From The New Yorker:
The following is adapted from a lecture delivered in Barcelona at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona on June 6, 2018, in honor of Orwell Day.
Some essays are letters into the future. “The Prevention of Literature” is one such essay, and today I’d like to respond to it from 2018.
Orwell argues that totalitarianism makes literature impossible. By literature, he means all kinds of writing in prose, from imaginative fiction to political journalism; he suggests that verse might slip through the cracks. He writes, too, that there is such a thing as “groups of people who have adopted a totalitarian outlook”—single-truth communities of sorts, not just totalitarian regimes or entire countries. These are deadly to literature as well.
Orwell was writing in 1946, five or seven years before scholarly works by Hannah Arendt, on the one hand, and Karl Friedrich, on the other, provided the definitions of totalitarianism that are still in use today. Orwell’s own “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” which provides the visceral understanding of totalitarianism that we still conjure up today, was a couple of years away. Orwell was in the process of imagining totalitarianism—he had, of course, never lived in a totalitarian society.
He imagined two major traits of totalitarian societies: one is lying, and the other is what he called schizophrenia. He wrote, “The organized lying practiced by totalitarian states is not, as it is sometimes claimed, a temporary expedient of the same nature as military deception. It is something integral to totalitarianism, something that would still continue even if concentration camps and secret police forces had ceased to be necessary.” The lying entailed constantly rewriting the past to accommodate the present. “This kind of thing happens everywhere,” he wrote, “but is clearly likelier to lead to outright falsification in societies where only one opinion is permissible at any given moment. Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.”
He goes on to imagine that “a totalitarian society which succeeded in perpetuating itself would probably set up a schizophrenic system of thought, in which the laws of common sense held good in everyday life and in certain exact sciences, but could be disregarded by the politician, the historian, and the sociologist.”
Orwell was right. The totalitarian regime rests on lies because they are lies. The subject of the totalitarian regime must accept them not as truth—must not, in fact, believe them—but accept them both as lies and as the only available reality. She must believe nothing. Just as Orwell predicted, over time the totalitarian regime destroys the very concept, the very possibility of truth. Hannah Arendt identified this as one of the effects of totalitarian propaganda: it makes everything conceivable because “nothing is true.”
. . . .
But perhaps Orwell’s most valuable observation in this essay concerns instability. “What is new in totalitarianism,” he wrote, “is that its doctrines are not only unchallengeable but also unstable. They have to be accepted on the pain of damnation, but on the other hand, they are always liable to be altered on a moment’s notice.” Orwell had observed the disfavor and disappearance of prominent Bolsheviks and the resulting adjustments to the official narratives of the Revolution—the endlessly changing and vanishing commissars. Arendt argued that the instability was, in fact, the point and purpose of the purges: the power of the regime depended not so much on eliminating particular men at particular moments but on the ability to eliminate any man at any moment. Survival depended on one’s sensitivity to the ever-changing stories and one’s ability to mold oneself to them.
Link to the rest at The New Yorker
We live in a time when intentional, systematic, destabilizing lying—totalitarian lying for the sake of lying, lying as a way to assert or capture political power—has become the dominant factor in public life in Russia, the United States, Great Britain, and many other countries in the world.
Totalitarian lying in the US? And she then tells us the totalitarian state is lying? In a totalitarian state, she wouldn’t be able to do that, and the New Yorker wouldn’t be able to publish it.
This is just playing at being the oppressed but courageous writer. With real totalitarians you don’t get to play that game.
The US isn’t a totalitarian state yet but it is well on the way there. At present there isn’t just one absolutist camp but two main ones, both absolutists, both populist, and both relativists: “truth” is whatever benefits them, their tribal identity, their party.
It’s just a matter of time and, according to one of the camps, demographics.
At present there isn’t just one absolutist camp but two main ones, both absolutists, both populist, and both relativists: “truth” is whatever benefits them, their tribal identity, their party.
And I can write that either or both camps are wrong, click the KDP upload button, and live fat off my royalties.
Alternatively, I can ignore both and set up a third camp.
