Thread by @PnictogenHorses

there's a famous novel that amounts to a scathing indictment of reactionary #Christian values. those values are shown to be incompatible with a free and happy society. instead they lead to grinding toil, squalor, surveillance, and violent punishment for trivial heresies.

(1/x)

I refer of course to George Orwell's novel "1984", in which #Christianity plays a fascinating role. it's not *absent*, even though the leaden tyranny of "Big Brother" is nominally atheistic. in "1984", Christianity creeps round the edges—and it's a tool for the oppressors.

(2/x)

let's start with Carrington, the undercover "Thought Police" officer who tricks first Winston Smith, then Julia, with his imitation of a dotty curio-shop owner.

Carrington plays his part superbly. probably he's genuinely fond of his junk store, even though it's a "prop".

(3/x)

that's an irony about Carrington's situation: he's an undercover Thought Police agent, so he can live an untroubled lifestyle. it's safe to say that almost *nobody* in "1984", in Oceania, would have the freedom or even the money to run an antique shop—but the *cop* can.

(4/x)

in fact that's one of the draws of both of "law enforcement" work and of being an "independent" Republican operative disguised as a journalist, like @mtaibbi or @ggreenwald. it's why @Sen_JoeManchin and @kyrstensinema are celebrities: treachery means *money* and *power*.

(5/x)

so Carrington (or whatever his name is—but then I suppose Thought Police agents don't really need names) gets a pleasant life selling bits of junk in the course of his police work. he gets to tell meandering stories about his trinkets while he's reeling Winston Smith in.

(6/x)

and one of those stories—a crafty and elliptical tale, designed to be maximally tempting to the perpetually nostalgic Winston Smith—features a fragment of a old nursery rhyme about church bells.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oranges_a…

this rhyme ends up *beguiling* Winston Smith.

(7/x)

he's fascinated by it, perplexed by it. he can't get it out of his mind. he talks with Julia about "Oranges and Lemons"—she recalls a scrap more of it, too!

it's like those photographs of old sculptures that fascısts like @Western_Trad and @jordanbpeterson like so much.

(8/x)

it's a scrap from the past, a past which fascıst iconography (including @GOP and American right-wing iconography) paints as idyllic and heroic and full of light—not at all like the dark dismal present.

this is a #Christian notion, ultimately: it's the prelapsarian glow.

(9/x)

once everything was perfect, then "they" took over and now everything stinks: that's the emotional message that fascısm tries to sell people.

@GOP politicians and right-wing pundits both talk this way. "#MAGA" was a concise and memetic expression of the fascıst message.

(10/x)

and it's a #Christian message. fascısm and #Christianity are closely entwined; in almost all its manifestations on Earth, fascısm has enjoyed the full-throated support of Christian religious leaders, who are liable to support ANY tyrant who promises to prop up the faith.

(11/x)

let us return to Carrington's shop, and his clever trick with "Oranges and Lemons". he knew that furnishing Winston Smith with a few tempting scraps of the past would get past his emotional defences.

invoking specifically *Christian* iconography, however, was devious.

(12/x)

because Winston Smith believes in Heaven, though he doesn't call it that.

he calls it "The Golden Country" but...it's Heaven—the luminous place full of life and laughter, where all his problems melt away. it's likely that the Thought Police *seeded* Smith's imagination.

(13/x)

glowing dreams of "The Golden Country" help Winston Smith accept O'Brien's torture, his rehabilitation and the breaking of his mind.

indeed his visions of "The Golden Country" become inseparable from O'Brien's narrative about death and rebirth in the Ministry of Love.

(14/x)

O'Brien speaks like an evangelical preacher. "we shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves" is almost something that a #Christian would say—right-wing #Christianity, @dalepartridge / @MattWalshBlog Christianity, is very much about erasing people.

(15/x)

"You are a flaw in the pattern, Winston. You are
a stain that must be wiped out," O'Brien also says—and that's basically how right-wing #Christians view anyone they dislike. @dalepartridge and @MattWalshBlog see most human beings as ruined, mere "stains to be wiped out."

(16/x)

it's Winston Smith's insidious daydream of "The Golden Country", though, that delivers Smith to O'Brien.

"He was back in the Ministry of Love, with everything forgiven, his soul white as snow. He was in the public dock, confessing everything, implicating everybody."

(17/x)

Smith keeps going back to glowing visions of redemption and "The Golden Country", again and again—especially after the Party shatters him and he's living out his last days, filling himself with cheap alcohol and propaganda for Big Brother. they're about all he has left.

(18/x)

now think about how *fervently* @dalepartridge or @MattWalshBlog or @DouthatNYT, or any other right-wing Christian still clinging desperately to the illusion that they're on the GOOD side, must daydream of Heaven. each in their own way...each must have their Happy Place.

(19/x)

each must have their "Golden Country".

Orwell's "1984" is not a Christian work, but the story it tells requires a (secularized) Christian context. O'Brien is able to break Winston Smith because Smith had specific weaknesses, derived from Christian values and symbolism.

(20/x)

Orwell knew very well just how friendly churches were to fascısts—he'd fought on the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War, in which the #Catholic Church (and the Nazıs and Mussolini's Italy) sided with General Franco. fascısm and #Christianity always go together.

~Mona Drafter

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