George Orwell - Socialist, Anarchist or What...?
Re.: George Orwell - Socialist, Anarchist or What...?
http://members.tripod.com/wintermute10/cbs-uk.htm
1984 nicely puts together how feeble the prospects of a revolution by the mass or merely the single well-meant intellectual action of an individual is, which is exceptionally true in modern society but also in a pre-industrial world; discontentment and uproars manifest itself in the latter not as a consequence of poverty, but primarily in reaction to intrusion into popular religion and folkloristic events or in case of famine.
Mind you, in the book, the Proles are relatively spared from the party-control and live more or less like every underclass in pacifized exclusion.
The cynical angle and in this Orwell wondrously foreshadows the fears of the Situationists is that the intellectual weapons and icons of the revolt are manufactured, delivered and orchestrated by the Party.
"A new form of domination had been perfected, they( = the Situationists) maintained, in which every act of apparent dissent actually takes place in a worldwide spectacle.
Life had been turned into a show, which even those who staged the play could not escape.
The most radical of movements of revolts quickly became part of the act." -- John Gray, Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals; London, 2002.
"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. For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves, or the capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High. Presently a new middle group splits off from one of the other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins all over again." -- George Orwell, 1984.
I believe that Cioran addressed the same problem concerning revolt/revolution.
Such deeds are primitively newtonian in principle, what goes around comes around.
But the immediate future is more bleak and decomposed than Orwell's pessimistic novel.
The Proles permeate these days every rank and class of our societies. Yesterday I had a similar discussion with a Swedish friend of mine and she concured. I summarized the problem neatly this way:
As long everyone can still pay for access to the
Internet, spends vacation on the Rivièra and wear Hugo
Boss underwear, no much chance that any definete
consciousness about the problems that mar our lives
will show up in their drivel-filled mind.
But there's more.
Juenger noticed how posh the underdeveloped classes have become, bourgeois-like; in other words, not so much struggling to get some bread at the table and feed the children, but lamenting that their computer crashed and the government doesn't give enough hand-outs to pay a technician. Oh, they buy still supermarket cloths, but the collar is stiffly ironed as a pledge to conformity.
The self-hate of the lower classes are but the reflexion upon them by the Middle, their compulsion to imitate the Middle in attitudes and acquisition of material commodities will result that the Middle will strive to the High and secure their social body to further nivellistic usurpation.
Meanwhile the amalgamation proceeds, a selective group will pushed further to the periphery and perish in time, which all comes down to some freakish consequence of social darwinism: the winners are not the cultural educated nor the sensitive low-graded individual, but the conformity-seekers, those who walk in line in blissful un-personality.
http://members.tripod.com/wintermute10/cbs-uk.htm
1984 nicely puts together how feeble the prospects of a revolution by the mass or merely the single well-meant intellectual action of an individual is, which is exceptionally true in modern society but also in a pre-industrial world; discontentment and uproars manifest itself in the latter not as a consequence of poverty, but primarily in reaction to intrusion into popular religion and folkloristic events or in case of famine.
Mind you, in the book, the Proles are relatively spared from the party-control and live more or less like every underclass in pacifized exclusion.
The cynical angle and in this Orwell wondrously foreshadows the fears of the Situationists is that the intellectual weapons and icons of the revolt are manufactured, delivered and orchestrated by the Party.
"A new form of domination had been perfected, they( = the Situationists) maintained, in which every act of apparent dissent actually takes place in a worldwide spectacle.
Life had been turned into a show, which even those who staged the play could not escape.
The most radical of movements of revolts quickly became part of the act." -- John Gray, Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals; London, 2002.
"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. For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves, or the capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High. Presently a new middle group splits off from one of the other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins all over again." -- George Orwell, 1984.
I believe that Cioran addressed the same problem concerning revolt/revolution.
Such deeds are primitively newtonian in principle, what goes around comes around.
But the immediate future is more bleak and decomposed than Orwell's pessimistic novel.
The Proles permeate these days every rank and class of our societies. Yesterday I had a similar discussion with a Swedish friend of mine and she concured. I summarized the problem neatly this way:
As long everyone can still pay for access to the
Internet, spends vacation on the Rivièra and wear Hugo
Boss underwear, no much chance that any definete
consciousness about the problems that mar our lives
will show up in their drivel-filled mind.
But there's more.
Juenger noticed how posh the underdeveloped classes have become, bourgeois-like; in other words, not so much struggling to get some bread at the table and feed the children, but lamenting that their computer crashed and the government doesn't give enough hand-outs to pay a technician. Oh, they buy still supermarket cloths, but the collar is stiffly ironed as a pledge to conformity.
The self-hate of the lower classes are but the reflexion upon them by the Middle, their compulsion to imitate the Middle in attitudes and acquisition of material commodities will result that the Middle will strive to the High and secure their social body to further nivellistic usurpation.
Meanwhile the amalgamation proceeds, a selective group will pushed further to the periphery and perish in time, which all comes down to some freakish consequence of social darwinism: the winners are not the cultural educated nor the sensitive low-graded individual, but the conformity-seekers, those who walk in line in blissful un-personality.
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