1- “He writes, too, that there is such a thing as “groups of people who have adopted a totalitarian outlook”—single-truth communities of sorts, not just totalitarian regimes or entire countries. These are deadly to literature as well. ”
2- “But perhaps Orwell’s most valuable observation in this essay concerns instability. “What is new in totalitarianism,” he wrote, “is that its doctrines are not only unchallengeable but also unstable. They have to be accepted on the pain of damnation, but on the other hand, they are always liable to be altered on a moment’s notice.”
3- “Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.”
That last one is a cornerstone of “post-modernistic” thought.
3- “The totalitarian regime rests on lies because they are lies. The subject of the totalitarian regime must accept them not as truth—must not, in fact, believe them—but accept them both as lies and as the only available reality. She must believe nothing. Just as Orwell predicted, over time the totalitarian regime destroys the very concept, the very possibility of truth. Hannah Arendt identified this as one of the effects of totalitarian propaganda: it makes everything conceivable because “nothing is true.”
Now, tell me that’s not today’s world.
Do we need examples?
Now, tell me that’s not today’s world.
That’s not today’s world. That’s a moderately widespread disease of individuals, variously called postmodernism, epistemic relativism, or plain old gullibility. Nobody is going to smash in your door in the middle of the night and haul you off to a Thought Police cell for daring to think that 2+2=4 no matter what the Party says. And no, that isn’t going to start happening, because epistemic absolutism – the ability to distinguish between reality and made-up ‘narrative’ – is a bedrock essential tool for the people who have to keep the technology working. It is worth noting that of all the key inventions that have transformed daily life in the last 100 years, not one originated under a totalitarian regime.
A postmodernist, in short, is someone who yaps about the worthlessness of logic and science on the Internet, which is a product of logic and science. A totalitarian is a postmodernist with an army.
Incidentally, it is not true that Orwell never lived under a totalitarian regime. He saw such a regime in its early stages in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War, and narrowly escaped arrest and execution there. All the essentials were there: the insistence on believing the Party line over the evidence of one’s own senses; the ubiquitous secret police, who made ‘enemies of the regime’ disappear for ever in the middle of the night; the absence of any code of law, or even any definition of what an ‘enemy of the regime’ was, so that nobody should ever feel safe; above all, the falsification of news and records. As Orwell noted, what the Barcelona papers and radio reported about events at the front was generally false, and sometimes not even false – it was simply made up without any reference to real events at all. They reported great victories in sectors where there had been no fighting at all, and remained entirely silent about many of the real battles being fought. Most of the reportage in the English-language Communist Party press (very influential at that time) was of the same general quality.
Later on, Orwell’s work for the BBC under wartime censorship disabused him of any notion that ‘it can’t happen here’. He saw the same spirit at work, though the arch-liars were not in control of everything and their power depended upon an obvious state of emergency that could not continue indefinitely. Oceania in Nineteen Eighty-four draws most of its colours from Republican Spain and wartime Britain, in which he saw the germs of a tyranny as complete as those of Stalin and Hitler.
The subject of the totalitarian regime must accept them not as truth—must not, in fact, believe them—but accept them both as lies and as the only available reality.
That is not the today’s world in the US. What lie must I accept as truth? How is it impossible for me to write prose?
It is not about accepting lies as truth. That is not Orwell’s point. It is about doubting everything so the truth is seen as just another lie.
You end up with a world where every person’s “truth” is somebody else’s lie. A lot of somebodies. On both sides.
Think about Indie ebooks.
One camp sees sales in the hundreds of millions and thousands upon thousands of authors making a good living off ebooks.
Others see ebooks as a volcano of slush not wortg even considering.
…Your truth isn’t their truth. To them it is lies.
And when they come here to spread their truth you see lies instead of truth.
(Been a while since Drive-by Deb went by, but Mr K still pops by. Just last week, in fact.)
What we have is camps talking past each other on pretty much every subject. No give, just take.
No compromise is acceptable, just total victory.
Call it axiomatic thinking.
Absolutist thinking.
Or, as Orwell did, Totalitarian thinking.
We’re surrounded by it.
Call it axiomatic thinking.
Absolutist thinking.
Or, as Orwell did, Totalitarian thinking.
