Big Brother's Beginnings

Befitting its status as a "classic," George Orwell's 1984 is frequently mentioned by practitioners of the written arts, usually in a context such as, "Reminiscent of Orwell's 1984, the US government today revealed plans for more scanning of private Web traffic, email."

Actually, the energetic referencing of Orwell's most dystopian of works – which is saying something – has caused it to transcend the realm of a mere classic, enshrining it as a cliché.

The reason for said overuse is that the parallels between the all-powerful government so starkly envisioned in Orwell's book and the steady growth in government power in the real world today are hard to ignore. It's almost as if Orwell penned a script that every subsequent government, as circumstances and technology allowed, has followed as closely as a devout Amish follows the Ordnung.

But there is one aspect of 1984 that most commentators fail to mention: in the end, Big Brother wins.

It's not even a close thing: at no point in Orwell's book does Big Brother break even a little sweat as it goes about crushing Winston Smith and all other would-be malcontents.

Now, it may be that Orwell, seriously afflicted with tuberculosis at the time of writing his darkest book, couldn't muster the creativity to concoct a deus ex machina to tip Big Brother over. But in my opinion, he simply came to the conclusion that once a certain threshold of power has been attained by government, there's no way to unseat it. Minor examples for that contention are found in abundance and include, I would propose, the longevity of Robert Mugabe's reign and North Korea's Kim Il Sucks dynasty.

For me, then, the real message of 1984 is that once governments are allowed to get too firm a grip on the reins of power – including the judicial, the constabulary, the military, the media – they are not just imminently corruptible but super-hardened to any real change.

Which brings me to the theme of today's musings: the chestnut from whence such grand power grows.

I, Pencil, Leonard Read's 1958 essay, a video version of which you can watch here, explains how the free market works using the simple example of how the lowly pencil is produced and brought to market.

While I can have no hope of duplicating the success of Read's work, I'll try to use the same sort of simplistic example – replacing the pencil with the coca leaf – to expose the genesis of Big Brother's steady assent to unassailable power.

That there is even a law against such a plant as this – or any plant, for that matter – seems just the right starting point for today's musings. And so tucking a few coca leaves into the space between my cheek and jaw, which thanks to culture and tradition in this corner of Argentina is still legal, we begin.

I, Coca

Here in Salta province, in the northwest of Argentina, as well as in Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru, coca has been grown and used for millennia.

It can be consumed as a green tea, pleasantly sweet and musky, or gently masticated, much the same way folks in the southern US enjoy chaws of tobacco.

To assist in releasing the coca plant's active ingredients, one usually dips a moistened pinkie finger into a small bag of bicarbonate of soda – or "bica," as it's called locally – and rubs the powder on the gums.

No matter how you enjoy your coca, it acts as a very mild stimulant, approximately like a cup of coffee, but just a couple of ticks different. Not stronger, just different.

In fact, unlike coffee, with coca there is none of the stomach upset or jitteriness. Quite the opposite, the locals – and yours truly – drink a spot of coca tea now and again to settle the stomach, especially ahead of a long drive on winding roads.

In countries where it is available, the plant is also valued by the indigenous folks for the properties it possesses in reducing hunger, thirst, and fatigue.

As for the "drug" aspect of the plant, it is, of course, the base for cocaine, a dangerous and addictive substance. But to make that drug requires some fairly complex chemistry and often includes using additives to produce more bang for the significant bucks charged by the dealers.

To conflate coca leaves with cocaine, however, is the equivalent of conflating charcoal with gun powder. Sure, charcoal is used in the process of creating gunpowder, but the two are as different as night and day. In fact, the level of active ingredients in coca leaves is so low that you could chew the stuff pretty much day and not experience anything remotely resembling the high provided by cocaine.

As much as I resist quoting Wikipedia, in the interest of moving expeditiously forward, I will do so here.

"Addiction or other deleterious effects from the consumption of the leaf in its natural form have not been documented in over a 5,000-year time span, thus leading to the logical conclusion that coca left in its natural form has no addictive properties at all. There is no empirical evidence showing the coca plant's potential for addiction.^"

And yet, in most of the known world, the possession and use of coca leaf is not just illegal, it is seriously so. In the US, coca is considered a Schedule 1 drug, a category that includes heroin and, of course, cocaine. In the DEA sentencing guidelines, possession of more than 5 kilograms of the leaf demand that…

"…such person shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment which may not be less than 10 years or more than life and if death or serious bodily injury results from the use of such substance shall be not less than 20 years or more than life, a fine not to exceed the greater of that authorized in accordance with the provisions of title 18 or $4,000,000 if the defendant is an individual or $10,000,000 if the defendant is other than an individual, or both."

