p a n d e m o n i u m
AOL INTERNATIONAL TUESDAY EVENING CHAT
                           Carl, Iris & Franz
  TOPIC: The Actuality of Orwell's "Nineteen-Eighty-four"
                              P A R T   I

19th September, 2000                                                            (Slightly Edited Version)


You have just entered room "panta98 Chat79."
Einai2000 has entered the room.
ScnWrt has entered the room.
ScnWrt:Hi, folks.
Einai2000:Hello, Buenas Noches, Carl!
ScnWrt:Who is Einai2000?
panta98:Hi! Carl. The Devil is lose here!!!! It rains cats and dogs.
Einai2000:Good evening, it's a pleasure to be here with you again..
panta98:Who is Einai???
Einai2000:  It's Iris, Carl ... I'm still at the university.
ScnWrt:Hi, Iris. Glad you're here.
panta98:OH! Pleasant surprise, Iris!!!
Einai2000 :... since my connection to our chats via smoke signals from the hens' garden didn't work, I decided to try it from Franz's university PC.
Einai2000:Same here, some minutes ago I was booted out, heavy thunderstorm here, but now I think it's over.
Einai2000:Yes, it's really a great pleasure to be here again, Carl.
panta98:Jutta is trying to get the river out of the house; we're flooded.
panta98:How's the thunderstorm there, Carl?
Einai2000:Looking out of the window...I fear the thunderstorm here is still not over ... I nearly can't see the mountains. Ok, please, Franz...
panta98:Anyhow, Carl & Iris, while we still stay online, did you read the stuff which I sent you on Orwell. Any comments?
ScnWrt:Yes, I enjoyed it
panta98:Iris, any suggestion, commentary?
Einai2000:Franz, I only had a very short overlook at the comments you sent...
ScnWrt: Derrida's deconstruction typifies Newspeak today.
panta98: Well, then, a question?
panta98: I love to ask questions.
Einai2000: Please, do so, Franz.
ScnWrt:Please proceed, Franz
panta98:Was our world already governed by "Big Brother" in 1948, or is "Ninety-Eighty-four"
just an anticipation of Orwell, of things to come, of what would happen in our present time?
Einai2000: Carl and Franz, please make sure to save the script.
panta98: Yes!
ScnWrt: It was run by a team of Big Brothers called the Illuminati.
ScnWrt: I will save it.
panta98:Did this team control the whole system, its politics, the world market, its social ideology? Or only a section, onlya partof it?
ScnWrt: The whole system.
ScnWrt:The Cold War was a farce - big business.
panta98:Was it the world proletariat, the good capitalists, the democrats, who fought against this Illuminatti clique?
panta98: I agree, Carl.
ScnWrt: An isolated disorganized few fought.
ScnWrt: A few isolated individuals - Orwell, Fanon, Kerouac, Vysotsky, etc.
panta98:Iris, your opinion?
Einai2000:Well, I do think it already was governed by what one could name "Big Brother", or more precise, the specific relations of a system, necessarily leading to what is described in Orwell, e.g. total destruction of thinking and thought...
ScnWrt:Orwell focused entirely on Stalin and Hitler in 1984 and Animal Farm.
panta98:Who? Perhaps only the Trotskyites, the guerrilla movements, the rebellious students?
panta98:Perhaps it was tactically only focused on the extremes, Stalin and Hitler, Carl. In reality, he had experienced and was criticising British imperialism.
panta98: He did not study the misery of Germany or Russia.
ScnWrt: Agreed
panta98:Of course, everybody who affirms the "western world" wants to turn his critique towards Stalin & Hitler, but I don't think that he left out the tyrants and dictators elsewhere, for example, Franco, Salazar or McCarthy.
panta98:Actually, what specifically interest us, is his excellent explanation of ideology, of newspeak.
ScnWrt: Didn't come across.
ScnWrt: I will make a statement - a personal idea - Please don't be offended.
panta98:Of course, not!
panta98:Listening!
Einai2000:Unfortunately, Carl and Franz, I'm not informed about the bibliographic background, as I told you, I haven't had the chance to study the articles well, so I can't relate it to our topic.
