Mindless Downfall

Everything begins in the mind.

Whether deciding to buy a shirt or choosing to start a revolution, an idea comes from within, from the minds of people as individuals. Every person has their own sense of morality, of right and wrong, and of an idealistic society. Although some people’s views might be similar, it comes down to every person to decide in their own mind what they believe is best. Such a statement leads to the assumption that achieving a perfect society is socially impossible; for one person’s idea of perfection differs from the next. The idea of a utopia is similar. The idea of a utopia reaches out to all. It is vague and appealing, leaving room for every individual to interpret the concept of perfection at their leisure. There is danger to this, as a utopia cannot exist if every mind has their own perception of idealism, and such perceptions are subject to corruption and abuse. The novella Animal Farm, written by George Orwell, elegantly illustrates that the concept of a utopia is good in nature; however, attempting ultimate perfection is a road that leads to destruction.
Despite the differences amongst beliefs, most all virtuous minds have one thing in common: the will to be treated with justice and equality. “All the habits of Man are evil,” says Old Major, an old, wise boar in Animal Farm, “And, above all, no animal must ever tyrannise over his own kind. Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers. No animal must ever kill another animal. All animals are equal” (Orwell 11). Old Major promises a “golden future time,” (13) in which all animals will be treated with the proper justification and treatment they desire. He uses his power of language and speech to show his ways of executing such promises with precision. The “golden future time” that Old Major describes is a sure utopia. There is said to be no more humans in the future, and therefore their problems of alienation of resources and foul treatment would come to an end. All animals would be brothers, peace would be restored, and every animal would be treated properly and would be compensated with nice lifestyles and sufficient meals for their hard work. All in all, the future utopia would provide every single animal, no matter how smart or how strong, with equality and fairness. On this level, every animal saw opportunity for change on the farm in their mind, which convinced them to plan a revolution that would lead to a “golden future time.” In this sense, the idea of a utopia is simple and seemingly easy enough to agree on and execute. Once the animals drove Jones and his men off the farm, the rest was easy. Since all animals were of equal importance and all were brothers, there was no room for any of the cruelty that the humans had displayed. At first.
With the humans gone, “Every mouthful of food was an acute positive pleasure, now that it was truly their own food, produced by themselves and for themselves, not doled out to   them by a grudging master. With the worthless parasitical human beings gone, there was more for everyone to eat” (28).  It seemed as if the “golden future time” was here, thanks to the revolution inspired by Old Major, who died several days after his speech. By any definition of the word, it seemed most definitely that the utopia was accomplished. On a basic level, a utopia is certainly a beneficial concept. The idea provides hope and inspiration, as Old Major portrays when he advocates for a dramatic change on the farm that would come to lead to this revolution. Overall, a utopia leads to hope, hope leads to change, and change leads to potential victory. A victory that the animals on “Manor Farm,” which would come to be called, “Animal Farm,” discover without the humans to treat them poorly.
Throughout Animal Farm, human beings seem to go hand in hand with abuse and corruption. Most of the Seven Commandments refer to animals not displaying human similarities such as wearing clothes or killing other animals. They wanted to stray as far as they can away from anything associated with humans, their supreme enemies. However, as individual minds are different, a white mare named Mollie seems to be too connected with the humans, as she wants to keep the ribbon in her mane, which is a badge of slavery. She is drawing attention to herself by marking herself with the ribbon, which could symbolize a danger to the beliefs of Animalism, the philosophy that sparked the revolution. For instance, “The stupidest questions of all were asked by Mollie, the white mare. The very first question she asked Snowball was: ‘Will there still sugar after the rebellion?’ ‘No,’ said Snowball firmly…Mollie agreed, but she did not sound very convinced” (17). Due to Mollie’s dangerously different mindset and the fact that she is oddly drawn to the ways of the humans, she symbolizes a potential danger to the utopia. To have a utopia, everyone needs to be on board with the ideas that create it, which, in this case, is Animalism, and those who are not are a threat to the society. Mollie’s connection to the humans, who symbolize hate and corruption, represents a point of view of the mind that could disrupt the whole idea of a perfect society. A society can’t be perfect unless everyone is on board, which is a simple reason that makes a utopia complicated; for differences of minds result in different beliefs, which contradicts the idea that a utopia is perfect for everyone.
