "job creators". Destroying the social safety net is "austerity". Republicans refusing to increase the debt ceiling is a "debt crisis". Corrupt and criminal "investment" "banks" are given billions in handouts because they are "too big to fail".


The biggest shock would be finding out that the government uses supercomputers instead of having actual people sort the data. I read 1984 years ago, but I'm pretty sure the telescreens were monitored by people.

[JDPriestly]

46. Excellent post.

[awoke_in_2003]

34. or just a good judge of human character. nt

[zeemike]

36. Well he was that for sure.

And that skill may be necessary to be a prophet.

[Generic Other]

37. Asimov spoke of a psycho historian

One who understood psychology and human history well enough to feel comfortable predicting future behaviors. Orwell's our time's psycho historian.

[zeemike]

38. Thar's interesting.

And his understanding of psychology seemed to come through the use of language.
If you have ever read his essays on the use of language you would know what i mean.
I think they should be mandatory reading for anyone who wants to write.

[burnodo]

6. a million times KICK

[vanlassie]

8. Thanks for posting. Orwell was brilliant.

I would re-read 1984, but it's too upsetting to me at this point. I think about it all the time these days. Heads up, anyone who has not gotten around to reading it. It's amazing and important. And very readable.

[LisaLynne]

9. the Anglo-American millionaires

Wow. Not that I ever thought badly of Orwell, but reading that really give me a fuller appreciation and new respect for him.

[ProfessorPlum]

10. I keep thinking about 1984

and how, once the state had built its surveillance machine that watched everyone constantly and would brook no dissent, that its ultimate goal was to _make_ everyone love Big Brother. It would settle for nothing less.

[JDPriestly]

44. That's precisely the problem with the surveillance.

And remember. The NSA also has all of Congress and everyone in the press, all the lawyers, everybody in power as well as we who have only our one single vote -- under surveillance.

It is madness for Congress to vote in favor of this surveillance.

This completely usurps the independence of Congress.

Even if the NSA will vow that it would not use this surveillance on members of Congress, there would be now way to assure that.

If Al Qaeda is enough of a threat to place ordinary people like me under surveillance in case I know someone who knows someone who knows someone, then the NSA will have no problem dreaming up a threat great enough to justify putting any and all members of Congress and the courts under surveillance.

[reformist2]

11. Making things better 'involves constant criticism' - so true.

[malthaussen]

12. "a tendency to disbelieve in the existence of objective truth...

...because all the facts have to fit in with the words and prophecies of some infallible fuhrer."

Nah, we ain't seein' much of that, are we? On both sides.

-- Mal

[markiv]

22. the movie 'Blow Up' explores that question

how much of our reality is dominated by consensus and acknowledgement, is there objective reality if nobody else will acknowledge it?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060176/

[DLevine]

13. K&R. nt

[malaise]

14. Prescient

and brilliant.

Rec

[MuseRider]

15. I really like this line

" If one simply proclaims that all is for the best and doesn’t point to the sinister symptoms, one is merely helping to bring totalitarianism nearer. "

I really should read the book again, don't want to but should. Thanks for this.

[dixiegrrrrl]

30. Needs to be a sig line we can point to

when those who poo poo the discussion of sinister symptoms come along.

[awoke_in_2003]

35. I have never asked...

but what is that in your sig line?

[JDPriestly]

43. It isn't my sig line, but this might help.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy

[MuseRider]

47. :-) I get asked that a lot.

It is just an interesting graphic of a clarinet. I play clarinet in our Symphony and I really liked this graphic.

[Mr Dixon]

16. IMO

Very Good read

[markiv]

17. this part was the most interesting

"Most of them are perfectly ready for dictatorial methods, secret police, systematic falsification of history2 etc. so long as they feel that it is on ‘our’ side"

thank goodness we have DU to combat that sort of thinking

[GreenStormCloud]

20. Except for a lot of the stuff that I have seen here by some DUers.

I have seen calls for censorship, for the Republican party to be outlawed, for trials to be short-circuited to get the desired verdict, for the gov't to take over the news media to make sure they report "the truth", all in support of "our" side.

[markiv]

21. that's what i meant

that in the name of 'BUT, THEIR SIDE IS WORSE!!!!!!!', anything goes

anything

[Igel]

27. In a speech he referred to it as "liberal fascism."

It was the title of a book by a RW pundit. It was widely perceived as being his coinage and utterly insane because once upon a time somebody, decades after WWII, drew up a definition of fascism that was so narrow that it could hardly apply to anybody but Mussolini. Oh, and if interpreted just right, neo-conservatives (so it had to be right).

This missed the minor fact that the definition of fascism by 1940 was already broader.

It's illuminating that most people here assume that even as Orwell writes about intellectuals they have to assume it's really only referring to those that they despise. Even as he wrote about centralizing the economy--which was the response of Keynesians on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean--they think it refers to laissez-faire capitalism or at the very least corporatism. Even as Orwell refers to cults of personality, and even includes Gandhi (and de Valera) in this, they still genuflect before FDR and for many, if you dare say "boo!" about the current president, are to be considered reprobates unclean, ready to be cast out.

Why? Because he's on our side, and in the struggle for power, first you get power "by any means necessary" (which is a dead giveaway--any group using that as part of its moniker is just evil or intentionally deceptive) and only then can you work on being kinder and gentler. Thing is, that never comes. Because as soon as you force people into a mould they do something you don't like and they need to be taught a lesson, or there's some other imperfection for history's chosen people to correct, or there's something else that Must Be Done. By any means necessary.

