Art to art: 1984 and Muse

I wrote this post on Jan.5, 2010 and never published it. There are some missing points that I cannot remember for the life of me... So sorry! Hope it makes sufficient sense for you to take your time, if you like Muse or 1984. Here goes:

==========================================

So, I read 1984 a few days ago, and it might have changed my opinion about Muse's new album which I so unabashedly bashed. (Interesting how my last post, too, was about literature informing music, art to art.) I think Muse does a good job of narrating parts of 1984 with their music. The story itself and its philosophical implications, however, are better drawn out in the novel.

[Caution: spoiler may ensue from here]

Infinite Pliancy of Human Nature

Serious political implications for today aside, 1984 gives an interesting statement about human nature, that it is infinitely pliant. Its very plasticity permits births of totalitarian governments. Free will is weak, and one is capable of emptying a human being of every ideal that matters, whether it be moral, familial, or purely ideological. A human can break, to the point of betraying anybody--a loved one, a family member, or even worse, some truth that he was fighting for.

"Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves." - O'Brien, 1984

Last Human failed; Actually, there was no such person

Winston thought he was fighting for truth.

During his conversation with O'Brien, he vows to commit murder, to disseminate venereal diseases, and to throw sulphuric acid in a child's face--viewing them as inevitable costs for freedom of humanity. Two occasions in the Ministry of Love--viewing of himself in the mirror and betraying Julia--heighten a sense of mocking irony. [Insert some ma In the final betrayal, in his denial of Julia, it becomes clear that he was actually only fighting for himself. What rich irony!


Pure Power

Then, the only thing that ultimately matters to a human, is power:

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intenti

on of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

- O'Brien, 1984