Topic A-1: “According to the descriptions that have come down to us, something similar was experienced by the ancients during their “religious services.” But they worshiped their own irrational, unknown God; we serve our rational and precisely known one. Their God gave them nothing except eternal, tormenting searching; their God had not been able to think of anything more sensible than offering himself as sacrifice for some incomprehensible reason. We, on the other hand, offer a sacrifice to our God, the One State – a calm, reasoned, sensible sacrifice. Yes, this was our solemn liturgy to the One State, a remembrance of the awesome time of trial, of the Two Hundred Years’ War, a grandiose celebration of the victory of all over one, of the sum over the individual.” (46-47)
This passage precedes the culmination of the 1st third of We when the society sacrifices a “sacrilegious” poet to the Benefactor. D-503 (still primarily embracing the One State thinking) is showing the beneficial consistency of the new society as compared to the “ancient” (or current) society. The passage outlines 2 key elements of the society that Zamyatin created. First, the focus on religion outlines first that the One State both rejects traditional religious beliefs and replaces itself as the object. The rationale behind this thinking is that previous Gods could not be proven and as a result must be immediately disqualified from rational thinking. In one sense, that suffering is caused by beliefs and desires for things that do not exist. The second focus is on the valuation of individuality as unimportant compared to the collective We. This criticism of our society is that an emphasis on humans collectively tolerate endless suffering to individuals as no being or set of beings could ever be considered ‘important’ when weighed against the whole. Thus, it remains a criticism and subsequent advocacy for means-based morality that values individuals in order to actually gain equality.
Topic B-2: D-503’s conflict against the One State mentality is an interesting phenomenon as it is primarily an internal conflict. It manifests itself as he intellectually tries to cognitively follow the regime while his human nature (or soul) backlashes against the lack of freedom. This exposes both the physical losses from oppression (as we see it) such as freedom, privacy, etc. as well as the psychological impact of such a dichotomy on one’s psyche. The situation ends up causing emotional pain and confusion to D-503 as he is torn between his intellectual preference and his gut reactions that begin to starkly contrast with his world view. The resistance that we see is ultimately unsuccessful as he is unable to truly rid himself of One State thinking individually and the excision operation externally leaves the State in control. The penultimate example of this resistance was his attempt to commandeer/crash the Integral which resulted from the combination of small, logical leaps. He spent this section mostly developing as a character in the sense that his meetings with I-330 (and dreams) show his transition to becoming a more emotionally ruled individual. The impact is that as resistance is futile, that all of the members of the society are condemned (or allowed) to live in the regimented lifestyle that the One State provides. Conversely, if/as people begin to realize that they could be more happy with more freedoms individually, the struggle and resistance that results in serving to cause more unhappiness (actually proving what the One State says). In the sense that ignorance is at least bliss, these realizations only cause an actual discontent.
Topic C-3: To me, there are two key elements of society that Zamyatin criticizes. The first is an emphasis on mathematically focused and regimented existence. This does not seem particularly believable simply due to the age of the book; philosophers have largely rejected mathematic moral calculations and while society is somewhat regimented, it is not so to an extreme as Zamyatin portrays it (perhaps due to the collapse of the major communist powers after the Cold War). The alternative was to embrace nature and our passionate emotions as a positive influence rather than demonizing it behind a mask of logic. The second and personally, more believable social construct is the fear of being entrenched in society to the point of being unable to see society’s flaws. In the book, this takes the form of D-503 being unable to challenge the One State mindset until he begins to view the society from a point of view of someone who has not grown up with society as it exists. This seems to have been revealed in real life to Zamyatin at the time both from the ideologues within the Bolshevik uprisings, but also to the European imperialistic colonial to the west. Rather than painting one as inherently better than the other, Zamyatin criticizes the simple existence of a society where people cannot make the distinction between ‘culture’ and fact. The alternative Zamyatin gives is to consider society through a lens not accustomed to the world as it is (much like D-503’s journal) and/or to listen to those who may not say things conventionally assumed to be true (like the I-330’s of the world). The idea of being oblivious to problems is an everlasting issue and still maintains its relevance in society today.
