Interview with Emmanuel Goldstein

On Oligarchical Collectivism, Reality Manipulation, Class Structures, Modern Tyranny, Continuous Warfare and much more.

It wasn’t easy getting this interview, but I’m glad I finally did.

Emmanuel is a recluse and to the best of my knowledge has never given an interview since he authored his underground classic The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism.

With thanks to Emmanuel Goldstein¹.

---

---

Question 1: You've been described as a former Inner Party member who later became a prominent critic of the Party. Could you share what initially drew you to join the Party and what led to your eventual break from it?

Answer: The Party's initial promise emerged from the socialist movements of the early nineteenth century, carrying forward the aspirations of equality and human brotherhood that stretched back to ancient slave rebellions. Those of us who joined early believed we were creating a new kind of society that would transcend the historical cycles of power and oppression.

However, I began to observe how the Party systematically abandoned these principles of liberty and equality. The true aims became clear - not to liberate humanity but to perpetuate unfreedom and inequality through conscious strategy. The Party chose to freeze history at a chosen moment, maintaining power through deliberate exercises in doublethink and reality control.

What truly severed my connection was witnessing how the Party created a system of thought designed for permanent dominion. They combined belief in their own infallibility with the power to learn from past mistakes, dislocating the sense of reality itself. This perversion of our original ideals into their opposite - all while maintaining the original language and forms - revealed the true nature of oligarchical collectivism.

Question 2: Your analysis of social class structures suggests they've remained fundamentally unchanged throughout history. What observations led you to this conclusion?

Answer: Throughout recorded time, I've observed that society has maintained three distinct groups - the High, the Middle, and the Low. While their names and relative numbers have varied across ages, the essential structure and relationships between these groups have remained constant, like a gyroscope returning to equilibrium despite perturbations.

The aims of these groups follow an unchanging pattern. The High seek to maintain their position, the Middle aim to trade places with the High, and the Low - when they can think beyond their daily struggles - desire to create a society of equals. This dynamic creates a recurring cycle where the Middle enlist the Low by promising liberty and justice, only to thrust them back into servitude once power is achieved.

Most telling is that despite all material progress, the Low have never achieved their aims. Even today, with greater physical comfort than centuries past, no advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has brought human equality a millimeter nearer. From the perspective of the Low, historic changes have merely meant exchanging one master for another while the fundamental structure endures.

Question 3: In your book, you discuss how the Middle class historically used ideals like "freedom" and "justice" to gain power. How does this pattern differ from modern political movements?

Answer: Modern movements represent a fundamental break from historical patterns, particularly in how openly they abandon the pretense of liberation. The new Middle groups that emerged in the mid-century - Ingsoc, Neo-Bolshevism, and Death-Worship - explicitly proclaimed their tyranny beforehand, rather than establishing it after seizing power.

In the past, the Middle made revolutions under the banner of equality, only establishing fresh tyranny after overthrowing the old order. The doctrine of hierarchical society was traditionally the explicit domain of the High, preached by kings, aristocrats, and their parasitical supporters, who softened it with promises of compensation in an imaginary afterlife.

What makes our present situation unique is that by the fourth decade of the twentieth century, all main currents of political thought became openly authoritarian. The earthly paradise was discredited precisely when it became technically feasible. Every new political theory led back to hierarchy and regimentation, openly embracing practices like imprisonment without trial, torture, and mass deportation.

Question 4: You write about technological progress being deliberately stunted. Given your background, what potential technological advancements do you believe have been suppressed?

Answer: In Oceania today, Science in the old sense has almost ceased to exist - there isn't even a word for it in Newspeak. The empirical method of thought, which founded all past scientific achievements, stands in direct opposition to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. Technological progress only occurs when its products can be used to diminish human liberty.

The fields are now cultivated with horse-ploughs while books are written by machinery. Even in laboratories and experimental stations, research is strictly limited to instruments of war and surveillance - developing rocket bombs, deadlier gases, soluble poisons, or disease germs immune to antibodies. Some explore far-fetched possibilities like focusing the sun's rays through space-suspended lenses or tapping the Earth's core for artificial earthquakes.

