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- Anurag Chauhan
George Orwell on Social Justice Dogma and Cyclicality of Human Nature in Animal Farm
All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others.
We, almost every day, keep waking up in the morning, serve ourselves a drink or something we feel can pump up some energy. Then we go out into the roads of the uncertain to fulfil our certain dreams.
And we usually keep hearing things like - All that surrounds us is a part of us and we are a part of those. But we fail to solicit a fundamental aspect of it - how things are actually arranged? Which one lies within the other? Or do we just see the space from Earth?
These at first seem way too abstract to fit into our figure of attention, but when things become apparent enough, maybe because of ourselves or through some external means, it turns our chairs to face that cold wind, where we are forced to see what’s ahead whilst we really cannot.
We are offered to see such apparent similitudes in “Animal Farm”, which George Orwell published in 1945, but as more of a subtle criticism of the social realities through a narrative of superficial social idealism.
The small quantity of “Animal Farm” blows off way too much of qualitative insights into how an individual holds their place into the society and its collective aspirations; the complexities of the leadership and the psyche behind its existence. And, more prominently, how the cycle of the human nature plays masked under the socialistic ideologies.
This shows us Orwell’s inclination towards democratic socialism and presenting to us its origins and its plausible repercussions within the society and community.
In his essay “Literature and Totalitarianism”, George Orwell emphasizes that,
“Politics - politics in the most general sense - have invaded literature, to an extent that does not normally happen, and this has brought to the surface of our consciousness the struggle that always goes on between the individual and the community. It is when one considers the difficulty of writing honest unbiased criticism in a time like ours that one begins to grasp the nature of the threat that hangs over the whole of literature in the coming age.”
Orwell’s concern as an advocate of democratic socialism illuminates that,
“Totalitarianism has abolished freedom of thought to an extent unheard of in any previous age. And it is important to realize that its control of thought is not only negative, but positive. It not only forbids you to express -- even to think -- certain thoughts, but it dictates what you shall think, it creates an ideology for you, it tries to govern your emotional life as well as setting up a code of conduct. And as far as possible it isolates you from the outside world, it shuts you up in an artificial universe in which you have no standards of comparison. The totalitarian state tries, at any rate, to control the thoughts and emotions of its subjects at least as completely as it controls their actions.”
"Jean-Paul Sartre", David Caute in the introduction to "What is Literature?" notes, "himself was no hostile than the Communists to American and West Capitalism. Even so, many features of Soviet Communism repelled him." Sartre felt that "The politics of Stalinist Communism is incompatible with the honest practice of the literary craft."
An illuminative look at the psyche of totalitarianism was given by Hannah Arendt in her "The Origins of Totalitarianism" (1951), explained by Samantha Rose Hill in her brilliant workpiece.
What prepares men for totalitarian domination in the non-totalitarian world is the fact that loneliness, once a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social conditions like old age, has become an everyday experience…
– From The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) by Hannah Arendt.
Lord of all the Animals
There always comes someone in every era who burns that fire of realisation within us of our afflicting social or political conditions, who holds the torch and makes us see the path to freedom, who tells us where “War is peace, Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is strength” (1984, George Orwell) is written. The likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, and many more.
In “Animal Farm”, Old Major exudes that spirit of leadership and ignites the bleak flame of freedom which in turn spreads as a forest fire afterwards. He symbolizes hope and universality of “truth always wins”.
“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is the lord of all the animals.” Old Major says, “He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.”
Orwell through the character of “Old Major” criticizes the futility of Man’s physical strength but at the same time, throws appreciation for Man’s exceptional evolution of psychological development, with the help of which he has been able to ironically become “the lord of all the animals”.
Besides, Orwell doesn’t miss the opportunity to put forward and condemn the man’s inhumanity to other creatures and how he uses others to his benefit, being insensitive to their conditions.
The Dilemma of True Leadership
In Orwell’s magnificent representation, he explores the very nature of Rebellions and what they really lead to.
When people choose someone to lead them through the way, which everyone believes will transport them to the sweetness of space and time that they initially desired for, there also emerge smells of internal rebellions, which I’d like to call “Rebellions within Rebellions”. And the roots and origins of those “internal rebellions” can be found in the fundamental nature of humans to desire and long for more, for something more than they’ve achieved, for more power than they’ve got.
It’s like when the stones which ignite the spark are done with their work, many, then, stand along to exercise their lists of rights over that fire, because they feel it’s because of them that this fire exists and is being sustained. Man’s sense of self-importance and the desire for the “spotlight” leads him even against those whom he earlier stood and walked with.
The pigs in “Animal Farm” - Old Major, Snowball, Napoleon, Squealer and others, represent the capability of learning and innovative vision that humans have got. But with time, they show us how that very knowledge turns into a curse for the society and community, if used, or rather misused, being self-obsessed, to amass things for oneself.
