We like to think that we are free to do what we want within the confines of the social contract. Each society has certain mores, regulations and laws -- parameters -- that our behavior must remain within. If we choose to exceed the boundaries, we run the risk of punishment.
From the standpoint of the pure anarchist, the voluntarily decision to invoke a social contract amounts to equating freedom with slavery. If no social contract existed, then freedom itself would be a meaningless concept because we could each behave however we wanted whenever we wanted.
I believe the Taoist sages favored an anarchic system built upon the foundation of Supreme Virtue. If we each acted out of this kind of virtue, there would not be any worries that each individual action might impede or unjustly harm other beings. And so, we would be free to do or think whatever we wanted and these wants -- as a result of Supreme Virtue -- would foster a world of peace and harmony.
That said, I am confident that this not what The Party in Orwell's 1984 has in mind at all.
This series of posts based on George Orwell's novel, 1984, will be rather avant-garde. My focus will not be to explain Orwell's premises or what HE meant -- it is more about what his prose stirs in me., often in relation to the way I view the world today. Some of my observations may fall in line with Orwell's intent, but others will go off in a wholly different direction. To read my intro to this series, go here.
From the standpoint of the pure anarchist, the voluntarily decision to invoke a social contract amounts to equating freedom with slavery. If no social contract existed, then freedom itself would be a meaningless concept because we could each behave however we wanted whenever we wanted.
I believe the Taoist sages favored an anarchic system built upon the foundation of Supreme Virtue. If we each acted out of this kind of virtue, there would not be any worries that each individual action might impede or unjustly harm other beings. And so, we would be free to do or think whatever we wanted and these wants -- as a result of Supreme Virtue -- would foster a world of peace and harmony.
That said, I am confident that this not what The Party in Orwell's 1984 has in mind at all.
This series of posts based on George Orwell's novel, 1984, will be rather avant-garde. My focus will not be to explain Orwell's premises or what HE meant -- it is more about what his prose stirs in me., often in relation to the way I view the world today. Some of my observations may fall in line with Orwell's intent, but others will go off in a wholly different direction. To read my intro to this series, go here.
I've always felt that 1984 was representative of more brutal regimes like Stalin's USSR or Hitler's Germany. The USA can be brutal, but usually only to select groups, not the populace in general...at least, not yet. Have you read Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD? That's what I've always thought the USA would turn into. Sounds more descriptive of us, with the stress on consumerism and escape through drugs. Bread and circuses, rather than fear, would control us.
ReplyDeleteI read Brave New World as a college freshman. I didn't understand it at all at the time and I don't remember a thing about it now. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThat said, maybe I would understand it better now in my sixth decade than I did in my second. I should add it to my reading list.
Heh. I posted my first comment under Trey's first 1984 post. I came back a little later to check that it had gone through, and thought I didn't see it. Alas, I didn't note that more posts had been made on the subject and clicked on the wrong one. Not seeing my original post, and thinking that it had been lost I reposted under this entry. Oh well...
ReplyDeleteI like your description of Taoism as a "...an anarchic system built upon the foundation of Supreme Virtue." I hesitate to refer to it as such very much, since society tends to think of anarchism as every one running around raping and pillaging. (I think Alan Watts once referred to the tendency to think that if all laws were lifted we'd all go out and rape our grandmothers.) Human nature is not trusted because many have no understanding of living in harmony with the Tao.