1
Wang Xiaobo once said in "Gates's Tights", "Books like '1984' are helpful to me and help me solve some doubts in my life." ”
What kind of "doubts" it was, Wang Xiaobo only brushed it over and did not elaborate. Now that I have reached the age when Wang Xiaobo wrote this article, I seem to understand more or less what he is talking about as "doubts".
The absurd years that Wang Xiaobo has experienced have made him lament that "George Orwell's nightmare has come true in our place", and the magical era we are experiencing now may have added some supporting material to Orwell's political prophecy novel.
Orwell, describing Smith, the protagonist of Nineteen Eighty-Four, flipping through forbidden books by the enemies of the people, said, "When you get a book that you know you're going to read again and again, you tend to flip it aimlessly to a place and read a passage at random...".
"Nineteen Eighty-Four" is also such a book for me that is worth reading and re-reading. But now I am not aimlessly turning it over, but deliberately turning to the chapter "War is Peace".
Like Wang Xiaobo, I also hope that this novel of political prophecy will solve some of my current doubts.
2
The forbidden book that the protagonist reads is called The Theory and Practice of Oligarchic Collectivism and is written by a heretic who is regarded as the enemy of the people. In the third chapter of the forbidden book, War is Peace, the author elaborates on his views on war.
In the middle of the twentieth century, Russia annexed Europe, and after the United States annexed the British Empire, Eurasian countries and oceanic countries were formed. With the addition of an East Asian nation, the world became three superpowers.
These three superpowers are always pulling one to fight, allied with this, at war with that. However, neither of these three countries can be absolutely defeated by the alliance of the other two countries, and they are all evenly matched.
With the development of the times, the nature of modern warfare has changed.
Where wars used to be fought for markets and raw materials, now that every superpower has established a self-sufficient economy, there is no longer a material motive to fight.
The aim of modern warfare is to exhaust as much of the products of the machine as possible without raising the general standard of living.
In fact, the overall growth of wealth runs the risk of destroying hierarchical societies. Because once wealth is widespread and everyone enjoys leisure and living security, they will learn culture, they will think independently, and they will realize the need to eliminate hierarchical society.
And it is only in the absence of general deprivation that small privileges can appear more important, thus widening the distinctions between the various classes.
Therefore, the act of war to be waged by privileged people is destruction, not necessarily the destruction of human life, but the destruction of the product of human labor.
And constant war can ensure that goods are constantly produced and destroyed by war, which not only increases the wealth of the world, but also makes the surplus labor force constantly being consumed.
Because war is dangerous, in order to survive, it is natural that the class that gives all power to the few naturally becomes an inevitable condition.
However, war provided the economic basis for the formation of hierarchical society, not the emotional basis. To form the emotional basis of a hierarchical society, it is important to manipulate the emotions of those Party members in the war.
These people must be gullible, blindly ignorant and fanatical believers. This dominant emotion is fear, hatred, praise, ecstasy.
In other words, his mental state must correspond to the state of war, so as to arouse their feelings of hysteria and hatred for the enemy, so that they can achieve intellectual division in the atmosphere of war.
As for whether the war is good or bad, whether it will be won at all is not important. It is important that people believe that war is real, and thus that in this state of war, the possibility of independent thinking is forever eliminated.
On the surface, war is a war between countries, but in fact, war is the internal affair of a country. In this sense, there is a good chance that war is not real. It depletes the surplus of consumer goods, which is able to maintain the special psychological atmosphere required by hierarchical society.
If the three superpowers do not fight each other and agree to live in peace forever, each country will remain a self-sufficient world, which will have about the same effect as war.
Because the essence of war is actually waging the same ruling group against its own people, the purpose of war is not to conquer the territory of other countries or defend their own territory, the purpose of war is to keep the social structure from being destroyed.
True and permanent peace, therefore, is the same as permanent war, and this is the inner meaning of the slogan "war is peace".
3
In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell systematically expounded his views on war by borrowing the forbidden book of a popular enemy. How accurate his view is, whether it has insight into the nature of things, this can not find the exact certification.
But the prophecies he has made in this book, such as Big Brother watching you, the blind advocates, the people who eat slogans alive, the obligatory spies, the censors of unorthodox ideas, the fanaticism that is incited in hatred, the lie becomes the truth, and the truth is tampered with into two plus two equals five, how similar the absurdity that was once predicted is to what we know later.
It is amazing to know that Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four was written in 1948, and that before that he had not lived in any totalitarian country at all, it must be astonishing that his political insight and artistic imagination were just as accurate as prophecies.
And how I felt when I read the book, as Orwell himself said in the book:
The book says what he has to say, and if he can sort out his fragmentary thoughts, he will say the same thing.
The mind of the man who wrote this book is the same as his mind, only much more powerful than his, the system is more numerous, and the fearlessness is much greater.
He felt that the best book was the one that told you what you already knew.
The Russo-Ukrainian War, which is currently taking place, is confusing and changeable. I do not understand international politics, and I do not understand the nature of this war, let alone draw any conclusions.
And the comments of various war experts on the Internet, like carp across the river, are just a family saying that "the short man has seen the drama, but he is short and long" with people.
It may not be until decades before historians can evaluate the war. However, even if they make an evaluation, whether it can restore the truth or not, whether it is completely just, I am afraid that there are still different opinions.
And before that, reading Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four might give us a little inspiration to reflect on whether war is really worth cheering on it, as some people advocate.
The
End