The tragedy is that none of these projects ever approaches realization. The Party maintains only enough progress to sustain warfare while suppressing advancements that might raise living standards or promote independent thought. The machine technique that once promised to eliminate human drudgery and inequality has been deliberately stunted, ensuring that hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy, and disease remain as tools of control.

Question 5: Your analysis of continuous warfare between the three super-states is particularly intriguing. How did you come to understand that this conflict serves primarily as a means of social control?

Answer: The nature of modern warfare revealed itself through careful observation of its peculiar characteristics. None of the three super-states can be definitively conquered even by the other two in combination, and there is no longer anything material to fight about. The self-contained economies have eliminated the scramble for markets, while resources are readily available within each territory.

The war serves primarily to consume surplus production without raising living standards. The Floating Fortresses, for instance, consume vast resources that could build hundreds of cargo ships, only to be scrapped as obsolete without ever providing material benefit. This continuous destruction prevents the masses from becoming too comfortable and thus too intelligent.

Most revealing is how the fighting never moves beyond the disputed territories' edges. The war effort is deliberately planned to consume any surplus while keeping the population in hardship. This manufactured scarcity maintains social distinctions and creates the psychological atmosphere necessary for hierarchical society - a perpetual state of war that paradoxically never threatens the power structure itself.

Question 6: Could you elaborate on how the Party manages to maintain power through what you call "controlled insanity"?

Answer: The Party's power rests on doublethink - the power of holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously and accepting both. Party members must be capable of conscious deception while genuinely believing their false narratives. This requires a continuous alteration of the past, made possible through our system of thought control.

The control of the past depends fundamentally on memory training. Party members learn to forget any fact that becomes inconvenient, then recall it when needed, while simultaneously denying objective reality yet remaining aware of the reality they deny. This mental discipline makes them unwilling and unable to think too deeply on any subject.

Most significantly, the greater one's understanding of this deception, the further one becomes from seeing reality. Those with the best knowledge of what happens are furthest from seeing the world as it is. This is not accidental - the Party deliberately creates this controlled insanity as it is essential for maintaining power indefinitely.

Question 7: The concept of doublethink features prominently in your work. How did you first recognize this phenomenon within the Party structure?

Answer: Doublethink became apparent in the Party's handling of facts and reality. The Party intellectual knows they are playing tricks with reality, yet through doublethink, they satisfy themselves that reality remains unviolated. The process must be conscious for precision, yet unconscious to avoid feelings of falsity and guilt.

The most subtle practitioners are those who invented doublethink and comprehend it as a vast system of mental cheating. It manifests in remarkable ways - the Party rejects every principle of the original Socialist movement while doing so in Socialism's name. It preaches contempt for the working class while adopting workers' uniforms, undermines family solidarity while appealing to family loyalty.

The Ministry names themselves exemplify this phenomenon - Peace deals with war, Truth with lies, Love with torture, and Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are deliberate exercises in doublethink, necessary for retaining power indefinitely. By reconciling contradictions, the ancient cycle can be broken and the High can maintain their position permanently.

Question 8: You describe how wealth equality became technically possible in the early twentieth century. What specific developments made this feasible?

Answer: The development of machine production fundamentally altered the relationship between social inequality and civilization. While earlier ages required class distinctions for societal function, mechanization eliminated the need for vast differences in wealth and living standards. Even with specialized roles favoring certain individuals, there was no longer any real need for large economic disparities.

This technical possibility of equality posed a direct threat to hierarchical society. If leisure and security became universal, the masses would become literate and learn to think independently. Eventually, they would realize the privileged minority served no function and sweep them away. A hierarchical society could only persist through poverty and ignorance.

