The reverse philosophy of George Orwell’s 1984 — doubleplus apt
By: Adam Evans
Tags: 1984, Equality, Thoughts, George Orwell

George Orwell. (n.d.). AZQuotes.com. Retrieved December 12, 2020, from AZQuotes.com Web site: https://www.azquotes.com/quote/498864

George Orwell’s 1984 paints a remarkable picture of a dystopian world that is scarily familiar in our modern day context. Although the year 1984 has come and gone, the picture painted by this book has so many elements that only seem to get even more imaginable as time passes. TV’s that watch/listen to people (think FB portal) and governments that edit the truth (think next generation NSA) have descended from being a fictitious future to being a foreseeable omen.

But there are a few core messages in 1984 that are most captivating.

Written by a character that never shows face in the book, but who’s theories allude to what might be the real backstory, the book by Goldstein dives into the political and economic landscape of the world that Orwell paints; one that is eerily relevant today. Here are some excerpts from the book within the book, also called the book…

“But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the destruction — indeed, in some sense was the destruction — of a hierarchical society. In a world in which everyone worked short hours, had enough to eat, lived in a house with a bathroom and a refrigerator, and possessed a motorcar or even an airplane, the most obvious and perhaps the most important form of inequality would have disappeared. If it once became general, wealth would confer no distinction.” — 1984, George Orwell

It goes on to say that even if we imagine a world where wealth was evenly distributed but power was in the hands of a few, stability would not prevail for long. It hypothesizes that since poverty would no longer exist, a great many humans would quickly become literate enough to realize that the privileged minority had no function. Thus they would be swept out.

“In the long run, hierarchical society was only possible through the existence of poverty and ignorance.” — 1984, George Orwell

Something we miss in the grand chaos of everything. Poverty might not be just a by-product of a hierarchical society. It is in fact a necessity.

“The problem of maintaining hierarchy was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they need not be distributed. And in practice the only way to achieve this was by continuous warfare.” — 1984, George Orwell

We all know too well that war destroys not only human lives but products of human labor. According to Orwell, this can be thought of as a way to maintain hierarchy; as a direct opposition to achieving an equal state-of-existence to a majority.

Whether it be the recent wars (think US in the middle-east or the Sri Lankan government against the LTTE) or ancient ones (just pick one…too many to name), elements of this issue have surfaced repeatedly. That somebody or even some organization might benefit from a war is not a strange concept to most of us. But the proposition that the system itself might benefit from it is one that is harder to swallow. 54 % of the US budget in 2015 was for military purposes. Instead of the viewpoint that this budget is being used for their defense (which in itself still raises so many questions), what would the US population think of this expense if it were to be understood that this budget was sacrificed for prolonging their own poverty and ignorance in order to maintain hierarchy.

In this context, what is most interesting is the reverse of the philosophy expressed in 1984. That a hierarchical society might not be able to exist in the presence of true equality. That begs the question, what is true equality? Should we regard the final state of equality as a state that will provide “everyone” with equal economic and social benefits (not “me” or “you” or “us” or “them”)? In current discourse, most of our fights on equality center on a specific population. Each of these fights are extremely important and have to be fought to move towards an equal world. However, if we view these fights as a means to an end, we need to understand that the final state of equality (or the “expected value”, if equality was analogous to an arithmetic mean) will have to include “everyone”. That is a truth that sometimes gets lost in the tug-of-war of individual fights. One that has to be constantly kept in mind when devising a lasting solution for the set of all problems concerning inequality within humanity.

It is possible to say that almost anything that a hierarchical society preaches about equality, will end in contradiction unless we practice something akin to Jesus Christ’s teaching in Christianity, “if you want to be perfect go sell your possessions and give to the poor”. And it is clear, that if we do away with self-elevated motivations of society such as sympathy, pride and revenge (commonly misrepresented as justice) and build one that is based on traits such as empathy, humility and forgiveness, we might be able to steadily move closer to true equality for all.

George Orwell’s 1984 is a must read. Its message has rung closer and closer to true with the passage of time. But what’s more important is the eloquently stated philosophy of the world that does not exist within the story, if we can put our minds to achieving it.