George Orwell
Examines the Degree of Sincerity
and Right Thinking
in Our Everyday Language
Carlos Cardoso Aveline
George Orwell
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000
The following text reproduces Chapter Seven of
the book “The Fire and Light of Theosophical
Literature”,
by Carlos Cardoso Aveline, The
Aquarian Theosophist, Portugal, 255
pp., 2013.
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
“There is no religion higher than Truth.”
(The motto of the
theosophical movement)
“Political language (…..) is designed to make
lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and
to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
(George Orwell)
“…In the ideas of the West, everything is
brought down to appearances
even in religion. (…)
‘Thou shalt in lying, stealing, killing, etc. avoid
being
detected ’- seems to be the
chief commandment of the
Lord gods of civilization -
Society and Public opinion.”
(An Eastern Master
of Wisdom)
George Orwell - the
pen-name of Eric Blair (1903-1950) - was an idealist thinker and a man of
action. He proved to be ready to give up his life for the Cause of human
brotherhood. He also dedicated to it his main efforts as long as he lived.
The outward
structure of Orwell’s thought was influenced by his aiming at social justice,
and the times he lived were difficult. There is a sort of pessimism floating in
the atmosphere of his books. Yet the depth of his vision and his talented
truthfulness were such that his writings still have two or three core lessons to teach materialistic
societies of the 21st century.
Orwell developed a
direct approach to Western hypocrisy and mind-manipulation techniques. He shows
the way these mental mechanisms impede citizens’ relationship to truth. His
analysis of the problem is similar to the one made by Helena P. Blavatsky and
the theosophical Mahatmas.
Orwell was a
truth-seeker. Born in India, he lived some time in Burma. He went to Spain as a
volunteer soldier to fight fascism. He
wrote about Mahatma Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy and William Shakespeare. But most of
his writings are dedicated to identifying and fighting the various forms by
which the process of thinking is voluntarily or involuntarily faked for the
sake of political aims or other personal interests and feelings, often
idealistic. This process of wishful (and fearful) thinking he called
“doublethink” and “newspeak”.
In his best-selling
novels “1984” and “Animal Farm”, Orwell makes a lucid examination of
mind-control activities developed by power mechanisms of industrialized
society. His views can be easily applied to conventional religions and certain
“new age” groups.
Orwell’s analysis
is not merely useful in esoteric circles: it may be badly needed. For those who
are willing to apply the Law of Analogy, his essays on the use of language have
special interest. In them he discusses the real degree of truthfulness one can
hope to find while in dialogue with other people - or, perhaps, while thinking
by oneself. The issue is of critical importance for the theosophical movement,
whose motto says “there is no religion higher than truth”. It must show
humanity that truth, not hypocrisy, opens the way to wisdom and to
self-liberation from suffering.
Orwell coincides
with Eastern philosophies in saying that the decay of a civilization can be
seen in the declining levels of sincerity in the words and minds of its
citizens. He describes this process with frankness.
In the theosophical
literature, one sees the same viewpoint defended in the Mahatma Letters, in
H.P. Blavatsky’s texts and in the books by a few other authors, including
Robert Crosbie, John Garrigues and B.P. Wadia.
We saw in Chapter 5
these words by HPB:
“Sincerity is true
wisdom, it appears, only to the mind of the moral philosopher. It is rudeness
and insult to him who regards dissimulation and deceit as culture and
politeness…” [1]
In Buddhism, as in
Theosophy, right thought is an essential part of the Noble Path. On the other
hand, the state of mind in which hypocrisy occurs is a result of an ethical
decay in thought habits and the use of language. Such a trend is profoundly
anti-evolutionary. Theosophists should fight it both individually and
collectively.
Orwell describes
the decline of language in his essay “Politics and the English Language”. He
has a feeling that in previous centuries words were more often used to show
people’s genuine thoughts than they are in the 20th century. Orwell tries to
demonstrate that decade after decade words came to be increasingly used to conceal
the truth instead of expressing it.
An analysis of the
growingly dishonest astuteness in the use of language, alongside with the
decreasing presence of sincerity and real openness of mind, permeates most of
George Orwell’s writings. He made a life-long study of language and an analysis
of the process by which words can be used to hide one’s real thought, and to
manipulate minds instead of promoting a true dialogue. His portrait of modern
hypocrisy is in harmony with the teachings of the original theosophical
literature, and expands some of its key passages. One finds in the Mahatma
Letters a paragraph where a Master of Wisdom examines the levels of sincerity
in the mind of the average contemporary citizen. The Eastern sage wrote, in a
message to a British theosophist:
“Can (…..) the
flower of England’s chivalry, her proudest peers and most distinguished
commoners, her most virtuous and truth speaking ladies - can any of them speak
the truth, I ask, whether at home, or in Society, during their public functions
or in the family circle? What would you think of a gentleman, or a lady, whose
affable politeness of manner and suavity of language would cover no falsehood;
who, in meeting you would tell you plainly and abruptly what he thinks of you,
or of anyone else? And where can you find that pearl of honest tradesmen or
that god-fearing patriot, or politician, or a simple casual visitor of yours,
but conceals his thoughts the whole while, and is obliged under the
penalty of being regarded as a brute, a madman - to lie deliberately, and with a bold face, no sooner he is forced to
tell you what he thinks of you; unless for a wonder his real feelings demand no
concealment? All is lie, all falsehood, around and in us, my
brother; and that is why you seemed so surprised, if not affected, whenever you
find a person, who will tell you bluntly truth to your face…” [2]
At this point, we
must admit that the 21st century theosophical movement is not entirely above
such criticism. Future improvement will depend on its individual members.
