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1984 by George Orwell, Part three, Chapter 3 (1)

Part three, Chapter 3 (1)

There are three stages in your reintegration,' said O'Brien. ‘There is learning, there is understanding, and there is acceptance. It is time for you to enter upon the second

stage.'

As always, Winston was lying flat on his back. But of late his bonds were looser. They still held him to the bed, but he could move his knees a little and could turn his head from side to side and raise his arms from the elbow. The dial, also, had grown to be less of a terror. He could evade its pangs if he was quick-witted enough: it was chiefly when he showed stupidity that O'Brien pulled the lever. Sometimes they got through a whole session without use of the dial. He could not remember how many sessions there had been. The whole process seemed to stretch out over a long, indefinite time — weeks, possibly — and the intervals between the sessions might sometimes have been days, sometimes only an hour or two.

‘As you lie there,' said O'Brien, ‘you have often wondered — you have even asked me — why the Ministry of Love should expend so much time and trouble on you. And when you were free you were puzzled by what was essentially the same question. You could grasp the mechanics of the Society you lived in, but not its underlying motives. Do you remember writing in your diary, “I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY”? It was when you thought about “why” that you doubted your own sanity. You have read THE BOOK, Goldstein's book, or parts of it, at least. Did it tell

you anything that you did not know already?' ‘You have read it?' said Winston.

‘I wrote it. That is to say, I collaborated in writing it. No book is produced individually, as you know.'

‘Is it true, what it says?'

‘As description, yes. The programme it sets forth is nonsense. The secret accumulation of knowledge — a gradual spread of enlightenment — ultimately a proletarian rebellion — the overthrow of the Party. You foresaw yourself that that was what it would say. It is all nonsense. The proletarians will never revolt, not in a thousand years or a million. They cannot. I do not have to tell you the reason: you know it already. If you have ever cherished any dreams of violent insurrection, you must abandon them. There is no way in which the Party can be overthrown. The rule of the Party is for ever. Make that the starting-point of your thoughts.'

He came closer to the bed. ‘For ever!' he repeated. ‘And now let us get back to the question of “how” and “why”. You understand well enough HOW the Party maintains itself in power. Now tell me WHY we cling to power. What is our motive? Why should we want power? Go on, speak,' he added as Winston remained silent.

Nevertheless Winston did not speak for another moment or two. A feeling of weariness had overwhelmed him. The faint, mad gleam of enthusiasm had come back into O'Brien's face. He knew in advance what O'Brien would say. That the Party did not seek power for its own ends, but only for the good of the majority. That it sought power because men in the mass were frail, cowardly creatures who could not endure liberty or face the truth, and must be ruled over and systematically deceived by others who were stronger than themselves. That the choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness, and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better. That the party was the eternal guardian of the weak, a dedicated sect doing evil that good might come, sacrificing its own happiness to that of others. The terrible thing, thought Winston, the terrible thing was that when O'Brien said this he would believe it. You could see it in his face. O'Brien knew everything. A thousand times better than Winston he knew what the world was really like, in what degradation the mass of human beings lived and by what lies and barbarities the Party kept them there. He had understood it all, weighed it all, and it made no difference: all was justified by the ultimate purpose. What can you do, thought Winston, against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?

‘You are ruling over us for our own good,' he said feebly. ‘You believe that human beings are not fit to govern themselves, and therefore ——'

He started and almost cried out. A pang of pain had shot through his body. O'Brien had pushed the lever of the dial up to thirty-five.

‘That was stupid, Winston, stupid!' he said. ‘You should know better than to say a thing like that.'

He pulled the lever back and continued:

‘Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?'

Winston was struck, as he had been struck before, by the tiredness of O'Brien's face. It was strong and fleshy and brutal, it was full of intelligence and a sort of controlled passion before which he felt himself helpless; but it was tired. There were pouches under the eyes, the skin sagged from the cheekbones. O'Brien leaned over him, deliberately bringing the worn face nearer.

‘You are thinking,' he said, ‘that my face is old and tired. You are thinking that I talk of power, and yet I am not even able to prevent the decay of my own body. Can you not understand, Winston, that the individual is only a cell? The weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism. Do you die when you cut your fingernails?'

