animal farm collection

The symbolic ramifications of post-truth nationalism temper the cognitive dissonance of real politic. The cognitive dissonance is real. Political language makes it easier to talk about by detaching accountability from action. Cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable in societies where political agency and moral authority conflict with the detached reality of political language.

We have developed language to describe historical truths as political narratives. We did this to maintain a feeling of political agency while avoiding historical accountability. Authoritarian ideologies encourage the use of this political language. Totalitarian ideologies force the use of this political language.

This collection explores egregious examples of political narratives conflicting with historical facts and the manipulation of truth in real time. Also, characters from these revisions are GIMP'ed into pictures with animals because, "We pigs are brainworkers."

Animal Farm

Orwell was concerned with the intersection of language and power. Those who control the language are able to control history. Post war Stalinism was the inspiration for his critique of language. In Animal Farm the initial revolutionary creed was "four legs good, two legs bad." This was a democratic populist appeal that unified all animals against their biped human oppressors. This is a retelling of Tsarist Russia being overthrown by a democratic revolution. In Animal Farm the revolutionary creed changes overnight and without explanation following the Animal uprising. It becomes "four legs good, two legs better." The rewriting of the farm's historical truth is a retelling of Stalinist appropriation of Soviet language. When the pigs in Animal Farm became bourgeoisie they started walking on their hind legs. This class distinction required a change in barnyard (and party) ideology. When the pigs codified their new class separate from the four legged animals they ended the democratic revolution and started the authoritarian counter-revolution. The Stalinist takeover of the Soviet worker democracy was successful because the authoritarian state coopted revolutionary symbols and language of the democratic socialist state. There was no acknowledgement of a new national ideology under Stalin.

The counter-revolutionary shift in ideology without a vote, putsch or coup is what is frustrating about this Orwellian phenomenon. America is just as guilty as the rest of the counter-revolutionary authoritarian regimes. Democratic states don't imprison women who want to vote, void land contracts with native peoples, reeducate heterodox children and prisoners or annex islands without giving them democratic representation.

This Orwellian gaslighting becomes a scandal when constructed historical narratives are used to fuel ideological conflict. Sometime around 1920 both the Stalinists in Russia and the Wilsonians in America embraced a nationalist conflict between Soviet Communism and American Democracy that would dominate international relations for the next seventy years.

This dominate narrative is ridiculous. The Leninist Soviet October Democracy (1917-1922) and the Washingtonian Republican Democracy (1789-1797) existed one hundred years apart. They couldn't be in any conflict. The belligerents in the Cold War were the counter-revolutionary states that replaced the revolutionary democracies that kicked out King George III and Tsar Nicholas II. Insofar as they used state power for personal gains, Stalin and John Adams represent similar departures from Lenin and Washington. Framing the Cold War as a battle between Washington's republican states and Lenin's soviet councils ignores the state and party overreach of Stalin and Adams. It leads to meaningless conflict between utopian ideas.

George Orwell Animal Farm (1945) [libcom.org]

Poltics and the English Language

Orwell's essay is about political language, "largely the defensce of the indefensible." Things like imperialism, purges and atomic war are backed up by logic "too brutal for most people to face" so political actors have to use "euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness" to describe them.

He provides four issues to avoid and six rules to use. The four "means of which the work of prose-construction is habitually dodged" are (1) "dying metaphors" (2) "false limbs" (3) "pretentious diction" (4) "meaningless words." The six rules that avoid the vague style that is "now fashionable" are (1) don't use common figures of speech (2) use the shortest possible word (3) "cut" words out where possible (4) avoid passive voice (5) don't use jargon (6) don't "say anything barbarous." By "simplifying" language "you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy." Mindful use of language can reorder the "political chaos" which has appropriated language to defend the indefensible.

George Orwell Politics and the English Language (1946) [orwell.ru]

1984

Animal Farm was about political language during three historical periods: Tsarist Russia, revolutionary Soviet democracy, counter-revolutionary Stalinism. 1984 is about language and thought under an established totalitarian regime. The ruling class pigs in Animal Farm were able to reinstitute a class based system after a short period of democracy. The singular ruler from 1984, Big Brother, uses language for submission and violence.

The ruling cadre of pigs from Animal Farm are the Politburo surrounding Stalin. Napoleon the Pig and Stalin are framed as authoritarians by Orwell. They have power based on shifting political historical narratives. Stalin gets his power by proximity to greater Soviet history which he has appropriated. Stalin is an authoritarian when he adds himself to photos. He is a totalitarian when he subtracts Trotsky from photos.

Big Brother from 1984 is a totalitarian not an authoritarian. Newspeak is used to police thought as much as language. Dissent is eradicated from historical memory. This is done by the manipulation of words like blackwhite, crimethink, dayorder, doublethink, goodthink and unperson. The use of telescreens to manufacture consent while spying on the population seems like modern media (radio to facebook). The Ministry of Truth would rectify the historical record to meet current problems. This common practice for many nations, corporations, invaders, defendants. A thought crime is punished by reprogramming by the state.

George Orwell 1984 (1949) [libcom.org]