Reading Discussion: The Ministry of Truth

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Morley
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Re: Reading Discussion: The Ministry of Truth

Post by Morley »

honorentheos wrote:
Sun Jun 12, 2022 8:17 pm
Hi Morley -

I think you touch on a question that deserves consideration as we progress through the book beyond the first weeks readings. That being, how well does Lynskey do in avoiding the temptation to elevate Orwell rather than reveal Orwell and his books creation? The chapters on Wells seems specifically to ask the reader to contrast the two but it raises the question of whether Wells suffers from outliving his relevance compared to Orwell who died relatively young and immediately after the publication of 1984? Or is there a tendency to redefine Orwell with the times that Wells fails to receive due to differences in their visions? Is Orwell perhaps undeservedly subject to hagiography in framing his life due to factors worth visiting in their own right given the times a person lives in often dictates which prophets they most reverence? I'm curious.
honor,

I thought that Lynskey pretty thoroughly trashed Wells. it's funny that I, too, found myself wondering if said destruction was a setup to glorify our hero, George. It doesn't help that, until this point in the narrative, Lynskey's been pretty easy on Orwell.

Until reading this book, I'd never considered that HG Wells might have been making any kind social statement through either utopian or dystopian literature. And though Wells' writing makes good fodder for childhood imagination, I've never thought it carried an adult rereading very well.

Though Lynskey doesn't mention it, HG Wells' focus on technology to solve all of the problems of humanity paralleled that of contemporary movements like Futurism. That the Italian Futurists advocated for the populist fascism that ultimately led to Mussolini doesn't help Wells' legacy.

honorentheos wrote:
Sun Jun 12, 2022 8:17 pm
That seems to be one of the framings I find myself using while reading: Is this a.book about three subjects rather than just two? Orwell, his novel, and the times the reader finds themselves in and how they relate to the first two?
True. And it's the narrative about the culture of time that I find most compelling.
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Re: Reading Discussion: The Ministry of Truth

Post by honorentheos »

For any who read, I hope the book was a worthwhile read and added something to your perspective.

I had been hesitant to write what I consider more of a blog about reading the book than a discussion post with thoughts about potential discussion questions. But for the sake of closing the loop on this, I'm posting my thoughts and encourage anyone who also read to feel free to disagree, agree, add onto, refute, or otherwise share. To that end, here are a couple of topics from the book I felt resonated with me and made the book overall worthwhile.

The Intersection of Ideology, Bureaucracy, Technology, and Terror
An obvious theme of the book is the potential, real manifestation and threat posed by authoritarianism and totalitarianism. The life of Orwell makes for dramatic framing of real-world exploration of the topic that I think helped ground the reading the Nineteen Eighty-Four and its themes into something more than just a cautionary fictional story. More than any section of the book I found the history behind his involvement in the Spanish Civil War and the effect it had on his worldview the most poignant. Entering the war to fight fascism, he found himself confronting the reality of socialism as ideological authoritarianism which seems a revelation to him. The realization through that experience that a foundational "ideal" that he believed in, and continued to agree with in the form of greater social justice, nevertheless was a loss of innocence and a maturation of the man. His coming to see Stalinism for what it was, and to not make excuses for it or idealize it in his writing thereafter is central to what I believe allowed him to achieve the clarity of understanding how authoritarian rule operates realistically. Just because there was diametric opposition between the communists and the fascists both in Spain directly as well as in the shape of the nations of Germany, Italy, and Russia who were using the war in Spain as proxies didn't mean one side was right and the other wrong. The existence and rise of Fascism did not excuse other forms of totalitarian impulses. This is perhaps the sin of our current age - that the enemy of my enemy must be a friend, regardless of how much they may be ideologically dangerous in a different direction.

