#egoism

The bar was dimly lit and empty but for one man, Ingsoc. His back was turned towards the door, a surprisingly vulnerable position for him to be in. Perhaps he was offering this as a sign of good-will. How trite. 

Egoism approached—he had no other option. The two escorts who had brought him here pushed the muzzles of their guns into his lower back and forced him through the door. A disgusting display of force. But what else could be expected of the Party?

Egoism sat down at the bar, a seat removed from Ingsoc. He remarked dryly, “You didn’t even pretend to give me a choice in the matter.”

“Well, you can leave now if you’d like.”

Egoism saw the shadows of the two Party gunmen through the frosted glass doors. “Only if your dogs go scratch.”

Ingsoc laid his palms on the counter. He had yet to look directly at Egoism. “They go where I go. Are you asking me to leave?”

Egoism smiled tightly. “This is a bar right? How come my throat is dry?”

“You know, alcohol is strictly forbidden unless you’re a high Party member. And even then,” Ingsoc knocked twice on the counter, which summoned a dead-eyed bartender from the depths of the establishment, “you shouldn’t have more than a drink or two.”

Egoism undid the buttons on his suit jacket and loosened his tie. “I’m not under your authority, Ingsoc. Nor any man but myself. I’ll have as many drinks as I’d like.”

Ingsoc merely gestured with his hand. The bartender came to Egoism and tentatively took his order. A neat glass of good scotch and some water. 

“Now then,” Egoism began, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Pleasure, huh?” Ingsoc drew a calabash pipe from his coat and then a tin of tobacco. He gently packed some into the bowl of the pipe and then lit it. 

“Is that also a rare indulgence allotted to high Party members?”

Ingsoc puffed smoke out of his mouth. “This? No, no. This may be the last of its kind—well, it is. I personally assured all others were destroyed.”

“Did you? Or do you tell yourself that?”

“There is no difference between what I say and what is real. If I say all calabash pipes, save for the one I have right now, are destroyed, then that is the same as all of them being destroyed.”

“Save for the one in your hands right now.”

Ingsoc nodded. “Yes.”

“How ridiculous. And if you say something absurd, like, every grain of sand rests only on the Party’s beaches—“

“Then it is true. Who will confess otherwise?”

“Well, myself! And any other truth-teller!”

“Truth-teller? What truth is that? You believe in only yourself, no? You do only what pleases you, what is useful to you. You tell yourself many things, and this is pleasing to you. You tell yourself, ‘I am a man completely self-contained. Everything I have or do or say or indulge in is because I decided to do it.’ And yet.”

Egoism scoffed. “And yet.” He swallowed his scotch and slammed the glass back down. “Here I am.”

“Then you must be here because you want to be. A man such as yourself couldn’t have been coerced, could he?”

“Just because I believe no man should be coerced or forced to do anything, doesn’t mean I don’t also believe that men are coerced and forced to do things.”

“Should or shouldn’t are not the words of certainty. Either you are sovereign or you are not.” Ingsoc grinned. “Or, you may just achieve doublethink, my friend.”

“Bah! You’re twisting my words and misrepresenting my beliefs. What am I supposed to do when your party dogs come pointing guns in my face, telling me I have to comply?”

Ingsoc finally turned to Egoism, the hideous scar on his face bending with his cheeks and mouth. “No, of course you made the correct decision. Can the weak protest the strong?”

“I am not weak.”

“And yet.” 

“It isn’t my fault that I am in a world where tyranny is the status quo. Just because you control-hungry troglodytes—“

“My, my.”

“—can throw your formidable weight around, doesn’t mean I don’t have validity. In a world where every man was sovereign and self-serving—“

“Power structures like myself would naturally arise again. And again. So long as the purpose is power, I exist. You’re more hopelessly naive than I had imagined, Egoism.”

Egoism ordered another scotch. He undid his tie and set it on the counter. “No. You fancy yourself an inevitability but you are unnatural. If mankind truly embraces my ideology—“

“What would they have? A collection of useless, self-seeking individuals? Society is community, my friend. And communities are collective identity—not the paltry ego.”

“So, you’ve brought me here to attack me? To force me to bend? I’ll tell you this, Big Brother, I will never bow my head to your lies. You’re as solid as vapor. As soon as your ministries stop printing out your rubbish propaganda, it’s over for you. You’re built on words and whispers—the shadow in the corner. You are a spook.”

Ingsoc blew on his pipe. “So what are you? Are you built on anything more substantial than words and thoughts?” Ingsoc leaned forward, eyes gleaming. “Words—beliefs—are the only power exchanged. You want to see a nation go up in flames? Get the people to believe in it, to speak it, and they will act on it. When you serve your ego, you’re serving the construct of yourself. Constructed from what? Oh, yes, belief. Whatever you deem to be true, it is true.”

“In that case, reality isn’t real!”

“Yes! You understand!”

“No! There are objectively true and real things. You can’t just change it—“

“How will you know? If I erase all evidence of it—every written word, vaporized—how, then, will you be able to defy what I tell you? Realness is a construct. Nothing inherently is or isn’t. What I decree to be truth is as good—if not better—as truth. Functionally, there is no truth. The only thing that is is what I, the Party, say there is. Just as you are the only one who can determine your reality, Egoism. Only you can tell yourself what is true, what matters, what deserves to be real.”

“Don’t conflate us. I am not trying to warp reality for my own ends. I believe that every man has a right to do as he pleases—“

“What pleases me is the Party.”