He turned away from the bed and began strolling up and down again, one hand in his pocket.

‘We are the priests of power,' he said. ‘God is power. But at present power is only a word so far as you are concerned. It is time for you to gather some idea of what power means. The first thing you must realize is that power is collective. The individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an individual. You know the Party slogan: “Freedom is Slavery”. Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is freedom. Alone — free — the human being is always defeated. It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he IS the Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal. The second thing for you to realize is that power is power over human beings. Over the body — but, above all, over the mind. Power over matter — external reality, as you would call it — is not important. Already our control over matter is absolute.'

For a moment Winston ignored the dial. He made a violent effort to raise himself into a sitting position, and merely succeeded in wrenching his body painfully.

‘But how can you control matter?' he burst out. ‘You don't even control the climate or the law of gravity. And there are disease, pain, death ——'

O'Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. ‘We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation — anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature.'

‘But you do not! You are not even masters of this planet. What about Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them yet.'

‘Unimportant. We shall conquer them when it suits us. And if we did not, what difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence. Oceania is the world.'

‘But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny — helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the earth was uninhabited.'

‘Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.'

‘But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals — mammoths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was ever heard of.'

‘Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth-century biologists invented them. Before man there was nothing. After man, if he could come to an end, there would be nothing. Outside man there is nothing.'

‘But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever.'

‘What are the stars?' said O'Brien indifferently. ‘They are bits of fire a few kilometres away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could blot them out. The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it.'

Winston made another convulsive movement. This time he did not say anything. O'Brien continued as though answering a spoken objection:

‘For certain purposes, of course, that is not true. When we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenient to assume that the earth goes round the sun and that the stars are millions upon millions of kilometres away. But what of it? Do you suppose it is beyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?'

Winston shrank back upon the bed. Whatever he said, the swift answer crushed him like a bludgeon. And yet he knew, he KNEW, that he was in the right. The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind — surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false? Had it not been exposed long ago as a fallacy? There was even a name for it, which he had forgotten. A faint smile twitched the corners of O'Brien's mouth as he looked down at him.

‘I told you, Winston,' he said, ‘that metaphysics is not your strong point. The word you are trying to think of is solipsism. But you are mistaken. This is not solipsism. Collective solipsism, if you like. But that is a different thing: in fact, the opposite thing.

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Part three, Chapter 3 (1) Часть третья, глава 3 (1)

There are three stages in your reintegration,' said O'Brien. У вашій реінтеграції є три етапи, — сказав О'Брайен. ‘There is learning, there is understanding, and there is acceptance. 'Hay aprendizaje, hay comprensión y hay aceptación. It is time for you to enter upon the second Es hora de que entres en el segundo

stage.'

As always, Winston was lying flat on his back. Como siempre, Winston estaba acostado de espaldas. But of late his bonds were looser. Pero últimamente sus ataduras estaban más flojas. Але останнім часом його узи ослабли. They still held him to the bed, but he could move his knees a little and could turn his head from side to side and raise his arms from the elbow. Todavía lo sujetaban a la cama, pero podía mover un poco las rodillas y girar la cabeza de un lado a otro y levantar los brazos desde el codo. The dial, also, had grown to be less of a terror. Циферблат також став менш жахливим. He could evade its pangs if he was quick-witted enough: it was chiefly when he showed stupidity that O'Brien pulled the lever. Podía evadir sus dolores si era lo suficientemente ingenioso: fue principalmente cuando mostró estupidez cuando O'Brien tiró de la palanca. Sometimes they got through a whole session without use of the dial. He could not remember how many sessions there had been. The whole process seemed to stretch out over a long, indefinite time — weeks, possibly — and the intervals between the sessions might sometimes have been days, sometimes only an hour or two.

