George Orwell - An Enneagram profile

George Orwell; An Enneagram Profile

The following was first published in the International Enneagram Association's bulletin, "Nine Points", June 2011 

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act”.

Novelist, essayist and journalist, George Orwell (1903- 1950) is, for many, an icon of integrity, moral courage and objective candour, and embodies most of the key defining characteristics of the Enneagram type One (The Judge, The Moral Crusader, The Truth Seeker).

His works of fiction, journalism and criticism are distinguished by a concern with injustice, oppression and the manipulation of language, and by his commitment to succinct, lucid writing, with prose “as clear as a window pane”.

The term Orwellian has entered the lexicon of everyday speech, conjuring images of an impersonal, sinister surveillance culture where impartial truth has no meaning, dissent impossible, and one is denied a private life, ever conscious of being watched by “Big Brother”. His liking for clear, concise language reflects the type One’s desire to plainly articulate and share ideas without ambiguity or fear of misreading. Indeed, Orwell was keenly aware of how language and meaning were subject to manipulation, with meanings inverted (“War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery”), near- brutish simplification rendering nuance impossible, and hectoring sloganeering replacing reasoned argument.

The assault on factual reality represented by the Totalitarian regime of “1984”, where 2 + 2= 5 and Oceania’s enemy changes to an ally in mid- sentence, represents perhaps the gravest insult to the type One sensibility, which is concerned primarily with truth, integrity and reason, and constitutes an assault on their most cherished commitment to unprejudiced, dispassionate objectivity.

Not toeing the Party Line

In “Homage To Catalonia”, an account of his experiences during the Spanish Civil war, Orwell recounts his arrival in Barcelona, and the almost festive atmosphere of post- revolutionary egalitarianism. Displaying the One’s occasionally discomfiting frankness, Orwell confesses that he isn’t entirely at ease with lack of servitude (being, after all, an old Etonian intensely aware of his class), but recognizes at once that it is worth fighting for. This is a perfect illustration of the healthy Objective One’s ability to identify and serve a greater good, as well as experience and record events with a refreshing honesty; Orwell isn’t trying to endear himself to the reader but acknowledges the class- consciousness he has inherited and still, to an extent, shares. In voicing his less “charming” atavisms Orwell presents himself as a writer who values unflattering (of himself and others) integrity over false piety and can, consequently, be relied on to provide a fairly accurate testament of events.

Having volunteered his services to the idealistic, if simplistic, end of fighting Fascism, Orwell was assigned to the POUM worker’s militia, where he had first hand experience of authentic collectivism, the incompetence and naivety of which he records with the cool, judicial eyes of a One, the implicating being (as is usual with this Enneagram type), that he knows better and is evidently disposed to leadership. Here Orwell displays one of the difficulties idealistic Ones have; that of reconciling their desire for equality with their belief in, or recognition of, their own suitability for governance. Impartial, realistic troubleshooters, type Ones are utterly dismayed when confronted with ineptitude, wastefulness and the kind of impractical Romanticism Orwell encountered amongst the militias and collectives of revolutionary Spain.

This, however, was a trifle when compared to the horror of his being confronted with the brutality of the “official” ideology for, or with whom, he was ostensibly fighting, when the Communist party viciously suppressed their supposed comrades in arms in the collectivist militias. Recognizing Communism (in the especially grotesque form of Stalinism) as being every bit as totalitarian, oppressive and unjust as Fascism, Orwell was faced with the choice of “toeing the Party line”, accepting that the threat of Fascism demanded a somewhat compromised unity from the Left (a “united front”), or confronting the deceit and “doublethink” head on. Orwell’s commitment to objective truth and justice meant his recognizing and acknowledging  “our” (Socialism) evil as being every bit as damnable as “theirs” (Fascism); worse in fact, insofar as the former purported to protect the interests of all, and was, with the tyranny of Stalinist oppression, betraying the good faith and allegiance of many decent, sincere people.

In choosing to go where his conscience dictated, Orwell displays the healthy type Ones courageous commitment to often discomfiting truths, eschewing compromise and convenient falsities, and prepared to put themselves outside the general consensus to the end of fairness, honesty and decency. Ones may often feel like Prophets howling unheard in the wilderness, and Orwell was undoubtedly exasperated by the moral cowardice of many former fellow travellers. Indeed, the Gollancz publishing house rejected the book as it went against the official political party line and, to this day, many on the Left regard Orwell as something of a counterrevolutionary.

The Judgemental Critic

For all his impartiality, Orwell wasn’t above a certain amount of sniping and prejudice himself. In “The Road To Wigan Pier”, during a discourse on some of the issues confronting the Leftwing movement, Orwell makes derisory comments about supposed single- issue Socialists (what we would now perhaps refer to as proponents of “Identity Politics”). Referring to Feminists and Vegetarians as cranks and weirdoes (“out of touch with common humanity”), Orwell accuses these individuals of being guilty of alienating potential supporters, in this case, “the average working man”. Here Orwell makes a common type One error; that of assuming their view as being not only correct, but Universal and, in that Orwell himself finds these individuals somewhat repulsive, it is assumed that the mass generality would too.