In the US, there is no thinking I must accept, and no lie I must accept. No totalitarian regime forces me to do either. I can write whatever I want and hit the KDP upload button. The writer has never had more available possibilities.
Do we need examples?
We do need examples. That’s not today’s world in the US.
What lie must I accept as truth in the US? How is it impossible for me to write prose in the US?
It’s going to get political and contentious if I dish out examples…
I’m not sure PG would approve.
Just look around you. This week’s news alone offer up three examples. Start with the ripples from #metoo and the recent primaries…
The subject of the totalitarian regime must accept them not as truth—must not, in fact, believe them—but accept them both as lies and as the only available reality.
I am looking around. What lie must I accept?
Orwell argues that totalitarianism makes literature impossible. By literature, he means all kinds of writing in prose, from imaginative fiction to political journalism; he suggests that verse might slip through the cracks.
So, what’s the challenge of writing in the US today? Has prose become impossible?
“He writes, too, that there is such a thing as “groups of people who have adopted a totalitarian outlook”—single-truth communities of sorts, not just totalitarian regimes or entire countries. These are deadly to literature as well.”
We’re seeing plenty of that – seems the old fart knew that what was true in his day would be true every ‘day’ …
Not impossible but there are certain subjects that even treated delicately and sensitively and appropriately for the story will nonetheless get you vilified for years and decades. (c.f, Donaldson, Stephen, THE CHRONICLES OF THOMAS COVENANT THE UNBELIEVER)
And just try selling a cautionary tale of leftist extremes…
(And then there is the inevitable tribalization that permeates publishing. Think of the puppy catfights of recent vintage over a now worthless award.)
We’re well on the road Orwell envisioned…
…of course, Orwell didn’t envision the rise of Indie, Inc, and the relief valve it provides but that doesn’t help legacy authors chained to NYC corporate publishing contracts or authors in genres dependent on academic or award recognition.
Sure, there will be people who don’t like some things that are written. And the Hugo people don’t like stuff. But the fact that it is out there for them to disparage undercuts the notion that it is impossible to write prose. It’s not even difficult.
Orwell was writing about real totalitarian regimes, and he may never have imagined the internet and KDP.
The author then tells us all the things she wants to write about. OK. Write about them and click the Kindle upload button. Never in history has it been easier.
She claims lying is the dominant factor in public life in the US. For discussion, suppose it is. How does that make it impossible to write prose? What stops her? Who? How?
There are definitely places where one punished or imprisoned for writing some things. Can’t speak about them either. But the US is not one of those places.
Oh, there is no blacklisting in Manhattan publishing?
The IRS hasn’t gone after people and groups for their politics?
People aren’t getting beat up or even killed while trying to express their ideas?
Orwell’s key point is that totalitarianism isn’t just a political system but a *thought* system.
And that thought system is deeply embedded in the American
education system and in the political system as well as the media and, apropos of the subject, the publishing establishment, which is what the Hugo catfights were all about.
So yes, anything can still get published, thanks to Indie, Inc, but it will be marginalized. You’ll see a hysterical over-reaction like HANDSMAID TALE dug up and celebrated but you won’t see anything celebrated openly that challenges the “approved” thought system, even a mild warning that actions breed reaction and that when you push people hard enough long enough they’ll push back. First the nut jobs but eventually even the milder dissenters…
There’s a reason dystopias and superheroes are so popular right now. It’s no secret that the country is angry and getting angrier by the minute. There’s worse to come.
Look at the quotes: “everything is a lie”.
That is exactly the center of national discourse right now: there is no “truth” to be found, just whatever lie you find most comforting. Or benefits you personally…
OK, I give in. AmeriKKKa is a totalitarian state. Which is why the knock on your door is Madam Chairman Clinton’s secret police, coming to take you away for daring to complain about her perfect Utopian state.
What Orwell feared was not this creeping petty politicization of literature – that was even worse in his own time. It was actual totalitarian dictatorship taking over the Western world. And no, that did not happen.
The author of this piece tells us, “Orwell argues that totalitarianism makes literature impossible.”
In the US today, literature is not impossible. It has never offered more possibilities. It has never been easier to write and publish.