IT IS NOT THE SHEEP

Recently I reread George Orwell’s Animal Farm and came across something about which I had completely forgotten, the chant of “four legs good, two legs bad” that the pigs taught the sheep.

Animal Farm is Orwell’s allegory of the devolution of the Soviet Union from revolution to tyranny. On the farm the pigs, smartest of the animals, start a revolt by convincing the other animals to drive off the farmer who had kept them in domesticated bondage. Afterwards, they take control of the farm’s management and gradually exercise authority in the same way that the farmer had until they become indistinguishable from him. It is a good bet that Pete Townshend had the story in the back of his mind when he wrote “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

“Four legs good, two legs bad” starts out as the animals’ rallying cry for revolt against animal bondage in general and their farmer in particular. But once they expel him and seize control of the farm, the mantra devolves into a mindless bromide that the pigs encourage the sheep to loudly bleat whenever debate or disagreement threatens their governance.

A telling example occurs when Napoleon (the “Stalin” pig) announces that the animals will no longer hold a public meeting to discuss the management of the farm. Instead, a select group of pigs will meet in private and then communicate their decisions to the rest of the animals afterwards. This naked power grab by Napoleon causes some young pigs to object, but “the sheep broke out into a tremendous bleating of ‘Four legs good, two legs bad!’ which went on for nearly a quarter of an hour and put an end to any chance of discussion.”

Repeatedly throughout the book, whenever the pigs ratchet up their control over the rest of the animals, the sheep’s bleating strangles any objection or attempted debate in the cradle. By the end, the animals surrender their right to have a say in their own affairs, not due to solely force but also from the tyranny of the bleating sheep.

Orwell directed his allegory at the Soviet Union, but it applies to any Statist tyranny. Statists will exert control at the point of a bayonet (if they must) but violence is unnecessary if they can drown debate in a sea of bleating. Less blood, same effect.

When this occurs it is easy to get mad at the sheep, to bleat back at them, but that is pointless. When the sheep are bleating one cannot debate or argue with them, they are unpersuadable. The struggle is not with them, but rather the rulers, authorities and powers of this dark World who use are using the sheep for their own malevolent ends.

There is an enemy prowling the Earth, but it is not the sheep.