In the same
paragraph of the letter, the Master writes:
“…In the ideas of
the West, everything is brought down to appearances even in religion. A
confessor does not inquire of his penitent whether he felt anger, but
whether he has shown anger to anyone. ‘Thou shalt in lying, stealing,
killing, etc. avoid being detected’-
seems to be the chief commandment of the Lord gods of civilization - Society
and Public opinion.”
Let’s see now how
George Orwell expands the issue raised by the Mahatma - the question of how
language is used in the West:
“Most people who
bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad
way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything
about it. Our civilization is decadent, and our language - so the argument runs
- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle
against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring
candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies
the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an
instrument which we shape for our own purposes.” [3]
According to
Orwell, getting involved with an untruthful or confusing use of words is
similar to getting drunk; and developing an addiction to such use is comparable
to becoming a drunkard, for in both situations lucidity and right thinking
are given up.
He writes:
“…It is clear that
the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes:
it is not due simply to the bad influences of this or that individual writer.
But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing
the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take
to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more
completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to
the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are
foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have
foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English,
especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and
which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one
gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a
necessary first step towards political regeneration: so that the fight against
bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional
writers.”[4]
Habits are related
to what theosophists call elementals.
One can see in the
daily use of language, says Orwell, “a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which
have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the
trouble of inventing phrases for themselves.”
[5]
To give an example
of the soul-less kind of language he refers to, Orwell translates “a passage of
good English into modern English of the worst sort.”
He takes a verse of
Ecclesiastes, which says, in good English:
“I returned, and
saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the
strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding,
nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth.”
The same sentence,
translated into “modern English”, gets to be this:
“Objective
consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or
failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with
innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must
invariably be taken into account.”
And Orwell adds:
“this is a parody, but not a very gross one.”
[6]
What would be a
solution for the social (and karmic) problem of mental vagueness and absence of
real thinking? What is the alternative to the blind routine by which people,
instead of thinking, merely repeat well-known phrases? Orwell says one must
have the courage to think by oneself:
“A scrupulous
writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four
questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What
image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an
effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly?
Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?”
Yet the temptation
is always there to give up thinking by oneself and to let the same old ideas
arrange themselves in one’s mind:
“…You are not
obliged to go to all this trouble [of
thinking by yourself]. You can shirk it by simply throwing your
mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will
construct your sentences for you - even think your thoughts for you, to a
certain extent - and at need they will perform the important service of partially
concealing your meaning even from yourself.”
[7]
On a collective
level, ideas and phrases often organize themselves according to “politically”
oriented energy-patterns and versions of reality. This, of course, happens
inside and outside the theosophical movement. The process is stronger when
there are organized bureaucracies or ritualisms, and when the individual search
for truth is not a priority.
In the final
paragraph of his essay, Orwell mentions “political chaos”; but his views can be
applied also to the difficulties faced by the theosophical movement and by
individual theosophists in their own lives, for language is but an expression
of thought:
“…One ought to
recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language,
and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the
verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies
of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make
a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political
language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from
Conservatives to Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful and
murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One
cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one’s own
habits (..…).” [8]
Correct thinking
opens the way to esoteric wisdom. The
individual effort to which Orwell invites the reader corresponds to the daily practice
of:
1) right
understanding;
2) right thought;
and
3) right speech, or
right word.
And these are the
three first steps in the Noble Eightfold Path taught by Buddha.
For this to be
accomplished one needs to develop, perform and adopt also right actions, right
livelihood, right mental effort, right attention and right concentration, which
are the other steps in the Eightfold Path. George Orwell practiced them all.
However, not every theosophical editor has had the same degree of honesty as Orwell,
as we will see in the next Chapters.
NOTES:
[1] H.P. Blavatsky, in her article To the Readers of
‘Lucifer’, published at “Theosophical Articles”, H.P. Blavatsky, Theosophy
Co., Los Angeles, 1981, volume I, pp. 279-283, see p. 279.
[2] “The Mahatma Letters”, TUP, Pasadena, California,
1992, Letter XXX, p. 232.
[3] “Politics and the English Language”, an essay included
in the volume “Why I Write”, by
George Orwell, Penguin Books - Great Ideas, England, 1984, 120 pp., see p. 102.
[4] “Why I Write”, George Orwell, pp. 102-103.
[5] “Why I Write”, p. 106.
[6] “Why I Write”, p. 110.
[7] “Why I Write”, p. 113.
[8] “Why I Write”, p. 120.
000
On the role of the esoteric movement in the
ethical awakening of mankind during the 21st century, see the book “The Fire and Light of Theosophical Literature”, by
Carlos Cardoso Aveline.
Published in
2013 by The Aquarian Theosophist,
the volume has 255 pages and can be obtained through Amazon Books.
000