Dystopia Now

Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement Everything else we shall destroy, everything Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer But in the future there will be no wives and no friends Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen The sex instinct will be eradicated Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card We shall abolish the orgasm Our neurologists are at work upon it now There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy There will be no art, no literature, no science When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life All competing pleasures will be destroyed But always -- do not forget this, Winston -- always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever