1984 - Planet eBook

solipsism. But you are mistaken. This is not solipsism. Collectivesolipsism, if you like. But that is a different thing: infact, the opposite thing. All this is a digression,’ he addedin a different tone. ‘The real power, the power we have tofight for night and day, is not power over things, but overmen.’ He paused, and for a moment assumed again his airof a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: ‘How doesone 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 obeyingyour will and not his own? Power is in inflicting painand humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to piecesand putting them together again in new shapes of your ownchoosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world weare creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonisticUtopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fearand treachery and torment, a world of trampling and beingtrampled upon, a world which will grow not less but MOREmerciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will beprogress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimedthat they were founded on love or justice. Ours is foundedupon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions exceptfear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everythingelse we shall destroy—everything. Already we are breakingdown the habits of thought which have survived frombefore the Revolution. We have cut the links between childand parent, and between man and man, and between manand woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend