"The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection"
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Orwell lobs this line like a grenade at the tidy-minded. “The essence of being human” sounds lofty, almost sermon-like, then he undercuts it with a refusal: not just that we fail to reach perfection, but that we shouldn’t even be chasing it. The subtext is pure Orwellian suspicion. Whenever perfection becomes a goal, it stops being a private virtue project and turns into a public program - the kind that demands audits, purges, correct language, correct feelings. Perfection is never neutral; it arrives with enforcement.
The sentence works because it flips a common moral assumption. Most cultures treat perfection as aspirational, a North Star. Orwell treats it as a trap: a fantasy that, once institutionalized, justifies cruelty in the name of cleanliness. His career is basically a case file on how ideals become instruments. In Animal Farm, the pigs don’t merely seize power; they rewrite the rules to make their own “perfect” order seem inevitable. In 1984, perfection looks like total consistency between the Party’s story and reality - achieved by breaking minds until they can’t notice contradiction.
There’s also a quieter, almost tender provocation here. To “not seek perfection” isn’t to celebrate sloppiness; it’s to defend the messy human features perfectionism wants to amputate: doubt, privacy, forgiveness, idiosyncrasy. Orwell is warning that the most dangerous people aren’t the ones who do wrong. It’s the ones who can’t tolerate wrongness existing at all.
The sentence works because it flips a common moral assumption. Most cultures treat perfection as aspirational, a North Star. Orwell treats it as a trap: a fantasy that, once institutionalized, justifies cruelty in the name of cleanliness. His career is basically a case file on how ideals become instruments. In Animal Farm, the pigs don’t merely seize power; they rewrite the rules to make their own “perfect” order seem inevitable. In 1984, perfection looks like total consistency between the Party’s story and reality - achieved by breaking minds until they can’t notice contradiction.
There’s also a quieter, almost tender provocation here. To “not seek perfection” isn’t to celebrate sloppiness; it’s to defend the messy human features perfectionism wants to amputate: doubt, privacy, forgiveness, idiosyncrasy. Orwell is warning that the most dangerous people aren’t the ones who do wrong. It’s the ones who can’t tolerate wrongness existing at all.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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