buywithme | 86 - THE GRAND RETURN!

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86 - THE GRAND RETURN!

~~Is this--~~

...

Comrades? ~~Are we--~~

[There's a long pause.]

~~I have-- cons--~~

Comrades!

Consumers!

Allow me to extend my fondest and most sincere greetings to you from the end of history! I’m quite sure you know my name: Prefect. Are we not the most highly favored of all our kinds to be here? In this, our new chance? Our new and open doorway? The compilation of not only millennia of history and experience, but worlds upon worlds of variety and flavor, all compressed into one microcosmic existence? Lain out for us on a platter? Let us not mourn our misfortune or dream of escape, but rather, let us combine and create and expand in our scope and diversity! Once more unto the breach my friends once more! Let us immanentize the eschation!

Brothers, sisters, comrades, buy with me.

[Ooc: Okay, so Prefect is back, and where he was that week lasted a lot longer than it did here. As such, he's worried that the people he knew will have all either graduated or just vanished off. Instead of being sensible and asking, he's re-written his original greeting post in case he's just surrounded by strangers.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

But was there no sense of objective or progress? Even we carefully developed the sense that there was progress. That there was more chocolate today than there was last week, that there was the potential for the war to end, that the Party would overcome its enemies, even though those subversive elements, those Eastasians were always, always necessary. To make them love you and fear you all at the same time.

I am beginning to think you are the most normal and sane person I have come across in this entire place, though, comrade.

Things are better now than they have ever been before, because no one from any time but this has ever had so much stuff as we have! Work hard, buy with me, and live your dreams, and some day you may truly have it all! Thank the great and glorious providence of the Factory that you have a good job, here in the Factory's central processing department, where you can serve the Factory with full access to all of it's wonders! Think of those poor people on the far eastern extremes, working out in the assembly lines, just work hard, fulfill your function, pass your evaluation, and you will want for nothing.

...

I like talking to you, Comrade.

Would that not just create love for the items themselves, not those of you providing them? For in my world, we will create a world where there is no loyalty except loyalty to the Party, no love except love for Big Brother. There will be no laughter except that of triumph over a defeated enemy. Omnipotance makes all of that unnecessary. All you require are love, fear, hate, loyalty and self abasement. Do you not see that all competing pleasure must be eradicated, in order to only allow for it to be directed at the party? For all you need is the draw of power, the rush of victory and glory, and an eternal face to stamp that rage upon.

That is all we need to create power. You do seem to understand the need for power, comrade, better than anyone else I can see here, but do not pretend it is for anyone's good except the perpetuation of power. If that is your only ultimate aim. There is no need for such petty pleasures, as love will only be conferred onto them.

I do, however, like talking to you, comrade. You understand.

...

Comrade, I don't think you understand. The Factory loves it's people and it wants to give them everything they need, and it wants them to be happy and have all the things anyone could imagine that they might want. The Id, Comrade, is the most base element of human nature, the desire to have things immediately. You might be able to distract and defer this instinct for decades, but at the end of the day, it will still be there, and eventually if it goes unfulfilled it will rise up and try to take what you've withheld from them, and when that day comes, Comrade, starvation and misery and suffering will not deter it, it will transcend your games with language, and It's loyalty will only be to itself. You will be the hated enemy, and they will tear down your walls and rob you in the name of what they want.

In the arms of the Factory, our people want for nothing. They love what we let them buy, and they know that they only have the things they love because we love them, and the Factory wants what's best for them. It's not about power, we're taking care of them. We're protecting them.

Comrade, I don't think you quite understand. There is no use in pretending it is about love. What makes you think hate is less self-sustaining than love? If you keep the hate constantly directed outwards, constantly directed at some enemy, both internal and external, an enemy which will never die. The stronger the power we have, the tighter the control becomes, the more we crush those enemies, the harder we stamp on that face. For there were always be a face to stamp on.