The ruling class faced a dilemma - they could neither return to an agricultural past, which would leave them militarily vulnerable, nor allow mechanization to create wealth that would undermine class distinctions. Their solution was to maintain industrial production while preventing its fruits from raising living standards, primarily through continuous warfare that consumes surplus without benefiting the masses.

Question 9: The relationship between technology and social control is a recurring theme in your work. How do you see the telescreens and other surveillance technologies evolving?

Answer: With the development of television and the technical advance of simultaneous reception and transmission in the same instrument, private life effectively ceased to exist. Every citizen important enough to be worth watching can be monitored continuously under the eyes of the police and surrounded by official propaganda.

The invention of print began this process, making it easier to manipulate public opinion, while film and radio carried it further. But the telescreen represents something unprecedented - the ability to enforce not just complete obedience to the State's will, but complete uniformity of opinion on all subjects.

This technology, combined with the elimination of all other channels of communication, creates a sealed world where the Party can maintain absolute control over what citizens see, hear, and ultimately think. The technological sophistication of surveillance continues to advance solely in this direction - not to improve lives, but to perfect control.

Question 10: Your analysis of how the Party maintains power differs significantly from historical patterns of autocracy. What makes their approach uniquely effective?

Answer: The new aristocracy, composed primarily of bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organizers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists, and professional politicians, differs fundamentally from their historical counterparts. They are less avaricious, less tempted by luxury, hungrier for pure power, and most importantly, more conscious of what they are doing.

Previous tyrannies were half-hearted and inefficient by comparison. Even the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages was tolerant by modern standards. No previous government had the power to keep citizens under constant surveillance or enforce complete uniformity of opinion.

The Party has realized that the only secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism. By owning everything collectively rather than individually, wealth and privilege become easier to defend. The so-called 'abolition of private property' actually concentrated property in far fewer hands, but with the crucial difference that the new owners are a group instead of individuals.

Question 11: Could you explain how the Party's approach to history differs from previous attempts at historical revision?

Answer: The Party's relationship with the past represents something entirely new - the concept that past events have no objective existence and survive only in written records and human memories. Since the Party controls all records and the minds of its members, it can define the past according to current needs.

Previous regimes certainly distorted history, but they couldn't claim that something never happened or had happened differently from recorded fact. The Party's control extends beyond mere falsification to the complete rewriting of history, making it impossible to establish what truly occurred.

Most remarkably, though the past is alterable, it never has been altered in any specific instance - because when recreated in whatever shape needed, this new version becomes the past, and no different past can ever have existed. At all times the Party possesses absolute truth, and the absolute clearly cannot have been different from what it is now.

Question 12: You write about the proles being "intermittently conscious of the war." What potential do you see in their role within society?

Answer: The proles, comprising 85 percent of Oceania's population, paradoxically enjoy more freedom from surveillance than Party members. From the Party's perspective, they need only to be influenced negatively - kept working, breeding, and dying without developing the power to grasp that the world could be different.

The proles are granted intellectual liberty precisely because they have no intellect in the Party's view. Left to themselves, they continue from generation to generation without any impulse to rebel. They could only become dangerous if industrial advancement required educating them more highly.

What opinions the masses hold is considered irrelevant as long as they remain isolated from any means of comparison or broader understanding. Their potential power remains permanently dormant, as they lack both the impulse and framework to conceive of fundamental change.

Question 13: The concept of "collective solipsism" you describe seems crucial to understanding the Party's control. Could you break this down for our readers?

Answer: Collective solipsism manifests through the Party's ability to deny observable reality while simultaneously taking account of that same reality they deny. This is achieved through doublethink, allowing Party members to forget any fact that becomes inconvenient, then draw it back when needed.

The Party maintains power indefinitely by enforcing not just obedience to its will, but complete uniformity of opinion. Each citizen's consciousness is molded to accept whatever the Party claims as absolute truth, even when it contradicts previously established "truth" or observable reality.

This system creates a mental atmosphere where Party members can believe whatever they're told while simultaneously engaging with the actual reality they're denying. This controlled insanity becomes more pronounced as one rises in the Party ranks, with the Inner Party demonstrating the most advanced capacity for doublethink.