Agreed, Franz. And Carl, please, proceed! No problem!
ScnWrt:I think that Orwell and Huxley were working for the British Intelligence Service.
Einai2000:Please explain, Carl?
panta98:Continue, Carl.
panta98:Why do you think so?
ScnWrt:They tried to convince the MI5 to turn against the Illuminati.
ScnWrt: Both were journalists.
panta98:Well, in its context, that would have been a brilliant "emancipatory" idea.
ScnWrt: Huxley had Stalin's ear.
ScnWrt: Orwell worked for BBC despite his throat injury.
panta98: Excellent, Carl. Where did you get this "classified" inside information from? But, why did Orwell criticize Russia, the Russian Revolution,  previously so vehemently in "Animal Farm"? That was real smashing, destructive critique!
ScnWrt:This was consistent with MI5 policy - to encourage resistance in the West to Stalin's Drang nach Westen.
panta98:My problem is: If both worked for the British Intelligence Service, then, why write those books; it was not necessary. Why did they become "classics" long after they served their "historic" role?
ScnWrt:Books were consistent with MI5 policy - to spread the word.
panta98:This must be the policy today too -- imagine how many books the CIA must be funding, including Web Sites!! But, then, it means that the M15 was against Orwellian Tyranny; then, it must have favoured "Democracy".
Einai2000:In the context of thinking, thought, intellect, reason, what caught my attention -- when I had a brief look in 1984 this afternoon -- was the statement, that the masses were given "intellectual liberty", BECAUSE the "Party" knew, that they already had lost every possible capacity of "thinking" - "they", the Party, knew that the masses had been completely manipulated.
panta98: Iris, an excellent observation of you both, I mean of you and Orwell. This is exactly my argument why I always say that information could flow easily on the WEB, that "classified documents"
are not necessary anymore, that "secrets" are now a waste of time.
panta98: Simply because practically -- except a very few -- nobody can understand them anymore, can think their content anymore, can relate any two events anymore. Of the billions, who could still understand the quintessence of Reich's Orgone or Tesla's Technology?
ScnWrt:These books were highly effective. In conjuction with Zemiatin's book "We," they encouraged resistance in the Soviet bloc.
panta98:But, it's exactly the logical conclusion of "Democracy", and of its two handmaidens, Fascism and Communism, which Huxley and Orwell had described in their writings. Surely, Orwell was informed about the "democratic" bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
panta98: Independently of his critique of Nazism and Communism, and working for the M15, he surely did not favour these "democratic" actions of the Free, Western "Big Brother".
ScnWrt:That "logical conclusion" encouraged the West to be on their toes.
ScnWrt:The Solidarity movement in Poland was organized by the KGB.
ScnWrt: ...an outgrowth of the Solidarity labor resistance movement (NTS) in Russia in the 1950's and 60's.
panta98:True, Carl. Iris, ideological, indoctrinated manipulation was not less in the "West" than in Russia; in the so-called Free World, for millennia, ever since Ancient Greece, the absolute working majority had no foggy idea about any superstructural reality, except their own surreal irreality, their toil and physical labour, making money, become "rich" and die.
panta98: Over the last two millennia, who could read and understand Plato and Aristotle? Today,  many billions more of "common folk", scientifically and philosophically speaking, are progressively degenerating, they will end up soon as a complete analphabetic global community. This is what Orwell understood by the "proles".
panta98:Those who couldn't survive anymore believed that it was their fate to be members of a lumpen race. Many flung themselves into the arms of thousands of religious sects and entered "Heavenly Gates".
ScnWrt:Agreed, Franz.
ScnWrt:Orwell and Huxley were trying to reform the Illuminati.
panta98: Carl, I don't doubt that. However, very often an author or journalist does not realize what he/she has discovered or is really writing about; the fact of the matter is that both Orwell and Huxley, like few others, have painted artistically the real, ugly face of capitalist fascism and communism.
ScnWrt:Excuse me. Gotta pick up Fran at the bus station. I will return soon.
panta98: OK, Carl. Iris & I will continue!