They will never hate us, because every instinct we instill in them, every fear and every love will be directed at the Party. They will not know how to do anything but love the Party and Big Brother and hate the agents of Goldstein and Eastasia. That is all they will know. They will not have the words to express such a hate for us, going back to the principle of Newspeak. They will find happiness in the successes of the Party, in the future of the Party, as being part of that collective. And they will hate everything else. If you remove all other attachment, if you entirely prevent that kind of human understanding, the only thing they will ever feel emotion for is the Party.

We are protecting our people too. They have to believe that, because in a society where nobody trusts anybody, the only thing you can trust is the collective. You cannot trust other individuals, you can only trust the Party. And that gives us power. That gives us the power to be loved and feared all at the same time - because they revere you for protecting them, but fear what you may do if they betray the collective, demonstrate unorthodoxy, put a thought out of place. They cannot turn the hatred on us and rob us for 'what they want' because what they want is what we have taught them to think they want.

You can use all those pretty duckspeaking words, comrade, but in the end. In the end, comrade, it all comes down to power. If you have the power to make history and memory what you want, if you have the power to tear minds to pieces and put them back together in shapes of your own choosing, you have true, utter, immortal power. Once you get people not just to think what you want them to think out of silent obedience, but out of devotion, then you have no need to make them love anything. They will love you. They will love Big Brother and the Party and will hate any enemies of theirs. Because that's all they know how to love and that's all they know how to hate.

Comrade, we do not tear minds to peices! We don't tear anything to pieces! We guide people though-- through the natural path of human development towards perfection! We lead them to the glorious conclusion of history and-- and if there is a certain level of control which must be exercised over them to help them to choose the right things to want or the right ideals to obey or how to conduct themselves, then yes, we might steer them gently through that as well, but our devotion is not just created through a collection of techniques to assure our obedience!

It's the natural human response to being given everything you want and through being shown how good to you the Factory is and how much the Factory values you and knowing that it needs you and that you are a part of it's great machine!

Besides, I don't see how if you never give them any stuff, you can honestly prevent people from noticing that your party is 'ungood'.

It is the natural human response, when given everything, to want more. To take it, and you, for granted.

Old despotisms were founded on such a thing. The, ah, social contract, I believe it was called. We give you everything you need, you shut up and do what we tell you. A fair enough idea, but a weak one, in the end. It is not sustainable, because people realise that you are merely pretending to be good, it's all a cover for maintaining your power. For that's all the aim of any system is. We do not cover it up. We take more and more power quite blatantly and we do not give people the opportunity to realise it is 'ungood'. The more power we have, the more attractive we are, and the more feared we are. The closer we get to omnipotence, the less chance there is ever of there even being such an unorthodox thought.

But, comrade, I can see you are a goodthinker for your 'factory'. I'm very sure my Party loves me too, and has concern for me as part of the collective. I simply also understand the how as well as the rhetorical.

~~The Factory is not pretending to be good!~~

Thank you, Comrade. I... I'm sure that the party would have been an admirable alternative if the Factory didn't exist.

I am sure that your factory would have been suitible if the unthinkable were to happen. At least, in comparison to everyone else's words.

Comrade. Would you be interested at all in borrowing my book on Newspeak? If only out of academic curiosity.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

86 - THE GRAND RETURN!

O'BRIEN DENIES THE EXISTENCE OF SUCH BOOKS.

PREFECT KNOWS THEY EXIST. EVERYONE DOES. O'BRIEN'S PROPAGANDA SUCKS.

EASTASIAN AGENTS. IT'S ALL EASTASIAN AGENTS.

OH IT IS NOT >:| Also on an unrelated note, I think there's a hideous part of me that now ships it.

...I have hideous parts of me like that too. O'Brien is disgusted with me.

Your similarities to him are now sort of freaking him out!

ohdear. o'brien might actually do a good thing and decide not to push breaking his orthodoxy.

Good things suck, he should push the crap out of it

excuses! they are excuses to come bother you, prefect! he's having totalitarian existential angst.