‘As you lie there,' said O'Brien, ‘you have often wondered — you have even asked me — why the Ministry of Love should expend so much time and trouble on you. —Mientras está acostado allí —dijo O'Brien—, a menudo se ha preguntado, incluso me ha preguntado, por qué el Ministerio del Amor debería dedicar tanto tiempo y molestias a usted. «Поки ви там лежите, — сказав О’Браєн, — ви часто дивувалися — ви навіть запитували мене — чому Міністерство кохання має витрачати на вас стільки часу й клопоту. And when you were free you were puzzled by what was essentially the same question. Y cuando estabas libre te desconcertó lo que era esencialmente la misma pregunta. І коли ви були вільні, ви були спантеличені тим самим питанням. You could grasp the mechanics of the Society you lived in, but not its underlying motives. Do you remember writing in your diary, “I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY”? It was when you thought about “why” that you doubted your own sanity. You have read THE BOOK, Goldstein's book, or parts of it, at least. Did it tell

you anything that you did not know already?' ‘You have read it?' said Winston. |Winston

‘I wrote it. |napisałem to| That is to say, I collaborated in writing it. |||||||pisaniu| No book is produced individually, as you know.' |||||||wiesz

‘Is it true, what it says?' ¿Es cierto lo que dice?

‘As description, yes. jako|| Como descripción, sí. The programme it sets forth is nonsense. El programa que presenta es una tontería. Програма, яку він викладає, є нісенітницею. The secret accumulation of knowledge — a gradual spread of enlightenment — ultimately a proletarian rebellion — the overthrow of the Party. ||||wiedza|||||||||||||| La acumulación secreta de conocimiento, una expansión gradual de la ilustración, en última instancia, una rebelión proletaria, el derrocamiento del Partido. You foresaw yourself that that was what it would say. Se previó que eso era lo que diría. Ви самі передбачали, що це буде те, що воно скаже. It is all nonsense. The proletarians will never revolt, not in a thousand years or a million. They cannot. I do not have to tell you the reason: you know it already. If you have ever cherished any dreams of violent insurrection, you must abandon them. Якщо ви коли-небудь плекали будь-які мрії про насильницьке повстання, ви повинні відмовитися від них. There is no way in which the Party can be overthrown. The rule of the Party is for ever. Make that the starting-point of your thoughts.'

He came closer to the bed. ‘For ever!' he repeated. ‘And now let us get back to the question of “how” and “why”. You understand well enough HOW the Party maintains itself in power. Ви добре розумієте, ЯК партія утримується при владі. Now tell me WHY we cling to power. Тепер скажіть мені, ЧОМУ ми чіпляємося за владу. What is our motive? Why should we want power? Go on, speak,' he added as Winston remained silent.

Nevertheless Winston did not speak for another moment or two. A feeling of weariness had overwhelmed him. |||zmęczenie||| The faint, mad gleam of enthusiasm had come back into O'Brien's face. He knew in advance what O'Brien would say. Він наперед знав, що скаже О'Браєн. That the Party did not seek power for its own ends, but only for the good of the majority. Що партія шукала влади не для власних цілей, а лише для блага більшості. That it sought power because men in the mass were frail, cowardly creatures who could not endure liberty or face the truth, and must be ruled over and systematically deceived by others who were stronger than themselves. ||dążyło do|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Que buscaba el poder porque los hombres de la masa eran criaturas frágiles y cobardes que no podían soportar la libertad ni enfrentarse a la verdad, y debían ser gobernadas y engañadas sistemáticamente por otros que eran más fuertes que ellos. Що він прагнув влади, тому що люди в масі були тендітними, боягузливими створіннями, які не могли терпіти свободу чи дивитися правді в очі, і ними повинні керувати та систематично обманювати інші, хто був сильнішим за них самих. That the choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness, and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better. Que la elección de la humanidad estaba entre la libertad y la felicidad, y que, para la gran mayoría de la humanidad, la felicidad era mejor. Що вибір для людства лежить між свободою та щастям, і що для переважної маси людства щастя було кращим. That the party was the eternal guardian of the weak, a dedicated sect doing evil that good might come, sacrificing its own happiness to that of others. Que el partido era el guardián eterno de los débiles, una secta dedicada a hacer el mal para que el bien pudiera venir, sacrificando su propia felicidad por la de los demás. The terrible thing, thought Winston, the terrible thing was that when O'Brien said this he would believe it. You could see it in his face. O'Brien knew everything. O'Brien lo sabía todo. A thousand times better than Winston he knew what the world was really like, in what degradation the mass of human beings lived and by what lies and barbarities the Party kept them there. Mil veces mejor que Winston sabía cómo era realmente el mundo, en qué degradación vivía la masa de seres humanos y por qué mentiras y barbaridades el Partido los mantenía allí. Він у тисячу разів краще за Вінстона знав, яким був світ насправді, у якій деградації живуть маси людей і якою брехнею та варварством партія тримає їх там. He had understood it all, weighed it all, and it made no difference: all was justified by the ultimate purpose. |||||rozważył|||||||||||||| Lo había entendido todo, lo había sopesado todo y no importaba: todo estaba justificado por el propósito último. What can you do, thought Winston, against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy? |||||||||||||||||||||||||upiera się||| ¿Qué puedes hacer, pensó Winston, contra el lunático que es más inteligente que tú, que da a tus argumentos una audiencia justa y luego simplemente persiste en su locura? Що ти можеш зробити, — подумав Вінстон, — проти божевільного, розумнішого за тебе, який справедливо вислухає твої аргументи, а потім просто наполягає на своєму божевіллі?