The poem titled ‘Comrade Napoleon’, which was composed by Minimus, another pig is in the praise for the leader Napoleon:
Comrade Napoleon
Friend of the fatherless! Fountain of happiness! Lord of the swill-bucket! Oh, how my soul is on Fire when I gaze at thy Calm and commanding eye, Like the sun in the sky, Comrade Napoleon! Thou art the giver of All that thy creature love, Full belly twice a day, clean straw to roll upon; Every beast great or small Sleeps at peace in his stall, Thou watchest over all, Comrade Napoleon! Had I a sucking-pig, Ere he had grown as big Even as a pint bottle or as a rolling-pin, He should have learned to be Faithful and true to thee, Yes, his first squeak should be Comrade Napoleon!”
This rancidity of knowledge happens because it is not contained within the appropriate and sound environment it needs to sustain itself and keep the gates for growth open. The greed for power and authority leads the Man to do the stupidest of things that one can ever think of.
In the story, the contradictions and conflicts between the two leaders, Snowball and Napoleon, are good for the community and hence the necessary decisions to go the right way but when one puts his individual ambitions before everything else, then the decay of the balance and stability within the society as well as leadership, for that matter, are inevitable.
Hard Work and Foolishness
Orwell's characterization and depiction also enlightens that “Hard work” and “Foolishness” are the perfect ingredients for the recipe of destruction. How it enlarges the ignorance within oneself and makes one believe whatever he is doing, or in whichever way he is heading to is right. They lack the sense of direction and hence prove detrimental to themselves and the society.
“I do not understand it. I would not have believed that such things could happen on our farm. It must be due to some fault in ourselves. The solution, as I see it, is to work harder. From now onwards I shall get up a full hour earlier in the mornings.”
Boxer’s (the horse) stress solely on the work and not its direction and polarity, led him and the whole community to its demolition. Not that the society ceased to exist, but it never got to become what it was dreamed at its foundation. Boxer in “Animal Farm” represents those in the society who have the necessary strength to speak against the wrong, to stand for the right and for the society, but do not do so because of their foolishness and ignorance.
They make themselves paralysed to see the wrong that happens in the society. They are actually cowards who doubt themselves and hence let the society and others go into the hands of the those who live and use others for their own advantage.
Essentially, there stands, then, no difference between them and those who do wrong, because when the “able” drop their weapons, then they spread the message of being in accordance with the wrong authority. They, in essence, work for them in ignorance and let the wrong prevail.
The Cycle of Human Nature
George Orwell leads us to find the best part of “Animal Farm” at the last chapter, where he exhibits the truth of the totalitarianism that once democratic and then the republic Animal Farm sought to get out of.
Orwell puts the cyclical nature of human society and so the nature of humanity itself on display. Ultimately, the so-called president of the Animal Farm along with other pigs resorted to stand on their two legs. The very distinction and motto which led to the “Manor Farm” to the “Animal Farm”, got back to its original state of gloom. The only difference being that the ruler now was amongst them and not Mr. Jones.
“Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad” now became, “Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better”. And, “All Animals are Equal” became “All Animals are Equal but Some Animals are More Equal than Others.”
The distinctness, disparity and dispute which led them to realize that they were ill-treated by Mr. Jones, that they have the right to live the way they want, looks no more than an illusion now. It seems all those years were a sweet dream, a wonderland that they were living in. As if, they were on a treadmill of hope, running to reach the end of their unrelenting bleakness. The more they ran, the deeper got their anguish.
But what I got to ponder over after the culmination of “Animal Farm”, is what that which actually leads to the fall of the society and community as a whole, maybe not in terms of destruction but even degradation. Of course, people don’t go anywhere but the way society arranges itself changes so drastically that it affects each and everybody who is a part of it.
Is it an individual who is responsible for any change in the social structure, good or bad, or the people collectively lead it to where it reaches? I feel, it’s less about the decisions and decision-makers as node points in the history but more about the process throughout which it happens, the people who become an essential part of the process.
As Edmund Burke wrote in his “Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents” (23rd April 1770) (II. 78),
“No man, who is not inflamed by vain-glory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavors are of power to defeat the subtle designs and united Cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”
Because humans constitute society, everyone is equally responsible for whatever happens throughout it, good or bad. If we want good things to happen to us, I believe, first we need to take stand for the bad things that happen to others. And only then any structure of society can properly execute itself for the benefit of all.
I think, we need to see and realize our individual responsibilities towards the society and act over them no matter what comes. If we keep waiting for someone to come and lead us to the right way, then it might be too late to actually do anything. The right time is now, and the right person is us.
Read and Contemplate on the psychological backdrop of the epic battle between science and religion by Sigmund Freud, and then the enlightening discourse of Kahlil Gibran on love, life and death.
Get your own copy of Orwell's masterpiece “Animal Farm” from here.
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