The P. who hated Jazz part two

[Terrance]

Bandwraith says, 

  " Very nice. And it brings to mind certain comments in the foreword
regarding the absence of religion/racism in "1984." Fascist regimes
seem more likely to be in league with the prevailing state religion,
e.g.,
Franco's Spain. Totalitarian regimes seem less likely to tolerate any
competition for control of their subjects, claiming a more scientific
or rational basis for their imposed status quo. In that sense, O'Brien
is
a problematic character. He doesn't really fit. As Pynchon mentions,
he "gradually reveals an unbalanced side, a disengagement from reality,"
that would make him better suited to be a mid-level functionary in a
fascist regime. He might, for example, be a successful director in the
ministry responsible for the production of "Feelies." "

Where are today's Hitlers & Stalins, ...? 

Certainly not Bush and Blair. 

As P suggests, they are acting more like Churchill.  

Blicero? 

Vond? 

Oh come now. 

Saddam? 

When Orwell was writing nothing essential had changed in the basic
characteristics of the European political-religious symbolism since the
17th century. 

Hierarchy and orders, universal and particular ecclesia, the empire of
God and of Satan, 
Führertum and apocalypse, were still the expressive forms of the
communal religion.  But, the contents were gradually changing away from
the horror of those traced out in Leviathan.  The Leviathan, the
omnipotent state immediately under God and acting upon divine orders.
How Hobbes constructs such a symbol is important  and involves two
steps: First, a natural construction of the personality of the state,
which is to be binding for all times, and then the construction of the
natural unity as one Christian ecclesia on the historical circumstances
of the 17th century. 

(H took the image of the Leviathan from the Bible. The monster is
described in Job 40 and 41 "His heart is firm as a rock, firm as the
nether millstone. WHen he raises himself, strong men take fright,
bewildered at the lashings of his tail. Sword or spear, dagger or
javelin, if the touch him, they have no effect" He has no equal on
earth; for he is made quite without fear. He looks down on all
creatures, even the highest; he is king over all proud beasts")

In order to construct the new natural unity of the political nation, H
uses, because of the biblical tradition of the Old Covenant, contract
theory. Men in the state of nature have committed themselves through a
contract to place by majority vote a sovereign above themselves and to
surrender to him. Because of this construction, H has been called a
contract theorist. But contract only applies to an instrument of his
theory, one that is bound to tradition and time. But the covenant
tradition is essentially about a previously unformed multitude combining
their multiplicity into the unity of one person; the multitude becomes
the unit of the commonwealth in which the bearer of their personality is
procured; the commonwealth --not the elected sovereign -- is the person
who now appears as the actor in history. 

What Orwell witnessed was nothing less than the closing of the Christian
ecclesia. And he identified this as the major challenge of 20th century. 

What he saw was that even though the hierarchy still extends up to God
and the commonwealth is created according to God's commission, the
hierarchy no longer flows down to persons who occupy the ranks of the
ecclesia but to the collective person; it goes to the sovereign, not
considered as the ruler of subjects, but as the personality carrier of
the commonwealth. 

The commonwealth is a closed cosmos not only with respect to political
power, it is also closed intellectually, because the sovereign,
irrespective of whether he be a monarch or an assembly, has a right to
judge which opinions and teachings are suitable to maintain and promote
the unity of the commonwealth; he decides which people will be permitted
to speak at assemblies, and he has the right to censor any printed
material. The justification for this power is set out by  whatever
minister of propaganda: The actions of the people are determined by
their opinions, and whoever directs their opinions in the right
direction will also direct the actions to support peace and harmony.
Anything disrupting the peace and harmony can not be true.