Goldsteinesque refers to Emmanuel Goldstein, a character in George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. He is the principal enemy of the state according to the Party, depicted as the head of a mysterious (and possibly fictitious) organization called “The Brotherhood” and as having written the book ‘The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism’. He is only seen and heard on telescreen, and may be a fabrication of the Ministry of Truth. Goldstein is always the subject of the “Two Minutes Hate” (shown in video), a daily program beginning at 11:00 a.m. at which an image of Goldstein (gives the enemy a face) is shown on the telescreen and subjected to extreme contempt.
Orwell gave Emmanuel Goldstein a traditionally Jewish name that is suggestive of the power structure in World War II. Noteworthy is that Emmanuel literally means “God.” In Oceania, Big Brother is the titular head of Oceania, and Goldstein is the leader of his opponents, the Brotherhood. They are similar in that Orwell does not make clear whether they actually exist. Goldstein serves as a convenient scapegoat for the totalitarian regime in Nineteen Eighty-Four, and justifies its surveillance and elimination of civil liberties. Goldstein-esque is an adjective or quality given to someone or something that is setup to be an ongoing enemy that may or may not actually exist, and becomes the target of hate.
Trotsky as potential real-life origin
Not long after the novel’s appearance, a number of contemporary commentators noticed that the biography, appearance, writing style, and political thought of Emmanuel Goldstein resembled that of Leon Trotsky. Born Lev Bronshtein, Trotsky was a close associate of Russian revolutionary Lenin and later the chief rival of Stalin, the latter of whom branded Trotsky a traitor and expelled him from the Soviet Union in 1927. In exile, Trotsky wrote The Revolution Betrayed, denouncing Stalin and the Soviet Union. During the Great Purges of the 1930s, Stalin’s propaganda invariably depicted Trotsky as the instigator of all supposed plots and acts of sabotage. In 1940, he was murdered in Mexico by Ramón Mercader, a Stalinist agent.
In 1954, Isaac Deutscher wrote that Goldstein’s book in Nineteen Eighty-Four was intended as a “paraphrase” of The Revolution Betrayed. In 1956, Irving Howe described Goldstein’s book as “clearly a replica” of Trotsky’s The Revolution Betrayed, writing that the parts that seemed to be imitating Trotsky were “among the best passages” of the novel. Critic Adrian Wanner, writing in a collection of essays edited by Harold Bloom, described Goldstein’s book as a “parody” of The Revolution Betrayed, noting that Orwell was deeply ambivalent about Trotsky. Orwell wrote of Trotskyism that
The fact that Trotskyists are everywhere a persecuted minority, and that the accusation usually made against them, i. e. of collaborating with the Fascists, is obviously false, creates an impression that Trotskyism is intellectually and morally superior to Communism; but it is doubtful whether there is much difference.
Richard Nixon
President Richard Nixon’s decision to go to China, long considered a Cold War foe, inspired comparisons with Emmanuel Goldstein’s analysis of the shifting alliances of the three superpowers in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The widespread vilification of Nixon in the wake of the Watergate scandal inspired commentary comparing his treatment in the media with the Two Minutes Hate sessions focused on Goldstein.
Osama bin Laden
Goldstein has also been compared to former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
“Goldstein is the Osama Bin Laden figure in Orwell’s novel, an extremely elusive person who is never seen, never captured, but believed by the leadership of Oceania to be still alive and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters. Since Goldstein is never captured, the battle against his crimes, treacheries, sabotages must never end.”
Drawing parallels between Goldstein and bin Laden a week after the September 11 attacks, Professor William L. Anderson at Frostburg State University wrote a column for LewRockwell.com entitled “Osama and Goldstein”.
Legal scholar Cass Sunstein, in his 2009 book Worst-Case Scenarios, coined the term “Goldstein Effect”, described as “the ability to intensify public concern by giving a definite face to the adversary, specifying a human source of the underlying threat.” According to Sunstein, since the U.S.-led War on Terror so heavily associated terrorism with bin Laden, the outrage intensified in similar ways as displayed in Nineteen Eighty-Four. However, he also pointed out how Saddam Hussein, to a great degree, and George W. Bush (to a much lesser degree) had been subject to the same Goldstein Effect.