‘You are ruling over us for our own good,' he said feebly. "Nos gobiernas por nuestro propio bien", dijo débilmente. ‘You believe that human beings are not fit to govern themselves, and therefore ——'

He started and almost cried out. Se sobresaltó y casi gritó. A pang of pain had shot through his body. Una punzada de dolor le atravesó el cuerpo. O'Brien had pushed the lever of the dial up to thirty-five. O'Brien había subido la palanca del dial hasta el treinta y cinco.

‘That was stupid, Winston, stupid!' he said. ‘You should know better than to say a thing like that.' «Тобі краще знати, що говорити подібні речі».

He pulled the lever back and continued:

‘Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. El Partido busca el poder enteramente por sí mismo. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. Lo que significa poder puro, lo entenderás en la actualidad. Що означає чиста сила, ви зараз зрозумієте. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. Усі інші, навіть ті, хто був схожий на нас, були боягузами та лицемірами. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. |||||||||||niechętnie||||||||||||||||||||||| Fingieron, tal vez incluso creyeron, que se habían apoderado del poder de mala gana y por un tiempo limitado, y que a la vuelta de la esquina había un paraíso donde los seres humanos serían libres e iguales. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. ||||||||||||zrzeczenia się| Sabemos que nadie toma el poder con la intención de renunciar a él. Power is not a means, it is an end. władza|||||||| El poder no es un medio, es un fin. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. |||||||||||||||||||||dyktaturę The object of persecution is persecution. |||prześladowanie|| Об'єкт переслідування - переслідування. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?'

Winston was struck, as he had been struck before, by the tiredness of O'Brien's face. It was strong and fleshy and brutal, it was full of intelligence and a sort of controlled passion before which he felt himself helpless; but it was tired. There were pouches under the eyes, the skin sagged from the cheekbones. Había bolsas debajo de los ojos, la piel se hundía desde los pómulos. O'Brien leaned over him, deliberately bringing the worn face nearer. |||||przybliżając|||| O'Brien se inclinó sobre él y acercó deliberadamente el rostro desgastado.

‘You are thinking,' he said, ‘that my face is old and tired. You are thinking that I talk of power, and yet I am not even able to prevent the decay of my own body. Can you not understand, Winston, that the individual is only a cell? The weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism. Do you die when you cut your fingernails?'

He turned away from the bed and began strolling up and down again, one hand in his pocket.

‘We are the priests of power,' he said. ‘God is power. But at present power is only a word so far as you are concerned. Pero en la actualidad, el poder es solo una palabra en lo que a usted respecta. Але наразі влада – це лише слово, що стосується вас. It is time for you to gather some idea of what power means. The first thing you must realize is that power is collective. The individual only has  power in so far as he ceases to be an individual. El individuo sólo tiene poder en la medida en que deja de ser un individuo. Індивід має владу лише тоді, коли він перестає бути індивідом. You know the Party slogan: “Freedom is Slavery”. Ya conoces el lema del Partido: “La libertad es esclavitud”. Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? ¿Se le ha ocurrido alguna vez que es reversible? Slavery is freedom. Alone — free — the human being is always defeated. It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. Debe ser así, porque todo ser humano está condenado a morir, que es el mayor de todos los fracasos. Так повинно бути, тому що кожна людина приречена на смерть, що є найбільшою з усіх невдач. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he IS the Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal. Pero si puede hacer una sumisión completa y absoluta, si puede escapar de su identidad, si puede fusionarse en el Partido para ser el Partido, entonces es todopoderoso e inmortal. The second thing for you to realize is that power is power over human beings. Over the body — but, above all, over the mind. Power over matter — external reality, as you would call it — is not important. Already our control over matter is absolute.'