Einai2000:That is precisely the point, Franz, and coming back to your question: "Big Brother" in our terms could be summed up as being the expression of the dominant non-relations within the system, within the labour process - and what is described in Orwell's novel, as another stage within this very system. OK, Carl, until later.
panta98: D'accord, Iris. Even the devil sometimes tells the truth. Satan told Adam and Eve exactly what would happen, if they should eat "forbidden fruits", would touch divine "private property", never mind his ulterior motives, and it came to pass: they did become like God.
panta98: Man became like God. Look at Man - "the paragon of animals" (Shakespeare) -- and you see what God looks like. Even in this case, Satan told the truth. Both Jahweh and "Big Brother" threw atomic bombs on Sodom, Gomorah, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
panta98:So, whether Orwell & Huxley worked for the Illuminati or not, that's not really the central issue; however, that what they portrayed is identical to contemporary reality. Probably, the situation has become even worse.
panta98:What we have to check is whether they forgot something, made some under-statements.
Einai2000: Yes, Franz, I even think it is our very current "reality"...
panta98:If Orwell had to write 2001 today, he would get a heart-attack before he even wrote the first chapter. Current reality is not something for delicate, sensitive, sensible minds. It is a horrendous horror and terror.
panta98: Billions are lucky that they are "ignorant"; this world would have suffered from a mortal global "mad-cow" disease. Only thanks to modern "newspeak" that we are still saved from this crazy global "stampede". Ideology must be "good" for something at least.
panta98:And that in a situation where there's no Stalin and Hitler anymore, only a B. C. and a G. B -- Brother Comrade and Great Brother.
panta98:Nothing can grow in Europe anymore, Mother Soil is sterile, radio-active, poverty-stricken, poisoned. The "Third World" is forced to supply the soil, and then the products are exported directly back to Europe. Europe in charitable exchange exports Chernobyl Powdered Milk and Cheese to the "under-developed" Wretched of the Earth. .
panta98:The air is polluted, the ozone layer a mess, the potable water pure venom; many foodstuffs  stink and taste like ptomaine, cadaver-poison. In 1948, about all these things, probably, Orwell as yet did not even dream.
panta98:The truth is that the whole world is already half-"crazy", runs around just like a British "mad cow" -- last year, even Newspeak, sorry, Newsweek International had to admit this in a title page article.
panta98: Now nicotine, smoking, cannot drown this stress anymore; urgently hundreds of drugs and pills, taken daily, even every hour, must come to the rescue, as if these were less "cancerous", but, at least, they stop the marauding, globalized "mass stampede" for a while.
Einai2000:That is what Orwell describes, if I'm not mistaken, Franz; also the state of affairs concerning the so called technological know-how, also the "direction " of science.  I recall the "natural habitat"shown as you just described it.
panta98:You are right, Iris, he just did not illustrate the perverse, absurd extremes, as things are now already!
Einai2000:But I think he did indeed, Franz, e.g., talking about the quality of "nutrition input devices".
panta98: Yes, now I remember. He saw the downfall of Hitler, but he could not imagine the fading away of Stalin, of the Soviet Union.
panta98:Furthermore, real, true books, expressing the "heart-beat" of the "time",  continue writing themselves, long after the author has passed away to Alice in Wonderland.
panta98:Just look how Plato's Republic updated itself a thousand times.
Einai2000:Franz, agreed!
panta98:For this very reason, we should read and discuss about the latest edition of 1984. How Orwell would have written it today. In latency and tendency, he described the precise flow of fascist events.
panta98:That's what I think what we should chat about now.
Einai2000:Ok, please, proceed, Franz - Carl is still away ...
panta98:What was he really saying, why did he write the book at all/ To become famous, to buy a little plot of land? To attack Stalin, and support British anti-communist propaganda?
panta98:I don't think so.
panta98:Why did Orwell never become a "communist", why did he get stuck in anarchism?
Einai2000:I doubt it, too, Franz.
panta98:Would he favour any presentday "democratic" governments? Would he not say the same essential things which he had propagated in 1984?
panta98:And, if so, why?
panta98:Anyhow, Iris, let's await Carl.
panta98:Iris, what do you think about the aforesaid? These were just some ad hoc questions which were flowing through my mind.
panta98:Still there, Iris?
