From Ideology is not "analysis" :
Words, in and of themselves, do not exist; at least not as anything more than ink on paper, characters on a computer screen, or auditory vibrations. Words do not contain ideas, but merely express them. To say that words "have meaning" is to say simply that they express the ideas that are swarming around in my head. What, then, is this thing that we call thinking? Nothing more than the internal movement of the mind – your mind – within the range of possible meaning that it has created for itself.
Are you feeling frustrated or confused by what I have said so far? If so, I am not surprised. If not, don't be so quick to tell yourself that none of this matters. Our entire Civilization is built on the assumption that 'ideas' exist as 'things': as 'objects' that float through the air like dandelion spores. His fascist sympathies notwithstanding, Martin Heidegger was right about one thing: human beings have forgotten what it really means to think. (Heidegger, 3) As anarchists and radicals, we are no exception.
"Winston sank his arms to his sides and slowly refilled his lungs with air. His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink." (Orwell 47)
Have you ever sat in silence and observed the movement of your own thoughts? How one thought progresses into the next which progresses into the next, forming a sort of chain? How sometimes you cut a particular thought-chain short and abruptly turn your attention to another one? How you can never totally identify where one thought ends and another begins? If so, then you already realize two very important things: first, that ideas are not 'objects,' but sudden fluctuations in mental energy; and, second, that thinking about Thinking is altogether different from all other types of thinking...
Are you feeling frustrated or confused by what I have said so far? If so, I am not surprised. If not, don't be so quick to tell yourself that none of this matters. Our entire Civilization is built on the assumption that 'ideas' exist as 'things': as 'objects' that float through the air like dandelion spores. His fascist sympathies notwithstanding, Martin Heidegger was right about one thing: human beings have forgotten what it really means to think. (Heidegger, 3) As anarchists and radicals, we are no exception.
"Winston sank his arms to his sides and slowly refilled his lungs with air. His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink." (Orwell 47)
Have you ever sat in silence and observed the movement of your own thoughts? How one thought progresses into the next which progresses into the next, forming a sort of chain? How sometimes you cut a particular thought-chain short and abruptly turn your attention to another one? How you can never totally identify where one thought ends and another begins? If so, then you already realize two very important things: first, that ideas are not 'objects,' but sudden fluctuations in mental energy; and, second, that thinking about Thinking is altogether different from all other types of thinking...
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