“But you’re overstepping! You don’t have the right to decide what others want.”

“No? What if you, Egoism, decide that what would please you would be a piece of your neighbor’s land. But he does not agree to relinquish it to you. What do you do then?”

“Well, then I suppose I won’t have that land.”

“Pathetic! How can you be completely self-serving and restrained by others?”

Egoism felt hot. The whole room felt hot. He was pinned underneath Ingsoc’s intense gaze. Ingsoc was starting to make sense and that was a very terrible thing. Doublethink, Ingsoc called it. The ability to hold two completely contrary ideas at one time. To know and not know. Must everything be mutually exclusive? What was the difference between paradoxical yet complementary and doublethink? And why, after each time he defended himself, did he feel less certain? 

Egoism spoke calmly despite the inner turmoil. “Look, we can both agree that we are beyond morality or ethics. We will do whatever is necessary, should we decide as much. But our ends are very different. You want to control others and I simply want to be. This is where we diverge, Ingsoc. I’d appreciate it if you quit trying to convert me.” But his hands shook as he took another drink. 

Ingsoc’s posture relaxed, but his intense eyes yielded no passion. “We diverge because I have power and you do not. Call me a spook if you’d like, but I think we know which of us is the real ghost in the mind.”

Egoism slammed his fist down and raised his voice. “How dare you!? If we’re fundamentally the same, then you’re as much of a spook as I am! Spooks! We’re all just—“ he raised his hands and gestured wildly above his head—“spooks! All of us!”

Ingsoc set his pipe down with a methodical elegance. Ashy flakes of tobacco fell onto the smooth surface of the counter. He stood, and his head blotted out a light. Egoism lowered his arms and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Ingsoc approached, arms behind his back, a small smile on his lips. Egoism held his ground as the huge man grew closer. Ingsoc’s shadow swallowed Egoism up. He said in a low tone, “Yes, Egoism. All of us are spooks. There’s nothing but. You’re a slave to the constructs in your mind. Even the ones—“ Ingsoc reached and brusquely drew his fingers across Egoism’s cheek—“that tell you that you are free from them.” 

Egoism shuddered at his touch. “So,” he said quietly, “this is what you wanted? A conquest?”

“Conquest? What a strange way to put it.”

“You’re stealing ground from me.”

“Nothing is stolen unless you don’t know what it is that I’m taking.” He brushed his fingers over Egoism’s lips. “And you know what I’m taking.”

“That’s how you define it? Stealing only requires that whomever is being taken from has not given permission.”

“You can’t give or withhold true permission unless you understand what that permission is for.”

“Then I withhold my permission. You can’t have what you want from me.”

“It’s too bad, then, that I have no qualms with thievery.”

Egoism grit his teeth. “Do you have respect for anything or anyone?”

“I have respect for the Party. That is all.”

“I won’t let you assimilate me into the Party. You’ll have to—what do you call it?—vaporize me.”

“Historical precedence says that I succeed in assimilating all who I desire to assimilate.”

“What about all those proles that you have no power over?”

“That question should answer itself. But since you’re a bit dense: I didn’t desire to assimilate them. So they were not.”

“That, or you just couldn’t.”

“Hm. Who’s to say?” Ingsoc laid a heavy hand on Egoism’s shoulder and then exclaimed, “Oh! I say!”

“And I say you couldn’t. You’ve been refuted.”

“I don’t find your intentionally dull-headed remarks amusing.”

“I’m being genuine. You’re the creator of reality so long as you are unchallenged. I am challenging you.”

“This is cute. You’re challenging me, huh? And how will you reinforce whatever reality you spout from here on forth? Will you just say it many times, ‘The Party simply couldn’t assimilate the proles.’ You know, people will agree with you. And then I will say, ‘The Party didn’t desire to assimilate the proles, as it believes in the sanctity of these peoples.’ And they will agree with me too. And all of it will amount to nothing, because I have already established the stagnancy of this society through doublethink. It doesn’t matter. They will believe anything and everything, until it overloads their brains and they go crazy. Don’t you see!”

Egoism shook his head weakly, like a little boy. He shouldn’t have come here. He should’ve let those dogs execute him before he ever willingly entered into Ingsoc’s domain. Everything is futile! Even if he knows that Ingsoc is wrong, there is nothing he can do! This must be the power that Ingsoc talked about, the power to decide what was real, not because it was real or even because everyone believed it was real. It was real because no one could dare to say otherwise. A reality unchallenged was as good—if not better—as a true reality. Maybe there was no true reality at all. Maybe the only real thing was the words coming out of Ingsoc’s mouth. Maybe the only real things were his hands, strong and warm, holding onto him. Holding him, touching him. Undoing the buttons of his shirt. Was this what Ingsoc wanted? To completely unravel all of Egoism’s layers of self-avoidance? To bare his naked flesh and clothe him in something better? 

¿Soy egoísta? Tal vez sí. ¿Porque no veo todo lo que haces por mí? ¿Porque me enfoco más en lo que falta que en lo que sobra? ¿Porque no logro estar conforme?

Sí, creo que soy egoísta.

Y también creo que el egoísmo no siempre es negarse a ver, sino a veces es negarse a aceptar menos de lo que uno sabe que merece. Y quizá por eso duele, y quizá por eso sigo aquí, queriendo más, sin saber si eso me acerca o me aleja de ti.