opined that a totalitarian state is one in which no one is allowed secrets, as in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Like many pronouncements by French intellectuals,
this is a silly remark,
since there are totalitarian states which actually encourage secrets
in order to employ people to ferret them out. e.g. (notoriously)
the German Democratic Republic.
Another kind of totalitarian state is one
in which the consciousness
of everyone is composed of secrets;
in which other people are entirely enigmatic.
This is the one I find myself in.
Everyone and their gods move in mysterious ways.
I am on the outside looking in
at the secretive people on the inside
who never look outward, nor up, nor down,
nor sideways, nor even inward
except in narcissistic reflection.
I am also looking in at myself
appearing to be a tiny loose part
of the state and status quo.
Identity is only appearance
both from without and within,
is only what is on show.
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