Yet, millions of people in the areas of Colombia, Bolivia, Argentina, and Peru where its use is legal imbibe the stuff daily without any side effects. So what's the disconnect, and what does it have to do with our story today?

I'll get to that in a moment, but first allow me a brief but necessary detour to provide those of you dear readers unfamiliar with the leaf a bit more background on the coca plant.

A Brief History of Coca

In the beginning – and in the case of coca, the beginning is lost to the millennia, so all we can do is use our imagination – a native with an active curiosity, or in need of a snack while laboring in the lower Andes, popped a coca leaf in his mouth and found the flavor to be somewhat pleasing. As a bonus, he didn't keel over dead from some previously unknown poison. And so he popped in a few more.

We might conjecture that said native mentioned his new-found partiality for the leaf to fellow tribe members, some of whom also decided to give it a whirl.

It was about this time when one of the early adopters, a pioneer of the scientific method, realized that not only was the coca leaf delicious and perhaps nutritious, it also had an agreeable side effect of reducing hunger and putting just a bit of extra pep in his step. He shared his observation with neighbors, who, based on their own observations, confirmed the side effect… and the word began to spread.

And so it was that in the proverbial blink of an eye, the coca leaf had become something of a fad. Everywhere you might look, happy natives now went about their business – in those days usually meaning clubbing small animals and each other, rooting about for grubs and berries and so forth – with wads of coca leaves stuffed in their cheeks.

Again, while largely lost to the fog of history, based on rock-solid archeological evidence, we know that even as long as 8,000 years ago some minor Einstein figured out that adding a dash of lime to the coca further amplified the energy-enhancing attributes of the leaf, and that, too, quickly caught on.

Unfortunately, as the millennia sped by, humanity's perpetual love affair with mysticism began to interfere with the widespread chewing of coca. It began, no doubt, when an influential shaman realized that controlling the supply of a commodity in such high demand would give him serious clout around the camp, and so passed a judgment that the beneficial attributes of the leaf could only have been bestowed by a deity. Which is to say, that the leaf was simply too good, too divine, for the common folk.

By the time the Incas solidified their bloody grip on the lands hereabout, coca could only be cultivated by the state, and only those in power, or in favor with those in power, were allowed to enjoy it.

And so it was that a plant with known beneficial qualities – as an analgesic, energy booster, antidote for altitude sickness, anesthetic, calming agent for upset stomachs, and source of a variety of minerals and essential vitamins – first found itself suppressed by the state.

As an aside, I'm one of those people who tend to get drowsy when driving distances longer than about an hour. I've had the problem looked into, and medically there's nothing wrong with me, other than the fact that my mind begins to wander and then doze. Stuffing a small wad of coca leaves in my cheek, however, pretty much eliminates the problem.

Skipping forward in time, we come to the introduction of coca into Europe in the 16^th century, after which various extracts and preparations of the plant found their way into all manner of tonics, patent medicines, liquors, and so forth.

But it wasn't until 1859 when a German university professor, one Albert Niemann, managed to isolate and concentrate the primary alkaloid in coca into cocaine. Much as the original tribes people in our story tried and liked the coca leaf, the European community tried and liked cocaine, and its use for medicinal and recreational purposes spread.

Except, unlike the coca leaf, the concentrated drug cocaine is clearly addictive and carries with it significant negative side effects.

And so it was that by the early 20^th century, cocaine – like heroin, morphine, and so forth – came to be outlawed in most countries.

Then, in 1961, the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs categorized coca leaves themselves as a Schedule 1 drug, side by side with heroin and cocaine. It went so far as to decree, "The Parties shall so far as possible enforce the uprooting of all coca bushes which grow wild. They shall destroy the coca bushes if illegally cultivated" (Article 26), and that, "Coca leaf chewing must be abolished within twenty-five years from the coming into force of this Convention" (Article 49).