Although there are tremendous benefits that come with having a leader of a society, there are also complications relating to corruption. With leadership comes natural inner conflicts such as greed and misuse of power. This is evident when the pigs start taking over as the leaders of Animal Farm. Squealer, the pig who is a master of rhetoric and speech deception and is said to be able to “…turn black into white” (16).  In other words, Squealer uses his speaking ability and education to convince the rest of the animals whatever he wanted them to believe. This part of Orwell’s allegory is when restrictions in the so-called “utopia” start to occur, at fault of the pig’s corruption. Unfortunately, however not by accident, the pigs were the only animals on the farm that are truly educated. They use this power for their own selfish benefit, and take advantage of the animals who have not been educated. For instance, Squealer announces, “It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples” (36) to the animals, declaring that from now on, the pigs were the only animals allowed to eat the apples and drink the milk. He makes the argument that the pigs need it to nourish their minds, since they are the brains of the farm; however, the reality is that the pigs are taking advantage of the other’s ignorance and allowing themselves to indulge in unjust higher portions of food.
Napoleon, another pig on the farm known for his inhumane and unjust treatment, differs from Squealer in the way that he uses the power of violence to abuse the majority of the animals, rather than the power of sophistry and intellectual bullying of Squealer. His form of abuse is arguably less demeaning and destructive to a society, as everyone, even the clueless animals, know that violence is terrifying and not a part of a “utopia.” Since the animals do not know that they are being intellectually abused because they do not have the education to put it to an end or even realize the abuse is happening, they are unaware of the drastic issue. Nevertheless, Napoleon is still at partial blame for the downfall of the original meaning of Animal Farm.
Thanks to the pigs and their greed, the once “golden future time” of Animal Farm has corrupted into a mess of abuse and ignorance, no better than the original days of the farm with Jones. With the majority of the animals denied a proper education, the pigs use their power for evil, and make the rest do all the hard work of building and rebuilding the windmill as well as planting and harvesting crops, while they sit back and do nothing. Overall, the animals other than  the pigs are overworked, tired, and hungry. The pigs took away their reasonable food portions to give themselves extra rations, until they were, “so fat that he could with difficulty see out of his eyes” (127), while the rest of the animals went to sleep hungry. The vicious cycle of history occurs at fault of the lack of education of every individual. Due to these undeveloped minds, the animals were not able to clearly understand what is happening before them, and their ignorance left them subject to manipulation. The original Seven Commandments are altered by the pigs without the knowledge of the others, which allowed them to break the original concept and idea of Animalism. They brutally killed animals with ease, slept in human beds, and lived in human homes. Yet the animals could do nothing because they believed in their minds that there was nothing to be fixed. Even times of skepticism by the animals were quickly swept aside when Squealer used logical fallacy and sophistry to make the animals believe that the pigs were always right. Even Boxer, the best physical worker on the farm, adopted the maxim, “Napoleon is always right” (56). The pigs virtually morphed into the evil and selfish humans.
History is doomed to repeat itself if proper education is not given. Corruption is a definite result when too much power is given to an individual and it is only abused. Alienation will come with greed, and greed is an evil but natural tendency of people. A utopia cannot occur with differences of minds and viewpoints on the subject, which is inevitable, and “perfection” is a dream, not a reality. There are effective societies and there are moral societies, but they cannot co-exist in the minds of everyone. The mind is a mysterious place; but a wonderful place nonetheless. It creates virtue and intellect, and allows for improvement and advancement.
But it is essential to be careful in escaping corruption and unjust societies at the result of lack of education, and overall escaping a dystopia. There is both good and evil in the mind, and these contradictions make the mind subject to confusion. Dystopia goes hand in hand with utopia, and a utopia is an imaginary state concocted by individual minds.

Everything ends in the mind.

Works Cited
Orwell, George. Animal Farm. New York: New American Library, 1956. Print.