In full transparency, I've read this book before. Immediately after reading it I followed it up with the non-fiction book, The Battle For Spain by Antony Beevor. It was suggested to be the best material writing comprehensively about the Spanish Civil War, and I found it illuminating. I won't attempt to offer too many thoughts on a second book, but the history regarding this war touched on in The Ministry of Truth is not even a gloss when compared to a book that was barely a summary at about 600 pages. The lead up to war, the class conflicts that preceded it, the egos, the behavior of the West in remaining largely distant due to seeing a proxy fight between Russia and Germany as a fight they had no interest in that came back to bite the Allies when Germany soon after the war then invaded Poland, having developed and refined the next generation of warfare...the purges, the politics, the suffering. I was left with a sense of amazement over how many lessons for today are buried in our ignorance of that war.

One of the best summaries of this threat from The Ministry of Truth is really from Hanna Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism. That being, her comment that totalitarianism is built on an attempt to realize an ideological fantasy, where the gap to close the distance between reality and fantasy is relentless deceit. Which brings me to my second topic from the book.

Utopia Fever/Dystopian Success
Much of the first part of the book deals with the artistic background in which Orwell marinated his worldview and lessons learned to write the most pessimistic yet pervasive dystopian novel of the time. Given what Arendt said about totalitarianism, though, one has to ask oneself what role the development of unrealistic optimistic Utopian fantasies played in the rise of the authoritarianism that made the middle of the 20th century one of intense conflict, and the later half of that century one of potential conflict perhaps only held at bay by the realities of mutually assured destruction with the development and use of atomic weapons? Morley raised the issue with the book not dwelling on role of technological utopias in this already.

I personally think the book misses when it doesn't extend the review of utopian ideas beyond works of fiction as traditionally understood. As I noted in another thread, I suspect that the successes of dystopian fantasy compared to the relatively short half-lives of fictional utopias is due to how easily fictional dystopias can be grounded in our shared histories where utopias cannot. But also, I suspect part of that is utopias are very much alive and well in other genres than fiction, such that the obviously fictional utopias simple can't find available shares of that market to claim. Religion is dominating the utopian fantasy genre, with true belief in the "someday" ideal being realized. But politics is running a close second, and piggybacking on religion. Russian Orthodoxy underlies Putin's regime's authoritarian ambitions and fuels his ability to manipulate. Trump, the obvious atheist, nonetheless has the loyalty of the Christian right in the US whose fantasy is both national and metaphysical in its utopian foundations; its enemies both politically present and ideologically supernatural. But the question, the lesson of Orwell's time in Spain is manifest as well. The political left has fantasies, unrealized, of a utopian world where the distance between reality and fantasy has to be closed...

Does the book avoid the beatification of Orwell? I don't know. He is certainly praised for his writing, his insights, his attempts to be classless in a society where class was still definitional of the person. While there are comments and quotes that do not show him in an ideal light, I don't believe Lynskey had any intention of attempting to balance the biographical so much as to use the darker aspects of Orwell's life, personality, and experience to feed how it allowed him to write 1984. That presents a hurdle for avoiding painting Orwell in a overly positive light.
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Re: Reading Discussion: The Ministry of Truth

Post by honorentheos »

For those who did not read but have some interest, the first two thirds of the book cover Orwell's life with major attention given to the aspects of 1984 they helped inform. It also spends a fairly large section on the contemporary writers who contrast with Orwell, most notably H.G. Wells, climaxing in a rather hostile meeting of the two at a dinner party where Wells challenged Orwell over something unflatteringly he had written about Wells. The final chapters of the biography largely deal with the malaise and disease that defined the last years of Orwell's life, and both challenges as well as supports claims 1984 was only written due to the inherent pessimism of Orwell's final state. It's less important, in my opinion, and while interesting wasn't the section of the book I found most engaging it still interesting. It was difficult for me to not compare it to another book I'd read on the life of Friedrich Nietzsche. (That being, Hiking with Nietzsche by John Kaag. Not entirely dissimilar in form, being both biography and exploration of his works.)

The final third of the book is entirely about the life of 1984 after Orwell's death. I found myself curious to see the 1954 BBC teleplay that propelled it into the national collective cultural conscious, with a question of how to view it as it might have been seen by someone in the early days of television compared to being a viewer today.