Interestingly, there's solid evidence that the inclusion of the coca leaf in the Single Convention was encouraged by the then head of the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry Anslinger, who moonlighted as a flunkie of the Coca-Cola company, which used decocainized coca extract as part of its secret formula. The end result was that while the coca leaf was banned, a provision was written into the regulations allowing Coca-Cola to continue using it in making its signature beverage.

Since the passing of the Single Convention, there has been some pushback from countries such as Bolivia, where coca chewing is as much a part of the local custom as eating apple pie with a slice of cheddar cheese is in parts of the US Midwest, but nonetheless, outside of a few remote parts of South America, the prohibition remains.

And that concludes our brief and entirely inadequate story of the coca plant to this point in history. The question begging to be answered is: Why would any government make something as generally beneficial as the coca leaf illegal?

Let me sum it up again:

• Coca doesn't pose a health threat to anyone – based on archeological evidence dating back 8,000 years, virtually coincident with the accepted beginning of recorded human history.
  
• Consuming the raw leaf is not addictive. That's not to say that some people's fondness for the plant won't lead them to regular use… just like many a coffee drinker, it will. But stepping on a plane for a month-long holiday in a country without access to coca won't cause any real discomfort or withdrawal symptoms. And you certainly wouldn't sell your baby for a wad.
  
• It has many beneficial attributes – per the list of benefits catalogued above.
  
• It doesn't have any negative societal consequences. Unlike alcohol or marijuana or any of dozens of recreational or even medicinal drugs, chewing coca doesn't impair a driver's ability to react, but actually mildly increases concentration. And you won't find coca users overindulging and tripping over themselves in public places or passed out in back alleys.
  

Therefore, is it actually anybody's business whether a person chews coca? In terms of simple logic, not in the slightest. In today's legal terms, it is, which brings us, finally, to the connection with Big Brother.

Big Brother's Beginnings

In a simple society, the needs of the villagers are known because they are obvious. In Maslow's attempt to arrange basic human needs into a hierarchy, he placed at the broad base of his pyramid the physiological… unfettered access to air, food, water, a roof over the noggin, that sort of thing.

Once those essentials were secure, the villagers could turn their attention to the next level up in the hierarchy, safety. This involves securing basic protections for self, and for the food and water just mentioned.

Looking around and feeling somewhat comfortable that the day was likely to pass without any serious unpleasantness, our villagers were then free to focus on what Maslow labels loosely as "Love/belonging." In this category, he identifies the making of friends, the cosseting bosom of family, and that and a bit more with a willing sexual partner.

After a good night's rest, the villagers, according to the widely accepted hierarchy, would then be at liberty to work on matters involving esteem, expounded upon as "self-esteem, confidence, achievement, and respect by others."

And, finally, with absolutely nothing better to do, the villagers ascend to the very pinnacle of the pyramid, "self-actualization," where, according to Maslow, he will ponder the universe and in so doing discover morality and strive to achieve his full potential.

Now, one might ask, where on this list does banning the use of coca (or any of the other nanny-state prohibitions) come in?

It is certainly of no concern to the physiological layer of Maslow's pyramid… you know, where the poor hungry villagers huddle around the barely flickering warmth of a campfire as the temperature drops toward zero. Unless, of course, it would be a handy bush to burn, or useful to chew in order to absorb the minerals and vitamins earlier mentioned. In other words, at this level it's a clear help, not a hindrance.

Likewise, it has no role to play in matters related to safety.

Love/belonging? Hardly, unless its energizing attributes lead to use as a primitive form of Viagra, again, a positive.

Self-esteem? Ah, here's where we first get a glimpse at Big Brother, stepping out of his warm hut with a good-looking mate on arm and thinking himself a rather grand fellow with grand prospects. While coca neither helps or hinders at this level, as will shortly be made clear, it starts to become a target.

Self-Actualization? And here's where the rubber finally meets the road, because Big Brother, or "BB," as his friends like to call him, having decided that he's a grand fellow who deserves wider adoration – and possessing the traits of a sociopath found in pretty much all aspirants for the top spot – will use his innate human creativity to convince others that he and only he can secure and maintain them in their place on the pyramid.

All of which finally brings us to why the entirely useful coca leaf is outlawed.

And that is because the rest of the tribe, having clawed up the pyramid to the point where life is feeling somewhat predictable, a pre-condition for activities such as capital formation and investment in the future, look to cement that predictability in place.

Yet, the world is, and always will be, inherently unpredictable. That we believe differently is clear testament to the human mind's tendency to self-delusion and willingness to believe in illusions and fantasies.