ScnWrt:I'm back.
Einai2000:Franz, I really don't think that he would favour, e.g.,  the present day governments, ... Welcome back, Carl!
panta98:Did Orwell still think that something could be saved within the system?
panta98:Or did he see future global, globalized authoritarianism already in 1948, in his "magic globe"?
panta98:Why did he allow "Big Brother" to kill the last member of the "human race", the "last of his kind"?
ScnWrt:Yes, Franz. He saw Global authoritarianism in 1948.
panta98:Why did he then already give the "proles" no chance for emancipation?
ScnWrt: But, he thought that Eastern autthoritarianism was more authoritarian.
panta98:I have a suspicion that he saw things very clearly, long before we began to think seriously about the state of affairs of this present world. Until as late as 1988, I still believed and hoped that the world proletariat would eventually emancipate mankind. Orwell knew better four decades before me.
Einai2000:The essential points he raised and described, Franz, on the cornerstones of the system, would be the very same, and yes, I do think his novel is an excellent "Nostradamus-like" description of the state of affairs on a world scale. That's an interesting question, Franz ...
ScnWrt:Because, historically, the "proles" always had succumbed.
panta98:True, Carl.
panta98:But, Carl, why did he not mention the future "hornets", "fireflies" and "dragons"?
ScnWrt:He was influenced by Fritz Lang's movie Metropolis (1926, Germany).
panta98:Perhaps his vision was not very clear, the emancipatory hornets fell on his "blind spot".
ScnWrt: He couldn't foresee the Internet.
Einai2000: Oh, he did, Carl ...
panta98:Carl, if you should do some Science Writing about Orwell's book, what would you criticize and "correct"?
Einai2000: If I"m not mistaken, he precisely showed the totally computarized world ..?
ScnWrt: Iris, not the Internet as a powerful emancipatory force.
Einai2000: Ah, got it, Carl.
panta98: That's true, Iris. A brilliant observation. But, Carl is stressing another aspect.
ScnWrt: Agreed, Iris.
Einai2000:Indeed, he showed "Internet" as the powerful tool to maintain under control the masses and Party members.
Einai2000: As an instrument to re-write history ...
panta98:Aaahhh! Now I can see very clearly. He did not foresee "Internet".
Einai2000: Yes, Franz, to control every second, every move one takes ...
ScnWrt: But he didn't foresee the Internet's emancipatory power.
ScnWrt: Because it's uncontrollable.
panta98:Iris, that is being done nowadays by satellite. And, even then, would that have made a difference in Orwell[s predictions, Carl?
ScnWrt:Yep, Franz
panta98:Be more explicit, Carl.
Einai2000: But in Orwell, it's the very tool of control, Carl. So we would have to state that in this point Orwell might be proven wrong?
ScnWrt: All thinkers had limitations - Reich's focus on orgasms (ridiculous)!
ScnWrt: Orwell was limited.
ScnWrt: So was Kerouac and Zemiatin.
panta98:Carl, but Orwell portrayed a kind of advanced system of Internet. His Internet was in fact "Big Brother" himself.
panta98: Our Internet is not yet fully grown, it's not yet fully controlled, has not exposed its real, true,  perfect control colours as yet.
ScnWrt: His Internet was too controlled.
panta98:But, even that would not be necessary, if most of the minds which use Internet are already totally "blank", awaiting to be filled with the manna and nectar of Newspeak.
ScnWrt: It won't be fully controlled.
panta98:Then secrets can be opened; nobody would even see them as secrets.
ScnWrt:A lot of minds on the Net aren't blank.
ScnWrt: Nothing is secret anymore.
ScnWrt: But responsibility, not secrecy, is the issue.
ScnWrt: For example, MKULTRA robotic, disposable assassins ...
Einai2000:Responsibility, a good point, Carl.
ScnWrt: created by irresponsible controllers, so they don't have to deal with commitment.
