What I don't understand about Animal Farm...

[sikyon]

Is why the animals confessed to crimes they didn't commit, after viewing serial executions of those who did confess.

I understand that of course the book is basically the Soviet Union and that in real life people were tortured until confession. However, it seems to me that it would would have been most difficult for Napoleon to execute torture on all of these animals over the course of one night until they could confess. Simultainously it seemed to me that the anmials who were executed were too dim-witted to have the mental faculties to understand why confession might have supported animal farm, or to understand that death might be preferable to torture.

It just didn't seem to me that induced confessions were logically consistent with the mental capacity of the animals... I basically spend most of the book after that wondering why they confessed.

[Sir_Elderberry]

It just didn't seem to me that induced confessions were logically consistent with the mental capacity of the animals

Yes, well, neither is talking or forming communist governments. It is not a perfect allegory--but it actually happened, so it's a bit hard to question the logic of it.

[sikyon]

Yes, well, neither is talking or forming communist governments. It is not a perfect allegory--but it actually happened, so it's a bit hard to question the logic of it.

Well yes, but... it just sort of seemed to shatter the suspension of disbelief for me. I mean if you're going to throw something into a story format but not make it actually mesh with the story... that makes me rather critical of the rest of the text.

Though I did like the novel overall.

[Sockmonkey]

When people have the Orwellian mindfuck pulled on them they do all kinds of self-destructive things. It's happened before in real life so that part doesn't require suspension of belief at all.

[sikyon]

When people have the Orwellian mindfuck pulled on them they do all kinds of self-destructive things. It's happened before in real life so that part doesn't require suspension of belief at all.

Yes... but these animals don't have the same mental capacity as people to understand most of the methods you would use to get someone to willingly confess something they didn't do with a certain outcome of death. That reduction of mental capacity is what makes the novel work in the first place.

[poxic]

... You really don't understand "allegory", do you?

[meatyochre]

When people have the Orwellian mindfuck pulled on them they do all kinds of self-destructive things. It's happened before in real life so that part doesn't require suspension of belief at all.

Yes... but these animals don't have the same mental capacity as people to understand most of the methods you would use to get someone to willingly confess something they didn't do with a certain outcome of death. That reduction of mental capacity is what makes the novel work in the first place.

And pigs don't have the physical capacity to walk upright on their 2 hind legs. Donkeys don't have the ability to actually speak. Animals that work together, no matter how hard, will never be able to coordinate to build a windmill.

Did these things not also break your immersion? If you can buy them for the sake of the storyline, you can buy that animals do or don't typically respond to torture in the same way that humans do.

[Sockmonkey]

History shows us that people can be every bit as dumb as the animals in that book.

[sje46]

The animals were supposed to be dumber than humans? I mean, I know they're not supposed to have the same knowledge as humans, but I think they generally had the same intelligence range as the humans.

[radams]

Simultainously it seemed to me that the anmials who were executed were too dim-witted to have the mental faculties to understand why confession might have supported animal farm, or to understand that death might be preferable to torture.

That's not how torture works.

You don't confess because you rationally decide that death is preferable to torture. You confess because you no longer have the willpower to resist doing what your torturer tells you to. You confess because "disobedience" is now linked with "pain" in your mind, and "obedience" with "relief from pain".

As for it all happening in one night, that's not at all unrealistic. In medieval times, "preparatory torture" - torture to extract a confession (as opposed to torture for punishment) - was called "extraordinary" if it lasted longer than one hour. In more modern times:

According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.

Source here: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866

[Midnight]

Yes... but these animals don't have the same mental capacity as people to understand most of the methods you would use to get someone to willingly confess something they didn't do with a certain outcome of death. That reduction of mental capacity is what makes the novel work in the first place.

This totally confuses me. It happened. Stalin happened. Real people confessed to things they didn't do. The animals were representative of those people. They weren't supposed to be dumber than people. They were supposed to be the people. The people that actually suffered didn't have a reduced mental capacity, and the animals in the book didn't have a reduced mental capacity.

What makes the novel work in the first place is that the whole thing worked in the first place. In real life. Before the novel. These things happened.

[ImagingGeek]

For that matter, people confess to crimes they did not commit. It can be due to a whole range of reasons - fear of the police, exhaustion from questioning, metal disease, etc, etc, etc.

Children, in particular, are really susceptible to this, but adults do it to. You don't need torture, or continual threats for it to happen.

The mistake the OP makes, IMO, is the assumption that people are completely rational. That may be true of XKCD members , but not of the public at large.

Bryan