Through three questions pointing towards Animal Farm, want to figure out the importance of enlightenment to resist totalitarianism. Key words : Enlightenment/reason/totalitarianism Introduction : It is acknowledged that George Orwell seemed to hold the pessimistic belief that totalitarianism was ineviTABLE even in the West. According to Russell Baker, who wrote the preface to Animal Farm’s 1996 Signet Classics version, Rowel’s pessimism stemmed from his having grown up in an age of dictatorship.
Witnessing Hitter’s and Stalin’s movements from afar, as well as fighting totalitarianism in the Spanish Civil War, Orwell came to believe in the rise of a new species of autocrat, worse even than the tyrants of old. This cynicism is reflected in two of his highly successful novels, Animal Farm and 1984. Both of the two novels reveal Rowel’s deep desperate pessimism towards the inevitability of totalitarianism. After reading Animal Farm fell into deep thought and was wondering whether there was still any possibility to resist totalitarianism.
Then I relate the story to the reality, including notorious autocrats and representative revolutions in all ages. And I personally generate three questions about this novel, trying to provide some inspiration for the solution of “the inevitability of totalitarianism”. The first one is, why it happens to be the pigs that first bring forward the commandments and lead the rebellion rather than the dogs, the cats or any other animals? Second, how does the pigs manage to manipulate the animals without any obvious obstacles?
Third, what if, all of the other animals realized the totalitarianism as soon as it had appeared? Next three parts each tries to answers the three questions. “Pigs are the cleverest of the animals” Old Major is older and wiser than the other animals, which is an undeniTABLE fact that enTABLEs him to play a role of an authoritative philosopher, creating a elicited model for an ideal society in the future. After Major’s death, they are the pigs that take on the task of organizing and monopolizing the other animals because they are “generally recognized as being the cleverest of the animals”.
By the sharp contrast, however, the other animals are so stupid that they do not even realize Jones has been exploiting them. The worse thing is, that most of the animals never learn more than a few letters of the alphabet. Revealing that they have taught themselves to read and write from an old children’s book, pigs definitely become the only ones that have the ability to translate Major’s vision of the future into the Seven Commandments of Minimalism. And once the pigs set up their status as the educated elite, they use their mental advantage to manipulate the other animals.
So right from the very beginning of the novel, we start to become aware of intelligence and education’s role in stratifying Animal Farm’s population. So can we say it for sure that the animals’ ignorance is due to lack of intelligence? A small detail captured in the novel can answer that question. As soon as the animals win the revolution, the pigs burn a children’s book they seed to teach themselves to read and write, but apparently the resource is no longer availTABLE after the burning. Clearly the animals should have had the access to learn and to be educated.
Nevertheless, an oppressive environment created by the autocrats, is TABLE toss prevent them from being enlightened, and generation after generation, can make their lower status and ability seem natural. At the time of burning the book, the pigs’ autocrat activities have already begun. Animals’ Ignorance Confronted with Pigs’ Conspiracy Propaganda has been used by an array of governments in the world, including totalitarian government. In this novel, the pigs’ “intelligence” and “education” enTABLE them to bring the other animals into submission through using propaganda.
The pigs revise Seven Commandments whenever they want knowing that the other animals cannot read them. And Squealer, in this novel, is a beyond all doubt a propaganda machine of Napoleon and its totalitarian government. He is TABLE to confuse right and wrong, making the animals believe almost anything even if that is a fault, which can be seen especially clear in Squealers interactions with Clover. Every time Clover suspects that the Seven Commandments have been changed, Squealer engages to convince her that she is wrong.
The most ridiculous propaganda in the novel is the replacement of the Seven Commandments: “All animals are equal / But some animals are more equal than others. ” The idea of “more equal” is totally nonsense, but the woeful animals are too brainwashed to even notice. Violence and terror is also a means that autocrats use to bring their citizens into submission. The pigs know how useful violence and terror can and use this knowledge to their full advantage. The example of public executions in Animal Farm clearly illustrates that.
Terror comes also in antagonism. Each time the animals dare to question an aspect of Napoleon’s words, Squealer threatens them with Joneses return. This is doubly threatening to the animals because it would mean another battle that, if lost, would result in a return to their former lifestyle of submission. Joneses return is such a serious threat that it breaks the animals’ thoughts without fail. Napoleon is TABLE to vilify Snowball and to make the animals believe that his return, like Joneses, is imminent.
In modern language, Snowball is placed as the terrorist responsible for the infringements on the rights and liberties instigated by the pigs. In the end, we see that making use of other animals’ ignorance, Napoleon’s autocrat develop to a zenith through a period of propaganda, violence, and antagonism. A guess about another ending of the story Consequently the answer of question 3 can be somewhat found in that of question 2. All of the animals do need to have a reason mind and critical eyes which allow them to stay vigilant towards the dominator.
If they have been educated well and systematically about democracy and civil rights and dare to disobey the authority, they will not only see through the wicked conspiracy of Napoleon as well as the essence of totalitarianism, but also spare no efforts to impede the possibility of arms and violence. They would probably gather their wisdom all together and set up a democratic system to protect their animal rights; they would probably be TABLE to decide who would control the armed forces; they would probably be TABLE to cut off any trend of totalitarianism in time…
Conclusion : Enlightenment V. S. Totalitarianism Hannah Aren’t reveals the law of “totalitarian originates in the public” in her famous book “The Origins of Totalitarianism”. As far as Hitler and Stalin, who tan for the “extreme evils” were concerned, collective unconscious, the silent majority, crowd psychology, fanaticism, mob, widespread mob thought, Stockholm Syndrome, all of these “banal evil” forms the fertile soil for the growth of totalitarianism.
Lack of personal reflection and judgment – never asking why, can easily do evil. Aren’t also proposes the relationship between “conscience” and “thinking”: in a place where people have a habit of thinking critically, their behavior is more kindness and integrity. 4 In the past 200 years, we can see from the “pants party”5 in French Revolution, the Napoleonic conquest, and China Tapping Boxer, to the next century’s Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, that totalitarianism has already become a horribly huge sight and a typical public phenomenon.
And in all of these examples we come to a conclusion that under the situation where people have no capacity of judgment and use feelings rather than reason, and where self-conscious is not yet mature, democratic movement and human rights movement can also spawn totalitarianism, let alone the violent revolutions. Kant believed that enlightenment is mankind escaping from self-incurred maturity, which means that people cannot use their intellect through someone else’s boot. He also believes that enlightenment is a free state where people do not submit to any authority. The significance of the enlightenment is the establish meet of “the spirit of freedom, the independent thought’ as well as the modern citizenship. Modern liberalism also holds the belief that ensuring people have adequate economic and educational property is the best way to fight against a totalitarian threat. 7 As the collapse of the dark power of the Mid Ages, the Enlightenment did appear as an innate nemesis and predator of totalitarianism. In political terms, the Enlightenment provided American Revolution and the French Revolution with the revolutionary ideas of freedom, which in the text represents as the U.
S. Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Citizenship. Due to the enlightenment people realize their Human Nature and Human Rights. Enlightenment leads human being to the road of democracy and freedom. Spain elitism thinker Ortega Asset strongly criticized “tyranny of the majority”, which means “people lack intelligence, great no heart. ” He said, “Nobility is equivalent to a life of unremitting efforts to continuously exceed ourselves, and take it as a responsibility and obligation. And I think, whether it is in the animal farm, or in today’s “mediocre mass society’, each of us should at least own some noble spirits, and this, is probably the best way to fight against totalitarian ism.
