Re: Clarkson's latest article.



a heavy Newspeak dictionary and
flung it at the screen. It struck Goldstein's nose and bounced off; the
voice continued inexorably. In a lucid moment Winston found that he was
shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of
his chair. The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one
was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to
avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always
unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to
kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow
through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one
even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the
rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be
switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp. Thus, at
one moment Winston's hatred was not turned against Goldstein at all, but,
on the contrary, against Big Brother, the Party, and the Thought Police;
and at such moments his heart went out to the lonely, derided heretic on
the screen, sole guardian of truth and sanity in a world of lies. And yet
the very next instant he was at one with the people about him, and all that
was said of Goldstein seemed to him to be true. At those moments his secret
loathing of Big Brother changed into adoration, and Big Brother seemed to
tower up, an invincible, fearless protector, standing like a rock against
the hordes of Asia, and Goldstein, in spite of his isolation, his
helplessness, and the doubt that hung about his very existence, seemed like
some sinister enchanter, capable by the mere power of his voice of wrecking
the structure of civilization.
It was even possible, at moments, to switch one's hatred this way or
that by a voluntary act. Suddenly, by the sort of violent effort with which
one wrench


.



Relevant Pages