The end of Power

"Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not

enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure

that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power

is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in

tearing human minds to pieces and putting them

together again in new shapes of your own choosing.

Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we

are creating? It is the exact opposite of the

stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers

imagined. A world of fear and treachery is torment,

a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a

world which will grow not less but more merciless

as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be

progress towards more pain. The old civilizations

claimed that they were founded on love or justice.

Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there

will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and

self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy

everything. Already we are breaking down the habits

of thought which have survived from before the

Revolution. We have cut the links between child and

parent, and between man and man, and between man

and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or

a friend any longer. But in the future there will

be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken

from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from

a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated.

Procreation will be an annual formality like the

renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the

orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now.

There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards

the Party. There will be no love, except the love

of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except

the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There

will be no art, no literature, no science. When we

are omnipotent we shall have no more need of

science. There will be no distinction between

beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no

enjoyment of the process of life. All competing

pleasures will be destroyed. But always -- do not

forget this, Winston -- always there will be the

intoxication of power, constantly increasing and

constantly growing subtler. Always, at every

moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the

sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless.

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot

stamping on a human face -- for ever."

George Orwell, 1984



...a stunningly stupid idea.



Wrong species.