21mai Mille-neuf-cent-quatre-vingts-quatre
Je viens de finir de lire ce classique de Geogre Orwell. J’avais déjà vue le film, mais le roman a tellement plus de nuance. Voici quelques citations qui m’ont particulièrement interpellé.
Sur le socialisme
It had long been realised that the only secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism. Wealth and privilege are most easily defended when they are possessed jointly. The so-called « abolition of private property » which took place in the middle years of the century meant, in effect, the concentration of property in far fewer hands than before: but with the difference, that the new owners were a group instead of a mass of individuals. […]
Ingsoc, which grew out of the earlier Socialist movement and inherited its phraseology, has in fact carried out the main item in the socialist programme; with the result, foreseen and intended beforehand, that economic inequality has been made permanent.
Sur les motivations du « party »
We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods. But they never had the courage to recognise their own motives. 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 noy like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.
Et le dernier paraphe
He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
Orwell me semble un personnage fort intéressant … un socialiste convaincu qui a offert la critique la plus éloquente du communisme et de l’URSS à date. À ce titre, il possède une qualité exceptionnelle que très peu d’individus possèdent à gauche comme à droite: la capacité de reconnaître les excès de son idéologie.
We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods. But they never had the courage to recognise their own motives. 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 noy like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.