Question 14: How did you gather the information about the other two super-states, Eurasia and Eastasia, given the strict information controls?

Answer: The three super-states' conditions are remarkably similar, each operating with the same pyramidal structure, semi-divine leader worship, and continuous warfare economy. In Eurasia they call their philosophy Neo-Bolshevism, in Eastasia Death-Worship or Obliteration of the Self.

Despite superficial differences, these systems are barely distinguishable, and their social structures are identical. The ruling groups of all three powers simultaneously know and don't know what they're doing - their lives dedicated to world conquest while knowing the war must continue endlessly without victory.

The sealed nature of each society serves a crucial purpose - preventing citizens from discovering that foreigners are similar to themselves and that most of what they're told is lies. The isolation maintains the fear, hatred, and self-righteousness on which their morale depends.

Question 15: You suggest that the war serves primarily economic rather than territorial purposes. Could you elaborate on how this system sustains itself?

Answer: The essential act of war is destruction - not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War provides a way to shatter, burn, sink, or launch into the stratosphere materials that might otherwise make the masses too comfortable and eventually too intelligent.

The war effort is deliberately planned to consume any surplus beyond meeting the population's bare needs. In practice, these needs are always underestimated, creating chronic shortages. This scarcity is advantageous, as it maintains the importance of small privileges and magnifies distinctions between groups.

Even the Inner Party lives austerely compared to pre-revolutionary standards. The few luxuries they enjoy - better apartments, clothes, food, and servants - create a different world from the Outer Party, while the Outer Party maintains similar advantages over the proles. This besieged city atmosphere makes power concentration seem a natural condition for survival.

Question 16: The Ministry of Truth plays a central role in maintaining Party control. Based on your experience, how does it actually operate?

Answer: The Ministry constantly rewrites history to match current Party claims. Every speech, statistic, and record must be continuously updated to show that Party predictions were always correct. No change in doctrine or political alignment can ever be admitted, as changing one's mind implies weakness.

The day-to-day falsification of the past proves as essential to regime stability as the Ministry of Love's repression and espionage. Through the Ministry of Truth's efforts, memory becomes collectively controlled - what's remembered must align with current Party doctrine regardless of previous "facts."

Most significantly, though history is continuously rewritten, each new version becomes the only version that has ever existed. When recreated in whatever shape needed at the moment, this new version is the past, and no different past can ever have existed. The Party maintains absolute truth at all times, even when that truth contradicts what was absolute truth yesterday.

Question 17: Your book has been circulating clandestinely. What challenges have you faced in getting this information to the public?

Answer: The Party's control over all channels of communication creates an almost impenetrable barrier to spreading unauthorized information. With telescreens everywhere and the Thought Police's constant surveillance, even possessing thoughtcrime materials carries enormous risk.

The average citizen of Oceania is cut off from contact with the outside world and the past, like someone in interstellar space who cannot tell up from down. The Party's ability to control all information sources makes independent verification of facts virtually impossible.

The proles, while theoretically capable of force through their numbers, remain too crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives. This makes spreading awareness of systemic truths particularly challenging.

Question 18: Given your analysis of power structures, what do you believe would be necessary for genuine social change?

Answer: Real change would require addressing all four ways a ruling group can fall from power: conquest from without, inefficient governance leading to mass revolt, emergence of a strong and discontented Middle group, and loss of self-confidence in governing.

However, the Party has effectively neutralized these traditional threats. The three super-states are unconquerable, economic crises are prevented, the Middle group is carefully managed, and doublethink maintains the rulers' conviction. The masses never revolt purely from oppression - they need standards of comparison to recognize their condition.

The Party's greatest vulnerability lies in education - specifically, the continuous molding of consciousness in both the directing group and the larger executive group below it. Any genuine change would require disrupting this careful conditioning system.

Question 19: What current projects are you working on, and how do they relate to your ongoing analysis of power structures?