[live love laugh]

28. That's the part that jumped out at me too. So sad that things are the same as they ever were. nt

[whttevrr]

18. k & r

[tk2kewl]

19. i would highlight this sentence as well

"If one simply proclaims that all is for the best and doesn’t point to the sinister symptoms, one is merely helping to bring totalitarianism nearer."

kind of like the Snowden detractors, NSA defenders, and corpo-democrats

[Are_grits_groceries]

23. I started highlighting some points.

Then I realized the whole letter is a highlight.

I let the few I began with stand. Everybody quoting different points are emphasizing ideas I agree with. .

[Igel]

29. Red herring.

To avoid the point and suppress dissent.

It misses the point of totalitarianism entirely.

Universal surveillance is a tool, it is not a trait. Moreover, it is only a useful tool when totalitarianism is a fact on the ground and is mostly engaged in a mopping up operation. Totalitarianism, Orwell entailed, is a ground-up operation as far as the people are concerned. The NSA is a top-down operation. That's not how you build totalitarianism.

Those who soundly condemn any disparagement of their Leader, who cannot conceive that their Leader can be wrong because their Leader is an extension of themselves, who applaud the crushing of one power center because it means their Leader (and therefore they themselves) have more power ... That's how you build totalitarianism--destroying social trust one step at a time until finally trust resides more in people 1000 miles away than locally, concentrating power in the hands of a few trusted people, esp. when the reason is either hurting some group or getting power for yourself.

[JDPriestly]

41. With this, I take issue.

Totalitarianism, . . . is a ground-up operation as far as the people are concerned.

When the media constantly repeats as true something that is not at all true, it can create the illusion in the great mass of people that in fact we absolutely must have a strong leader and that our democracy is failing or has failed.

That is the case right now. Our greatest problem, our greatest challenge is the dominance of a super-wealthy class that is, for example, already, now closing its grasp on our economy by purchasing real estate that most Americans will have to rent and never own. The complementary problems to the increasing dominance of that wealthy class are the wage stagnation and poverty of working people who must depend on gifts from government just to eat.

Add the wars and the increasing need to fund the wars and man and equip our armies by squeezing what is left of the middle class and the poor still further. Then kick in the stuck and stubborn Republicans who represent even more than Democrats the interests of the super-wealthy class and whose main aim these days is to prove that our representative democracy cannot work, and it sounds like we are repeating the last days of the Roman Republic.

Tyrants always find new tools with which they can grab power. Frightening those of us who use the internet into ceasing to discuss either personal or political matters or to express our opinions, right or wrong is a great tool for establishing the very dictatorship that you claim must be bottom up. Our ideas may occasionally, even frequently, disagree with the "facts" or priorities presented by the media. When we express our disagreement and unhappiness with the false reality presented on a lot of TV and in a lot of media, we challenge the false truth that the media is trying to sell us -- that we embrace and support the dictatorship in its infancy that authorities seem to want to thrust upon us and persuade us that we want. We don't want it.

But. It is not necessary in a surveillance state that people really embrace a dictator. There only has to be the illusion that some allegiance to a dictator is boiling from the bottom up. There only has to be a press corps intimidated by those who use surveillance as a tool to take control. People only have to be told over and over again that they really want the surveillance, that they really want the NSA dictatorship. Don't worry. The NSA or whoever has masterminded this surveillance will find a personality that people can "trust" to rescue them from the current impasse in Congress and even more impending failures on our international and economic fronts.

History repeats itself, but only in the broad lines, not in the details. And we are seeing many of the currents that preceded the fall of the Roman Republic.

As for this, "destroying social trust one step at a time until finally trust resides more in people 1000 miles away than locally, concentrating power in the hands of a few trusted people, esp. when the reason is either hurting some group or getting power for yourself."

Isn't that what the surveillance is about -- persuading the American people that we can't be both safe and free, that there is a threat out there so all powerful that we have to allow the NATIONAL Security Agency to put us under surveillance in order to deal with it?

If you watched what happened with the Occupy movement (which was a nebulous movement with only a vague political viewpoint and even a more vague political goal and no threat to anyone), you can see that the ability to change things at the local level has already pretty much been destroyed by the surveillance state.

In fact, the squashing of the Occupy movement before it could even gain a foothold in the popular imagination or find a political form was precisely what you described -- concentrating the power in the hands of a few trusted people.

The NSA types would never tolerate having a loose grouping of people who simply want to experiment with pure democracy. Because that would take us back to believing in ourselves as a people and give the NSA types less capacity to keep their boots on our necks.

[immoderate]

25. Does anyone know what he means by this...?

"Do you realise, for instance, that no one in England under 26 now has a vote and that so far as one can see the great mass of people of that age don’t give a damn for this?"

BTW, I have read 1984 four times over the years, and each time it was more profound. It's a product of genius!

--imm

[Igel]

31. I'm curious, as well.

Perhaps because general elections had been suspended in 1935? This was written in 1944, though, so perhaps not. But if suffrage was extended to any group at the age of 18 then the math could be made to work.

[immoderate]

32. Makes sense.

I did not know about suspension of suffrage.

--imm

[Enthusiast]

33. "we have to keep on making it the better, which involves constant criticism"

This is the key. Hear that? Constant criticism!

Accepting a two tiered skewed justice system, an unaccountable military and intelligence industrial complex, corporate control of legislation and elections, a huge disparity in wealth and the wholesale loss of our manufacturing will result in a nation in decline.

[Oakenshield]

42. Absolutely agree.

We need to be vigilant, now more than ever.

[JDPriestly]

40. Orwell was a prophet.

[DeSwiss]

45. K&R

''If one simply proclaims that all is for the best and doesn’t point to the sinister symptoms, one is merely helping to bring totalitarianism nearer.''

- The truth always rings as clear as a bell.....

[Mojorabbit]

48. Awesome post! nt