Einai2000:But surely the controllers are not irresponsible, Carl...
panta98:Carl, if that's so, and partially I am sure of that too, then there's still "hope" for us, for mankind.
Einai2000:I think they are indeed very "responsible" to certain things - to their objectives.
ScnWrt: I'm referring to the controllers of the assassins, not the big fish.
panta98:What do you think? Then, Orwell committed an error. There are still many of our kind, of our "race". That must have been one of his grievous mistakes, to be criticized and "corrected" by us?
ScnWrt: He was limited, Franz.
panta98:But, then Plato was better. He saw things across millennia, and his basic dreams came true, for example, his republican campaign of ideological lies, of newspeak.
panta98: Consequently, even Chaka, the Zulu, who never published a single line, foresaw things better than Orwell: that we would kill each other one by one, until nobody is left to kill or to be killed anymore. That "Kaffir" was brilliant! An epithet which is never associated with "Kaffirs" only with laureated erudite ideologues.
ScnWrt: For example, during the Spanish Civil War (1936), the anarchists suggested that Spanish Morocco be given independence. The Republican Government refused, assuming that this would antagonize the Colonial powers.
ScnWrt: Orwell never addressed this issue
Einai2000 :...or in Orwells words: "permanent state of war", Franz.
Einai2000: Well, Orwell was not "perfect", Carl, just another human being, and errare humanum est...
ScnWrt: Agreed, Iris.
panta98:Of course, I'm not an Orwell Fan, also my views about things are very different from his world outlook, but, I must admit, I know no modern writer or journalist who has described the current status quo "better" than Orwell himself, especially given his "limited" circumstances and knowledge about the technological future.
Einai2000: as you said, he was also limited.
ScnWrt:Franz, H .G. Welles came close to it, in Things to Come (British movie, 1936).
Einai2000:I do agree with you, Franz. Within his limitations, he hit the nail (or some of the nails - essential points) on the head. ....
panta98: D'accord, Iris. Limits and limitations do not mean that in cognition and recognition we are forever doomed. Things which we should know are not only "future" things.
panta98:The very State ideologue, Hegel, knew it. The Truth is the Whole Truth.
ScnWrt: Agreed, Franz. All are links in the emancipatory chain.
panta98: For sure, Carl. In microcosm, you can "see" the whole macrocosmic Truth, and vice versa, and for that, the last things on earth which you need, are the Time and Space formal logical Kantian intellectual categories.
panta98:A sane mind can invent Space and Time, but it does not become a victim of its own intellectual fantasies, like in the case of the divine spectres, God and Satan.
panta98:Hence, limitations have nothing to do with absentee future events; they concern ignorant, destroyed, manipulated, indoctrinated, perverted minds. And without a mind, without one that functions, not even a "mentality" is possible.
panta98:At least, Orwell's mind was not yet so destroyed, so putrefied, so controlled. I would love to see a similar book published today, which would become an evergreen  "classic" within a decade.
Einai2000:Franz and Carl, I'm sorry, but I have to leave to catch the last buseta to San Onofre. I surely will be back with you next Tuesday, and I suggest that we do continue with the topic. Please, gentlemen, you go ahead with the discussion and send me the script.
panta98:It's not only the will to emancipate which is quintessential, we must also have sane acts, healthy thoughts and unlimited possibilities of transcendence. Many are called, few are chosen, says the Holy Bible. Strange!!!
Einai2000: It really was a great pleasure to be here with you again!
panta98:Perhaps, we'll have to stop here. I have not eaten yet, came straight to the computer from work. We'll continue with this topic next week.
panta98:Carl, as always, it was a pleasure.
panta98:Please send me your saved manuscript, to include the few lines which I missed.
Einai2000:Ok, Carl and Franz, till next Tuesday, taketh care. And give my regards to Fran, Carl.
panta98: Iris, thanks for suffering in the cold in my office.
panta98:Take care! Iris! Bye!!!!
Einai2000:chao @)-;---'----
ScnWrt:Labinachti and Buona Sera!
Einai2000::-)
ScnWrt has left the room.
Einai2000 has left the room.

 

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