Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [1035]

‘We control life, Winston, at all its levels. You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us. But we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable. Or perhaps you have returned to your old idea that the proletarians or the slaves will arise and overthrow us. Put it out of your mind. They are helpless, like the animals. Humanity is the Party. The others are outside – irrelevant.’ — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 1035

Note

The doctrine that the Party creates human nature rather than transgressing it — Winston’s final moral ground (‘something in the universe’) is declared a figment. ‘Men are infinitely malleable’ is the philosophical linchpin of the whole re-education project.