ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

This is the famous quote from George orwell's book Animal Farm (1945). The quote is comrade Napoleons re-formulation of the 7. commandment "all animals are equal" in the ideology of animalism when he take absolute power of the farm and transform it into a totalitarian society.


In history this quote have been used heavily by reactionaries and conservatives to criticise the Marxist and communist ideology and society. And yes, Orwell's fairy tale describes the process and developments of totalitarianism and elitism in ideology and politics, but does his tale apply to us?

 In US, Western Europe and Norway we tend to like that democracy is different, more open and more egalitarian than comrade Napoleons farm. However we tend to forget the part where Orwell describes the the dynamics of power and elitists thinking which may as well apply to our society. Often hidden, but may reveal it self in critical situations. It's difficult for our society to deal with the forces where the main duty is to secure the power base. The agents of these forces are not the main "actors" on the public arena like e.g. Napoleon in Animal Farm or the main politicians and political actors in our society. We may call the forces to secure power base "the shadow" of an open society. These forces rules by comrade Napoleons dictate: "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".