If only I pray a little harder, one might come to believe, I'll keep my job while others lose theirs. If only I take this homeopathic medicine, water imbued with the vibration of an undetectable herb, I will restore or enhance my health.

If only the Republican, or the Democrat wins, then finally, this time, the government will improve things instead of shaking them apart.

More to the point, the tribe comes to believe, because they are taught to believe by those in positions of power, in the mass delusion that only the power elite – the shaman, the chief, the official of government – possess the know-how, the finesse, the innate acumen required to run "the big show." Which, in modern times, is defined as the nation-states.

And so it is that Big Brother arises. At first it was the little things, the baby steps with formal laws codified against the same anti-social and destructive behaviors that had been outlawed from the beginning of humanity as unacceptable for communal harmony – stealing, murder, cheating, etc. – and therefore quickly punished by the tribe.

But then, as the tribes evolved into larger societies, new rules and regulations came into being, in some cases out of necessity – for example, rules related to private property in societies where private property had not previously existed. Increasingly, however, the laws and regulations expanded beyond the obvious – and in many cases, the necessary – leaking into the realm of fantasy, misguided morality, and bad science, the common denominator being that the power elite found a self-serving reason to act and no one stood up to stop them.

This is all easily understood. As is the fact that most people in a society won't bother taking a stance against a law or regulation that doesn't directly impact them in an urgent and important way. For example, what does it matter if the state you live in mandates that hair dressers must first go through extensive training and licensing before being allowed to coif your curls?

Likewise, when it came to the so-called scourge of drugs, most people were happy to go along with the notion that the state should regulate what we put into our body. In the case of heroin or cocaine, some might make the argument that addicts are not only self-destructive but have the potential to act destructively towards others. As addicts lose their ability to earn their own keep – as anything other than a paper weight, perhaps – they're left perpetually short of cash, so needing money each day to feed the monkey could cause them to turn to a life of crime to get by.

However, there are other ways to deal with the addictive personality types than criminalizing them by outlawing the stimulants they seek. Besides, you could blast pretty much every known drug on earth into outer space and the addict would still find a way to get high – witness First Lady Wannabe Kitty Dukakis turning to hair spray and after-shave when no better options were available – but that's another topic, and I'm already well adrift.

The point is that there is absolutely no reason for something as obviously benign and actually beneficial as coca to be criminalized, anywhere and under any circumstances. That it is, is only part of Big Brother's steady grasping for power.

And that is true of thousands of other laws and regulations that the power elite has burdened society with over the last 100 years.

The sheer volume and the implied threat inherent in the current body of controlling laws weigh on the human spirit, making us as individuals uncertain where we stand at any given moment but pretty sure we have broken, or are in the process of breaking, a law. (Does writing an article in favor of coca make me guilty of advocating drug use? Does chewing a little coca leaf here, where it's legal, make me a criminal back in the US, where it's not?)

This growing insecurity in the face of a powerful government pushes us back down Maslow's pyramid to the point where all of a sudden we're not feeling so safe. We begin to worry that a misstep will cause us to be stopped when next crossing the border into the US, or worse, trying to cross the border on the way out. We begin to worry about the police car following us down the road; is going the speed limit suspicious? And even though there is no traffic in sight, we hesitate to cross the street without waiting for the green "walk" light.

And come tax time, we sweat at whether we have a proper grasp of all the many rules and fear that we may have forgotten something, tripping an algorithm and triggering a forensic audit.

(On that last note, I just received a fine from the IRS for almost $800 for 2012, even though I overpaid my taxes by a substantial amount. My accountant, who is pretty much the best in the business, confirms that even though it makes zero sense, the regulations allow for it.)

As the body of laws and regulations increase, and along with them our fear of the state, the state's power only grows. Soon, we find ourselves feeling the need to ask permission to do pretty much anything.

Toss into the mix an act of terrorism or a war, and the now cowed population, encouraged by the media, becomes even more fearful and desiring of a strong state.

Today, at least in the United States, the overarching meme is, "Better to fight them over there than fight them over here." Which, when you break it down, is just a different way of stating Big Brother's famous dictum, "War is peace."

And so it is that, mostly unaware it is following script, the power elite in the United States, hand in glove with the military-industrial complex, unabashedly mimics BB by constant sabre rattling and indulging in power projection into countries around the globe.

