Chapter 6: Radical Love And Artful Living: One Educator’s Conceptual Journey

“The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men.”

He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil:

“How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?

Winston thought. “By making him suffer,” he said.

“Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. So you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love and justice. Ours is founded upon hatred.”¹