For a moment Winston ignored the dial. He made a violent effort to raise himself into a sitting position, and merely succeeded in wrenching his body painfully. Hizo un violento esfuerzo por incorporarse a una posición sentada, y sólo consiguió torcerse dolorosamente el cuerpo. Він зробив сильне зусилля, щоб піднятися в сидяче положення, і йому вдалося лише боляче вивернути тіло.

‘But how can you control matter?' Pero, ¿cómo puedes controlar la materia? he burst out. ‘You don't even control the climate or the law of gravity. And there are disease, pain, death ——'

O'Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. ‘We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. Aprenderás gradualmente, Winston. Ви будете вчитися поступово, Вінстоне. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation — anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature.'

‘But you do not! You are not even masters of this planet. Ni siquiera son los amos de este planeta. What about Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them yet.'

‘Unimportant. 'Sin importancia. We shall conquer them when it suits us. Los conquistaremos cuando nos convenga. And if we did not, what difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence. Podemos dejarlos fuera de existencia. Oceania is the world.'

‘But the world itself is only a speck of dust. |||||||kropla|| And man is tiny — helpless! Y el hombre es diminuto, ¡indefenso! How long has he been in existence? ¿Cuánto tiempo ha existido? For millions of years the earth was uninhabited.'

‘Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. La tierra es tan vieja como nosotros, no más vieja. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.' Nada existe excepto a través de la conciencia humana '.

‘But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals — mammoths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was ever heard of.'

‘Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth-century biologists invented them. Before man there was nothing. After man, if he could come to an end, there would be nothing. Después del hombre, si pudiera llegar a su fin, no habría nada. Outside man there is nothing.'

‘But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever.' Están fuera de nuestro alcance para siempre.

‘What are the stars?' said O'Brien indifferently. ‘They are bits of fire a few kilometres away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could blot them out. |||wymazać|| O podríamos borrarlos. Або ми могли б їх знищити. The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it.'

Winston made another convulsive movement. This time he did not say anything. O'Brien continued as though answering a spoken objection:

‘For certain purposes, of course, that is not true. When we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenient to assume that the earth goes round the sun and that the stars are millions upon millions of kilometres away. Cuando navegamos por el océano, o cuando predecimos un eclipse, a menudo nos parece conveniente suponer que la Tierra gira alrededor del Sol y que las estrellas están a millones y millones de kilómetros de distancia. But what of it? Pero, ¿y eso? Do you suppose it is beyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy? ¿Crees que está más allá de nosotros producir un sistema dual de astronomía? The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? ¿Crees que nuestros matemáticos no están a la altura de eso? Have you forgotten doublethink?'

Winston shrank back upon the bed. Winston se echó hacia atrás en la cama. Whatever he said, the swift answer crushed him like a bludgeon. ||||||||||młot Dijera lo que dijera, la rápida respuesta lo aplastó como un garrote. Що б він не сказав, швидка відповідь розчавила його, як кийок. And yet he knew, he KNEW, that he was in the right. The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind — surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false? La creencia de que nada existe fuera de tu propia mente, ¿seguramente debe haber alguna forma de demostrar que era falsa? Had it not been exposed long ago as a fallacy? |||||||||błędne przek Чи не було це давно викрито як омана? There was even a name for it, which he had forgotten. Incluso había un nombre para él, que había olvidado. A faint smile twitched the corners of O'Brien's mouth as he looked down at him. Una leve sonrisa asomó a las comisuras de los labios de O'Brien mientras lo miraba.

‘I told you, Winston,' he said, ‘that metaphysics is not your strong point. The word you are trying to think of is solipsism. |||||||||solipsyzm But you are mistaken. This is not solipsism. Collective solipsism, if you like. But that is a different thing: in fact, the opposite thing.