In the middle of the analysis of 1984, it is worth a digression that illuminates George Orwell's own book from another angle: God and the State, by the Russian thinker Mikhail Bakunin. It is an incomplete work, he never finished developing his own thoughts in it, but he defends a position so extreme, so radically anarchic, that it helps us see more clearly what is at stake when any power becomes absolute.
All authority costs freedom
Bakunin's central argument is straightforward. For him, authority, whether religious or state, can only exist at the expense of individual freedom. When an entity places itself above men, be it God, the State or Big Brother, it ends up justifying all the means necessary to maintain that power, including repression, violence and thought control.
The more a man believes, the less he is free.
This phrase by Bakunin is a direct philosophical echo of the Party's motto in 1984: freedom is slavery. The two works, each in its own way, show that under regimes of absolute power, whether religious, political or both at the same time, the individual's submission is presented as a moral duty. Freedom is redefined little by little, until the individual can no longer imagine what it means to be truly free. It is the same process that Winston Smith suffers under torture: he is not considered cured until he begins to love what subjugates him, the complete annulment of the self.
The pendulum effect
Bakunin's position can be read as a pendulum effect. He reacts with full force against what he saw as oppressive authority, both in the state and in religion, and the reaction pushes him to the opposite extreme: the total abolition of any institutional authority. It is the logic of all pendulum movement. When something is pushed to the maximum at one extreme, the reaction tends to fire with the same force towards the opposite extreme.
The problem is that moving from one extreme to the other carries its own risk of instability. Without any authority, there is a real risk of chaos and disorganization. And without a legitimate government, the power vacuum can be filled by violent forces, again resulting in oppression, but of a different kind. This is what happens in many revolutions: the people free themselves from a tyrant and, in the process of liberation, end up creating another.
Legitimate authority is not the same as illegitimate power
It is worth distinguishing the two before responding to Bakunin. Illegitimate power is when someone dominates through fear, manipulation or force, whether in a government or in a religious leadership. Legitimate authority is when people follow because they believe, because there is justice, transparency and trust, and leadership inspires through morality and example, not through guilt and coercion. Bakunin's criticism hits home on the second type. The question it leaves open is whether the right response to illegitimate power is to abolish all forms of authority, or to reconstruct the legitimate one.
The question that the work leaves open
Bakunin and Orwell, read together, leave the reader in the middle of a real dilemma: totalitarianism on the one hand, total anarchism on the other. Neither extreme looks habitable for long. And the question that God and the State leave unresolved is the one that really matters: does eliminating all authority solve the problem of absolute power, or does it just restart the cycle, with a new tyrant waiting to fill the vacuum that's left?
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What does Bakunin defend in God and the State?
Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian thinker with an extreme anarchist position, argues that all authority, whether religious or state, only exists at the expense of individual freedom. For him, when an entity places itself above men, it ends up justifying repression, violence and thought control to maintain that power. The work was incomplete, he did not finish developing his own thoughts in it.
What does it mean "the more a man believes, the less he is free"?
It is Bakunin's central phrase in God and the State, and it directly echoes the Party's 1984 motto, "freedom is slavery." The idea is that submission to an absolute authority, faith or State, is presented as a moral duty until the individual can no longer imagine what it means to be free.
What is the pendulum effect in criticism of Bakunin?
It is the risk that a radical reaction against oppression, such as the total abolition of any authority, will push society towards the opposite extreme: chaos. Without legitimate government, the power vacuum can be filled by violent forces, and the people who free themselves from one tyrant end up creating another in the process.
Continue in the cluster: 1984, by Orwell: the warning that became routine · The pendulum effect on ideas · Legitimate authority and illegitimate power · Vatican and Caravaggio Museums
Source class (YouTube): 1984, de George Orwell (NousCast)