Answer: My primary focus remains understanding and documenting how the Party maintains power through controlled insanity, particularly the role of continuous warfare in preserving artificial scarcity and social hierarchies.

The study of doublethink - how Party members consciously deceive while genuinely believing their fabrications - requires constant attention as this practice becomes more sophisticated. The Party's ability to make war continuous while changing its meaning demands ongoing analysis.

Of particular interest is how technological progress has been effectively arrested while maintaining enough advancement for warfare and surveillance. This selective development of technology represents a new form of social control that previous societies never achieved.

Question 20: For readers who want to understand more about these issues, what suggestions do you have for staying informed despite the Party's information controls?

Answer: Understanding begins with recognizing that the Party's power rests on collective control of memory and information. The key is developing the ability to recognize doublethink in oneself and others - the simultaneous acceptance of contradictory beliefs.

Critical observation of how the Party manufactures reality through language control, particularly through Newspeak, can reveal the mechanisms of thought control. Pay attention to how words are eliminated or their meanings altered to make certain ideas literally unthinkable.

Most importantly, maintain awareness that the continuous state of war and the hatred of supposed enemies serve primarily to preserve internal power structures. The ability to see beyond immediate emotions and understand the larger purpose of Party policies is essential for genuine comprehension.

---

---

I appreciate you being here.

If you've found the content interesting, useful and maybe even helpful, please consider supporting it through a small paid subscription. While everything here is free, your paid subscription is important as it helps in covering some of the operational costs and supports the continuation of this independent research and journalism work. It also helps keep it free for those that cannot afford to pay.

Please make full use of the Free Libraries.

Unbekoming Interview Library: Great interviews across a spectrum of important topics.

Unbekoming Book Summary Library: Concise summaries of important books.

Stories

I'm always in search of good stories, people with valuable expertise and helpful books. Please don't hesitate to get in touch at unbekoming@outlook.com

For COVID vaccine injury

Consider the FLCCC Post-Vaccine Treatment as a resource.

Baseline Human Health

Watch and share this profound 21-minute video to understand and appreciate what health looks like without vaccination.

1. Emmanuel Goldstein is a fictional character in George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). In the narrative, Goldstein serves as the principal enemy of the state of Oceania, portrayed by the ruling Party as the leader of the Brotherhood, a supposed secret, counter-revolutionary organization that opposes Big Brother and the Ingsoc regime. Here are some key points about his character:

• Role in Propaganda: Goldstein is central to the Party’s strategy of maintaining control through fear and hatred. He is the focus of the daily "Two Minutes Hate," where his image is used to stir up contempt among the citizens of Oceania, serving as a scapegoat for all societal issues and a symbol of rebellion.

• Authorship of "The Book": Allegedly, Goldstein is the author of The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, often referred to as "The Book" within the novel. This text is supposedly a counter-history that criticizes the Party's ideology, suggesting that its doctrines are a betrayal of the original revolutionary principles. However, it's later revealed by O'Brien that this book was actually written by members of the Inner Party, including himself, as a tool to trap dissenters.

• Existence: There's ambiguity regarding Goldstein's actual existence within the story. He might not be a real person but rather a construct of the Party to control the populace through paranoia and loyalty, much like Big Brother.

• Historical Parallels: Goldstein's character is often seen as an allusion to Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary who was exiled and later assassinated by Stalin's regime. This comparison is drawn from Goldstein's role as a former party member turned traitor, akin to Trotsky's fall from grace in Soviet politics. The name "Goldstein" might also reference Emma Goldman, an anarchist and feminist Orwell admired.

• Cultural Impact: Beyond the novel, "Emmanuel Goldstein" has become a cultural reference for any figure used as a political scapegoat or an enemy of the state in various contexts, symbolizing both dissent and the manipulation of public opinion through propaganda.

These details about Emmanuel Goldstein are derived from the narrative of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and various analyses of the character's role in the story, reflecting both the novel's plot and its broader social commentary.