The ultimate conviction of the book is that Orwell's story isn't a fiction but a negative myth in the sociological sense of the word myth. Though the story isn't history it isn't exactly fiction and instead tells truths with a purpose. Lynskey seems to believe he shares the same view of the message of this anti-myth: Don't let it happen. Because it has before, is happening now, and will again.
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Re: Reading Discussion: The Ministry of Truth

Post by honorentheos »

To build on the thoughts above, I think the post by Gad some time ago on authoritarianism as discussed by Steven Kotkin is worth revisiting.

Link:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=155191

The lecture Gad linked to that was given at Stanford within the last few months is, in my opinion, the better of the sources noted in that thread for purposes of this thread. It should be first noted he differentiated between totalitarianism and authoritarianism leaning initially on Linz as Gad noted. He comments on how unsatisfactory any definition for authoritarianism will end up being as an attempt to definitively pin it on a board and give it a taxonomy, but believed his five dimensions serve as policy tools where they provide sufficient explanatory power for use by those making policy engaging in politics with authoritarian regimes. It is this different that I think matters to the discussion of this book, as Big Brother/Ingsoc appears to be fully a totalitarian regime where the rule is by the few over the many. Obedience is demonstrated and agreement demanded. The definition Kotkin maintained for authoritarianism is the rule of the few in the name of the many – a definition that is illuminating itself. It gets at why I criticize our resident populists over their attempts to claim the support of masses of likeminded people. And authoritarianism is less about marching Nazis as it is about narrative and control. Two people living under different versions of what would be authoritarianism in Kotkin’s view would have different experiences. Thus his five dimensions aren’t hardlined definitions or a checklist on a form one examines to confirm, “Yep, this here is an authoritarian regime”. They simply note what he, as a historian, has decerned as the common factors for an authoritarian regime to have power with complicated interplay and widely varied forms of expression. As he keeps noting, his purpose for the framework is for policy making where soft knowledge is sufficient, not rigid and defined taxonomy where the distinction is obvious.



This comes into play in the video almost immediate once the Q&A session opens. Somewhere near the beginning of the question and answer portion of the video (about min. 40), Kotkin was presented with a question that asked how it was that nations faced with similar geopolitical tensions, and containing many of the dimensions he discussed that define authoritarian rule, can manifest varied outcomes with some existing as liberal democracies while others “become the rule of the few over the many”. Notice how the question misunderstood the definition? It didn’t maintain its most needed differentiation from totalitarianism of being the rule of the few in the name of the many. He gives it at around minute 10. It’s essential to understanding the threats to liberalism that modern authoritarianism isn’t monastic in its power structure, it doesn’t demand anything more than acquiescence, and is highly compatible with the form of democratic elections…just not democratic and liberal institutions.

So Kotkin responses to the lady’s question with the comment that it is really a marvel that liberal democracy exists at all because, importantly, it requires a society accept it. Authoritarianism is the baseline state, the natural order of human societies. Trump, Putin, Ji – the natural inclination of people of certain personalities types that pursue leadership is to exploit the underlying issue of human nature that makes liberal democracy a choice that requires understanding of just what it is that is being chosen. Those being, the institutions and values that safeguard against authoritarian rule.
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Re: Reading Discussion: The Ministry of Truth

Post by honorentheos »

For purposes of clarity Kotkin's five dimensions included:

1) Mechanisms of coercion. You know, black vans and phone calls confirming your loyalty.
2) Source of income or revenue streams. He notes natural resource extraction is ideal whereby oil, diamonds or other minerals can be sold to fund the regime with little to no willing participation needed from the governed. Could also be tariffs and fines.
3) Control over life chances - how much does government or the regime control where you work, where you live, where you can visit, etc.
4) A narrative, story that defines internal and external enemies, a lost great past being revived by the regime, etc. He considered this essential and people have to be willing to recieved it.
5) The international order being conducive to authoritarianism.
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Re: Reading Discussion: The Ministry of Truth

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So what are the safeguards against authoritarianism?