Here also is a certain impersonal hauteur that is common in average to unhealthy Ones, in that they are inclined to make decisions and draw conclusions on behalf of people they neglect to consult, and about whom they know nothing. The “ordinary man” and the “cranks” are mere abstractions, and with scathing comments about “bearded fruit juice drinker(s)”, Orwell descends into the downright bigotry of the punitive, unhealthy One. Who, also, was/is the “average working man” about whom Orwell freely makes assumptions, in this case that of a monolithic entity incapable of seeing beyond “crankishness” in order to make a reasoned judgement for himself?

Orwell displays a certain superciliousness, considering himself, as the educated social superior, as all the better to judge, and the working man as being a rather unreflective drudge, one who is, as in the case of Boxer from “Animal Farm”, ennobled whilst at the same time treated with condescension.  

The Social Reformer

In “Down And Out In Paris And London” Orwell relates his experiences as a near- starving Scullion, of rough sleeping and the degradation of lowest doss- houses in those cities; as a conscientious, authoritative One, Orwell believed it wasn’t enough to pontificate about the horrors of poverty from the relative comfort of a literary milieu, and to provide a rock solid case against inequity, the voice of experience was also that of inarguable authority. Orwell censors little, and recounts a catalogue of destitution, poverty, overwork, flea- infested mattresses, pawn shop humiliations, scant food, hopeless and desperate trudging (in search of work or a bed), the trials of which were etched into his face, which had aged dramatically in this relatively short (if experientially long) period. Indeed, in his going down and out, Orwell exhibited the One’s commitment and ideological integrity that also lead to both the battlefields of Spain and the Colonial Police force in Burma (where he was exposed to the hypocrisy, mendacity and injustice of the Colonial system). Simply put, the type One will “put their money where their mouth is”, and Orwell exhibits the “Moral Crusader” characteristics of this type, in that his life seemed to comprise of a search for a cause to which he could commit. However, unlike, say, the type Six who wishes to identify with a group/cause to alleviate anxiety and primarily to belong, the type One is compelled by an ideological drive to set wrongs to right, to apply their considerable gifts of impartiality and reason to the cause of improvement and balance, and is guided by a moral compass that renders them unable to countenance corruption, falsity and injustice. To this end, the morally impelled type One is prepared to denounce and dismiss former comrades and ideological allegiances regardless of how it may alienate them or put them in a sort of political limbo; this Orwell was to do with his last and greatest masterpieces, “Animal Farm” and “1984”.

   "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."   (“Animal Farm”)

There has seldom been a more bitter and tragic conclusion to a story as that of “Animal Farm”. The pigs prove to be every bit as exploitative and unjust as the despotic farmer had been, and the guiding commandments are amended to insure that whilst “all animals are equal” some are now “more equal than others”. Watching the pigs (Soviet leaders) totter on two legs like the men (Capitalists) they seek to imitate, some of the animals recall a time when the liberated creatures of animal farm recited something about “four legs good, two legs bad”, but are now so inured to lies, slogans and reversals that they can no longer be sure.

In this most anguishing allegory, Orwell eviscerates the grotesque corruption, brutality and betrayal of the Soviet regime (caricaturing Stalin as the pig Napoleon) and the tragic consequences this had upon the mass of citizens, supposedly now living in a “people’s” utopia.

The emotional reserve of the One often masks an intense and profound passion, and this is here given voice in the form of a children’s fable, allowing the author a certain amount of distance whilst at the same time providing an engaging narrative setting for righteous outrage, disgust and despair.

In “Animal Farm” Orwell explored not only the corruptibility of absolute power, but also the employment of slogans to shout down dissent (the sheep repetitively bleating Squealer’s mantras), as well as the manipulation of language to distort reality.

This latter theme formed the ideological backbone of “1984”, where “Ignorance Is Strength” and the subtleties of language are jettisoned to usher in an era of “Newspeak” and correspondingly corralled consciousness. Winston Smith represents the last man, clinging to the notion of individual free consciousness and objective truth, holding out hope that the “proles”, like the livestock of “Animal Farm” (once again Orwell’s ennobled, if condescending view of the Working Class) recognize their power and rise up, and that dissent is possible in the face of a brutal and all- encompassing regime of tyranny.

However, through betrayal, torture and brainwashing, Smith denounces his lover Julia (personal, private relations), learns to see five fingers where there are four (loss of objective reality), and loves “Big Brother” (abdication and abjection of sense of self), pathetically and placidly awaiting execution. It isn’t enough for the party to simply kill Smith (described by O’Brien as “a flaw in the pattern”), but that he must be psychically and morally destroyed, with no sense of reality other than that dictated to by the party.

The annihilation of free will, conscience, objective truth and personal authority are to Orwell as they are to most One’s, the most profoundly evil and morally reprehensible of crimes, in that they the rob the individual of what in essence makes them creatures of reason and moral awareness.

Orwell’s life as much as his writing provide us with a symbol of the many admirable traits of the type One, conscientiousness, impartiality and a commitment to justice and, minor and petty prejudices aside, give us an insight into the motivations of this most morally compelled, objective and unflinchingly honest Enneagram type.