Orwell and Ambition

Eric Blair’s postcolonial fairytale, Animal Farm, was written, like most of his work, under the pseudonym George Orwell. The book is a classic, not only of propaganda, but also, well beyond propaganda, of all-too-human tragedy, portrayed with intelligence, insight, and shame. It is instructive and memorable. After every revolution, thus far, some have indeed proved more equal than others. Beyond the tragedy is an elusive hope, almost beyond Orwell's vision: the idea of a revolution that might not be betrayed, an animal farm which might cease to be a farm, which might, in fact, become something altogether more interesting and egalitarian. What it might be, Orwell never suggested; yet the hope of it, never defined, is implied throughout all his work, with an unexpressed poignancy that is perhaps his most profound legacy.

In 1984, written in 1948, Blair predicted that the Government would install “telescreens” in all homes, with no off switch; in reality, most of us, human animals that we are, aspire to little more than to earn enough to buy a television for ourselves, the larger the better, and seldom see a need to turn it off. We believe ourselves immune to the propaganda which we know full well is in the movies, the adverts, the news, the game shows; we claim we are unaffected by the advertising, even as we purchase the products we are told to buy and vote for the lying, smirking, abusive politician we are told to vote for. Those few among us who find the propaganda distasteful are to be found most often in the homeless shelters, in the prisons, the mental hospitals, or – scarcely different – inhabiting the universities, paid to teach uninterested students who are there simply to gain a more financially advantageous place at the trough. 

The very highest aspiration our farms permit – and it is a ludicrously improbable ambition for the vast majority – is to climb the farmyard ladder, rung by rung, until we attain to the lofty rank of farmer-king, capitalist-baron, slave-owner, master, his virtue and good intentions lauded daily by all his eager servants, crowed of by all his cocks, the pig-lord controller of his very own sty. 

This, we say, is our greatest hope, our highest wish, and it is entirely appropriate that we have given it the name of our greatest nation, our most profitable farm, the farm with the largest prison population per capita in the world, yet also - is there a paradox? - the farm which most prides itself on the freedom it offers to its inmates: we call this great, white hope the American Dream. 

Brothers, sisters, together, let us piss.