Kotkin notes the fact communist countries that liberalized their economies could maintain one party rule. But once liberalism was introduced into the social order the regimes fell. He notes this is why China isn't likely to give into pressures on human rights issues, having carefully studies the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Bloc.

Having dysfunctional Western democracies giving way to authoritarianism, collapsing our own institutions, enables authoritarian regimes abroad. When we dismantle our own liberal institutions in favor of illiberal control we make free the narratives that are critical to authoritarian regimes.

Orwell, the person, reflected a central conflict of Western liberalism, too. He grew up in a limited form of social privilege but not at its highest levels. He seemed to resent the residual British class structure and favor socialism which proved complicated by power politics and human nature. He himself is described in the book as largely socializing in higher circles even as he seemed entirely opposed to the order itself. The gravity of the social order held him in a preordained orbit of sorts.

So? I say that because it seems an analogy of sorts for the balance we find ourselves trapped in whereby the temptation is always to impose ones will, to see the wrongs or society corrected. That correction of course aligning nearly with our own view. To accept liberalism is to accept a contradiction and a belief that even if things seem bad because they don't align with what we think ought to be, the choice to impose our belief or what ought to be on the world at the expense or democratic institutions will ultimately lead to worse outcomes.
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Re: Reading Discussion: The Ministry of Truth

Post by Morley »

honor--I think you did a masterful job of summing up. I'll return with my thoughts when I discover a bit of time.
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Re: Reading Discussion: The Ministry of Truth

Post by honorentheos »

I look forward to your thoughts, Morley. And thank you for taking a chance on the book.

I am not entirely sure if this experiment in a reading discussion was a failure or just off to a weak start. On the one hand, it was already clear at the start that the timing was challenging for a number of people who expressed interest. On the other hand, I don't know that any other time would be different as life tends to be busy for busy people while people seem to find time for what they sincerely want.

It leads me to think that structured reading may not fit here. But sharing reading suggestions and postings ones thoughts on a reading when one has them may be more appropriate?
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Re: Reading Discussion: The Ministry of Truth

Post by Marcus »

honorentheos wrote:
Tue Jul 05, 2022 2:41 pm
I look forward to your thoughts, Morley. And thank you for taking a chance on the book.

I am not entirely sure if this experiment in a reading discussion was a failure or just off to a weak start. On the one hand, it was already clear at the start that the timing was challenging for a number of people who expressed interest. On the other hand, I don't know that any other time would be different as life tends to be busy for busy people while people seem to find time for what they sincerely want.

It leads me to think that structured reading may not fit here. But sharing reading suggestions and postings ones thoughts on a reading when one has them may be more appropriate?
that's one of the side reasons I thought an author's collection might work. each story can be a brief discussion itself, participants can dip in and out, in both the reading and the comments without losing continuity, but the stories are still tied together by a theme, or at the very least the author's style, approach, skill, etc. it might be worth a try, given the type of group we have. the collections could be fiction or non-fiction, also by theme, not necessarily a single author.
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Re: Reading Discussion: The Ministry of Truth

Post by honorentheos »

Marcus wrote:
Tue Jul 05, 2022 6:49 pm
honorentheos wrote:
Tue Jul 05, 2022 2:41 pm
I look forward to your thoughts, Morley. And thank you for taking a chance on the book.

I am not entirely sure if this experiment in a reading discussion was a failure or just off to a weak start. On the one hand, it was already clear at the start that the timing was challenging for a number of people who expressed interest. On the other hand, I don't know that any other time would be different as life tends to be busy for busy people while people seem to find time for what they sincerely want.

It leads me to think that structured reading may not fit here. But sharing reading suggestions and postings ones thoughts on a reading when one has them may be more appropriate?
that's one of the side reasons I thought an author's collection might work. each story can be a brief discussion itself, participants can dip in and out, in both the reading and the comments without losing continuity, but the stories are still tied together by a theme, or at the very least the author's style, approach, skill, etc. it might be worth a try, given the type of group we have. the collections could be fiction or non-fiction, also by theme, not necessarily a single author.
I thought that was a good suggestion as well.
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