One of the "images of the State" in Orwell's 1984 is that of a "boot in the face."
Needless to say, the latest iteration of cop-murder and violence against Blacks will trigger the usual outrage and excuses. African-Americans will assemble in public places and loudly protest. Police departments will denounce “inexcusable” violence and will promise to internally investigate. Op-eds will denounce “institutional racism.” It will be regarded as some kind of progress that we are no longer openly and officially talking about “a few rotten apples” but rather of an “institutional” and “systemic” problem. At least we are recognizing, the endemic and pandemic and “deeply ingrained” nature of racism in this county and blah, blah, blah.
All of this totally misses the point.
“You understand well enough how the Party maintains itself in power,” Brian said, “Now tell me why we cling to power.”
Winston did not speak for another moment or two. Then he spoke. “it sought power because men in the mass are frail, cowardly creatures who cannot endure liberty or face the truth, and must be ruled over and systematically deceived by others who are stronger than themselves. The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness, and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better. ... You are ruling over us for our own good,”
A pang of pain shot through his body. “That was stupid, Winston, stupid!” Brian said. “You should know better than to say a thing like that.” Brian went on,
“We are not interested in the good of others; We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. Power is not a means, it is an end.”
“How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?”
Winston thought. “By making him suffer,” he said.
“Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power lies in inflicting pain and humiliation. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. ... If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face for ever.”
Brian was right.
At all times, rulers have sought to legitimize their having and their exercise of power. In early times they did so with recourse to a cosmology and a divinity... Baal, Huitzilopochtli, Yaweh, Allah... It was never they who demanded squealing babies or pulsing hearts but the god who had to have these sacrifices in order that it might rain, or that a pestilence would go away or a victory be achieved. With the establishment of the secular state in the 18th century the excuses changed. Violence and deprivation were exercised for some greater humanistic or economic good. But, in essence, there was little difference between feeding babies into the fire or men into the maw of machine fire in order to make the world safe for democracy. There was little difference between ripping out hearts in order to keep the stars in their orbits and imposing austerity -- hunger, cold, disease, hopelessness -- in order to keep the economic cycle going. All this legitimizing prattle was simply a tissue over a more primary and naked truth: Power, that sense of surging vitality and purpose that makes life life is not possible without the feeling the effects of power; that is, without causing pain and suffering. It is plain Newtonian physics. Power demands impotence. Eventually impotence comes to understand that it needs to feel power also in order to be what it is -- helpless, hopeless, inferior and afraid.
Blacks are the easiest and most visible targets of police power; but, in truth, the police seek out anyone who is marginalized, poor, powerless. They seek them out instinctively because without impotence to be validated as impotence their power cannot be validated as power. The excuses the cops offer up for their exercise of power are thinner than a fig leaf. Among themselves and in their locker rooms they joke about what bullshit infraction or crime they can come up with to justify their “resort to force.” When it comes to testifying in court they call it “testilying.”
And do not believe that the judges are fooled. They understand full well what went down on the street and what is going on in court. The might say that they wink at a few “irregularities” here and there for the sake of the greater good of maintaining public order or vindicating victims. Some of them might believe it like Pasrsons, “an active man of paralysing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms. One of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than on the Thought Police, the stability of the Party depended.” Perhaps.
But the more systemic fact is that the United States in 2020 is increasingly and in all manner of things dedicated to the pursuit of power as its foundational and inalienable right. Racism is itself, in a perverse way, merely a legitimizing excuse. As I shall detail, in subsequent episodes, bullying, rudeness, throwing one's weight around, pushing on others is a national pastime because it has become the naked nature of what we as a society are, once we have betrayed and forsaken all our excuses.
But when it comes to cops beating on, choking and blowing away Blacks, the means and end of the matter is simply the thrill and validation of feeling a boot on the face.
All of this totally misses the point.
“You understand well enough how the Party maintains itself in power,” Brian said, “Now tell me why we cling to power.”
Winston did not speak for another moment or two. Then he spoke. “it sought power because men in the mass are frail, cowardly creatures who cannot endure liberty or face the truth, and must be ruled over and systematically deceived by others who are stronger than themselves. The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness, and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better. ... You are ruling over us for our own good,”
A pang of pain shot through his body. “That was stupid, Winston, stupid!” Brian said. “You should know better than to say a thing like that.” Brian went on,
“We are not interested in the good of others; We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. Power is not a means, it is an end.”
“How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?”
Winston thought. “By making him suffer,” he said.
“Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power lies in inflicting pain and humiliation. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. ... If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face for ever.”
Brian was right.
At all times, rulers have sought to legitimize their having and their exercise of power. In early times they did so with recourse to a cosmology and a divinity... Baal, Huitzilopochtli, Yaweh, Allah... It was never they who demanded squealing babies or pulsing hearts but the god who had to have these sacrifices in order that it might rain, or that a pestilence would go away or a victory be achieved. With the establishment of the secular state in the 18th century the excuses changed. Violence and deprivation were exercised for some greater humanistic or economic good. But, in essence, there was little difference between feeding babies into the fire or men into the maw of machine fire in order to make the world safe for democracy. There was little difference between ripping out hearts in order to keep the stars in their orbits and imposing austerity -- hunger, cold, disease, hopelessness -- in order to keep the economic cycle going. All this legitimizing prattle was simply a tissue over a more primary and naked truth: Power, that sense of surging vitality and purpose that makes life life is not possible without the feeling the effects of power; that is, without causing pain and suffering. It is plain Newtonian physics. Power demands impotence. Eventually impotence comes to understand that it needs to feel power also in order to be what it is -- helpless, hopeless, inferior and afraid.
Blacks are the easiest and most visible targets of police power; but, in truth, the police seek out anyone who is marginalized, poor, powerless. They seek them out instinctively because without impotence to be validated as impotence their power cannot be validated as power. The excuses the cops offer up for their exercise of power are thinner than a fig leaf. Among themselves and in their locker rooms they joke about what bullshit infraction or crime they can come up with to justify their “resort to force.” When it comes to testifying in court they call it “testilying.”
And do not believe that the judges are fooled. They understand full well what went down on the street and what is going on in court. The might say that they wink at a few “irregularities” here and there for the sake of the greater good of maintaining public order or vindicating victims. Some of them might believe it like Pasrsons, “an active man of paralysing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms. One of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than on the Thought Police, the stability of the Party depended.” Perhaps.
But the more systemic fact is that the United States in 2020 is increasingly and in all manner of things dedicated to the pursuit of power as its foundational and inalienable right. Racism is itself, in a perverse way, merely a legitimizing excuse. As I shall detail, in subsequent episodes, bullying, rudeness, throwing one's weight around, pushing on others is a national pastime because it has become the naked nature of what we as a society are, once we have betrayed and forsaken all our excuses.
But when it comes to cops beating on, choking and blowing away Blacks, the means and end of the matter is simply the thrill and validation of feeling a boot on the face.
©barfo 2020
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