Thanks for the response. I noticed that some others who commented on your excellent article suggested a parallel with contemporary US politics and I agree with that to some extent. But I don’t think its a problem of personalities so much as a problem of personality v. institutions. To begin with a non-political example, many people profess distrust in the institutions of the market economy: banks, Wall Street, the stock market, etc. But they’re perfectly willing to place their money in the hands of some glad-hander like John the Con. It’s the same with politics nowadays. People broadly distrust the institutions of government but they do invest considerable faith in personalities: Trump, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders according to choice—this despite the implausibility of the promises they make.
In Nineteen Eighty-four George Orwell explained why the Party had created Big Brother to serve as its figurehead leader:
Big Brother is infallible and all-powerful. Every success, every achievement, every victory, every scientific discovery, all knowledge, all wisdom, all happiness, all virtue, are held to issue directly from his leadership and inspiration. Nobody has ever seen Big Brother. He is a face on the hoardings, a voice on the telescreen. We may be reasonably sure that he will never die, and there is already considerable uncertainty as to when he was born. Big Brother is the guise in which the Party chooses to exhibit itself to the world. His function is to act as a focusing point for love, fear, and reverence, emotions which are more easily felt towards an individual than towards an organization.
In this as in so much else Mr. Orwell was prescient indeed. As a satire on American politics in the age of celebrity culture and social media, it hits home.