Welcome to 1984

There is, I would contend, a point of no return in the growth of government power. Past that point, there's no wrestling power back from Big Brother. I think that Orwell came to believe the same, which explains why once Winston Smith was arrested, he was a dead duck walking without even a glimmer of hope that he'd be rescued.

How can it be otherwise when the state has grown to the point where it is today, with surveillance methods that Orwell could only dream of?

Thanks to your cell phone, BB knows where you are at pretty much any time of day, and the NSA has incredibly powerful tools to track your every electronic communication. About 12 years ago, I was a shareholder in a small tech company that perfected the ability to track a person's every click on the Internet… and track the click back to the physical address of the clicker, complete with map and, in most cases, a photo of your house. The CIA bought the software. And that was 12 years ago – can you imagine BB's capabilities today?

Then there's the billion or so laws and regulations hanging over your head, any number of which can be trotted out as needed to ruin your day, or even your life. When doors start getting kicked in at farms solely for producing raw milk, as they are today, you know the point of no return has been passed.

Seeing the all-powerful government in action, reading stories about its arbitrary and pernicious clamp-downs, causes the masses to cling to their position on Maslow's hierarchy and to willingly trade their freedoms for the illusion of predictability and safety. They come to believe that, provided they follow the laws, they'll be left alone to pursue the next-generation iPhone or whatever else the media says should make them happy. And so Big Brother rises to the point of invincibility.

"The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness, and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better."
―George Orwell, 1984

Now, I know that there are a large number of dear readers who cling to the fantasy that "if only" the Republicans or some libertarian type get elected, all can be made right in the world.

Others, even more delusional given the extraordinary fire power of BB – soon to be further enhanced with swarms of miniature drones able to inject you in the back of the neck with a paralyzing agent or an explosive charge – expect upstanding men of stout character to rise up in armed revolution and throw the socialists out of power.

Sorry, it's just not going to happen. Again, leaning on Orwell…

"The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed."
―George Orwell, 1984

Simply put, America is the "standard of comparison," the shining Camelot on the hill. That it now more resembles Mordor and most Americans have no idea that the change has happened is yet another clear sign that BB has won.

I know this perspective – that Big Brother is now fully evolved and in control, and that he's only going to grow more dangerous from here – is almost as dystopian as the world portrayed in 1984. Unfortunately, stepping back from the trees, I can't find a more optimistic view to hang my hat on.

So, what does being free to ingest coca in whatever form best suits you have to do with Big Brother's rise to the sort of unassailable power elaborated by Orwell in 1984? In my view, everything. As I have tried to illustrate, once the government is allowed to concern itself with matters outside of the basic protections – banning coca, as in my example – the stage is set for Big Brother to materialize.

It's time to wake up to the reality that Big Brother is here and, thanks to technologies even Orwell couldn't imagine, is only going to get stronger and more dangerous.

Anything We Can Do at This Point?

The first rule of protecting personal safety is to put physical distance between you and the threat. While Big Brother, in one form or another, rules much of the Western world, there are still places – here in Argentina, for example – where its grip is weak.

Of course, we have our own Little Sister, Christina Kirchner, but her operation lacks the sophisticated surveillance apparatus and efficient bureaucracy that are hallmarks of Big Brother. In addition to Argentina, there are places – in Asia, for example – where the presence of an all-powerful, all-controlling government is still mostly absent.

While it is still even somewhat possible, moving funds out of Big Brother's easy grasp also seems a sound move to contemplate. Although jumping through hoops may be required, especially if you are a serf to the biggest Big Brother of all – Uncle Sam – unless you are trying to move a lot of money, $10 million or more, you are probably not worth BB's time and effort in smashing down foreign legal protections to get at you.

Other than potentially moving yourself and/or your money, if you plan on staying put, then keeping your head down seems a good idea.

While the world we live in may be entirely unpredictable, with the right outlook and a little luck, it can also be interesting, energizing, and downright fun. Just don't make the mistake of taking the good times for granted, and don't become so enamored of your position on Maslow's hierarchy that you willingly trade your freedom to Big Brother in an attempt to maintain it. That makes you a slave.

And with that, and my apologies for going on so long, I move on by leaving you with what I think is one of the most revealing passages from 1984. In my view, it's equally applicable to all the political parties in power today.

 "The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know what no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me."
―George Orwell, 1984

David Galland