"Brave New World" vs "1984"

Skeptic Ginger

Nasty Woman
Skeptic Ginger
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Has anyone thought about the way the future turned out relative to these two stories? My son brought this cartoon to my attention recently: Huxley vs Orwell. I think there are aspects of both predictions today. My son thinks it's all Huxley and no Orwell.

I'm not saying the totalitarian part ever materialized. That's not the discussion direction I had in mind. So hopefully we can dispense with that.

The question I had in mind was, are the masses lulled into submission with an overload of distractions, or clever well controlled deceptions? Like I said, I think the future became a combination, my son thinks it is all Huxley and Orwell was way off the mark. What say you skeptics who find this topic of interest?
 
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Neither one predicted the technologies that would break us out of the trends they extrapolated in their works.

I never read Brave New World, but I did read 1984.
If the cartoon you linked to is accurate, it would seem, superficially, that Brave New World would be the winner.

Though, I also see, from other sources, that it emphasizes production lines. Technology is countering that by also making it easier to manufacter customized items. And, I think there is a growing trend in that direction.
 
I think Huxley was more on the mark, and by far the better writer. But both were wrong about a whole lot more than they were right.

David Brin's "Earth" is a near-future novel that is a much better extrapolation of present trends than either of those classics. 'Course it has the advantage of being nearer to the time it predicts.

ETA: And I think we should throw Farenheit 451 into the mix too.
 
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Based soley on the cartoon, Huxley is obviously more right. I haven't read Brave New World to compare though.
 
For Huxley, or the cartoon to be right we'd have to show that we are any more distracted by fripperies than we have been in the past. There has always been a moral panic about what the lower classes find entertaining, and the world has continued to turn. That cartoon just strikes me as arrogant, obnoxious and ignorant. For instance stating that nobody wants to read these days- I'd argue that people are now reading more than they ever had at any point in history. The fact that we're not all reading high art is an irrelevance, high art has almost always been reserved for a few. Frankly I'd rather be alive now than at any point in the past. We're not living in some nightmare future we're living in a state as close to utopia as we have ever been.
 
Many people interpret the two books as catalogs of predictions/warnings about the future, leading them to judge the quality of the stories based on how accurate they've been retrospectively revealed to be. I find this a bit facile.

As with most stories set in the future, especially the darker varieties, these two books are really about the times in which they were written. The authors were able to place their misgivings about their own societies at an objective distance by way of satire. Consider what they were dealing with at the time--mass production, maps being redrawn in world wars, the surge in human population, fascism in Europe, and so forth. Viewed through the lens of these problems, the books come across more as dark fantasies and even darker comedies.

Arthur C. Clarke's work is a legitimate effort to predict the future. He was pretty damn good at it, his unduly optimistic choice of the year 2001 notwithstanding.
 
I suggest that the cartoons are not a good reflection of reality. The truth is not drowned in a sea of irrelevance. There are ways to get rid of the irrelevance and find the relevant information. Some people do not know and want to know how to do this. However there are fewer people now who fit into the latter category than say 50 years ago.


From my dim recall, Huxley predicted that everyone would be in different classes and everyone would be happy to be in their class, as in upper, middle or lower class. He gave them different names, but that is what he meant.

Orwell did no better.
 
From my dim recall, Huxley predicted that everyone would be in different classes and everyone would be happy to be in their class, as in upper, middle or lower class. He gave them different names, but that is what he meant.
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Although the protagonist wasn't happy with the caste system (after spending time with the "savages" on the reservation).

I'd say more Orwell than Huxley. Not that Orwell's dystopia has been realised, but the technological advances in the past few years means that his ideas become ever more relevant.
 
andyandy said:
Although the protagonist wasn't happy with the caste system (after spending time with the "savages" on the reservation).

I'd say more Orwell than Huxley. Not that Orwell's dystopia has been realised, but the technological advances in the past few years means that his ideas become ever more relevant.
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It's just a shame that his ideas about the links between language, thought and politics where such utter nonsense.
 
goodm0urning said:
Many people interpret the two books as catalogs of predictions/warnings about the future, leading them to judge the quality of the stories based on how accurate they've been retrospectively revealed to be. I find this a bit facile.

As with most stories set in the future, especially the darker varieties, these two books are really about the times in which they were written. The authors were able to place their misgivings about their own societies at an objective distance by way of satire. Consider what they were dealing with at the time--mass production, maps being redrawn in world wars, the surge in human population, fascism in Europe, and so forth. Viewed through the lens of these problems, the books come across more as dark fantasies and even darker comedies.
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What he said.

I enjoyed Brave New World a lot, but I'd never read it as a prediction of the future. I loathed 1984 (although I very much enjoyed Animal Farm), but I'd never read it as a prediction of the future.

Rolfe.
 
I very much enjoyed both books in my youth. I think they should be required reading for every high school kid.

I agree that Huxley seems to have been a bit more accurate. One possible reason could be that 1984 became a very common buzzword in culture. And Big Brother as well. It could be that we have been so on guard to prepare against a 1984 world that we let a Brave New World sneak up on us. I think it's much more likely for a society to try to prevent itself from falling into a future of pain and oppression than to try to prevent a future of meaningless pleasures and distraction.

You work so hard to prevent the thought police that you don't even realize when all the doctor's are prescribing Soma.
 
brodski said:
For Huxley, or the cartoon to be right we'd have to show that we are any more distracted by fripperies than we have been in the past. There has always been a moral panic about what the lower classes find entertaining, and the world has continued to turn.
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Indeed. There's also the unstated assumption that being distracted by fripperies is necessarily a bad thing. Unless you argue that such distraction will lead to an Idiocracy-style future, which Huxley didn't and I think it pretty clear isn't actually happening, what's so bad about spending your free time on mindless entertainment? When it comes down to it, virtually all advancement over human history has been aimed either at allowing us more free time, or at developing new ways to waste it. So even if we really do now have more free time and more distractions in it, what's the problem?

For instance stating that nobody wants to read these days- I'd argue that people are now reading more than they ever had at any point in history.
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True. The other problem is the extremely common assumption that reading is good while other forms of entertainment are bad. But why is watching, say, Schindler's List somehow worse than reading the latest Mills and Boon trash just because one is a book and the other on TV? Don't get me wrong, I love reading and read more than pretty much anyone else I know. But reading is ultimately just a form of escapist entertainment, and is no way inherently superior to any other form of entertainment (although of course a specific medium may be better in any particular case).

Specifically to Brave New World and Neil Postman's point (the cartoon just copied a passage out of his book and drew some pictures on it), there is really no difference between mass produced trashy TV and mass produced trashy books. So the mere fact that people do or do not want to read is irrelevant. What matters is what they choose to read or what they choose to watch. And mass produced tat has always been the preferred material, whether it's plays, pamphlets, books or TV. I suppose you could argue that means we've always been in the Brave New World, but that's rather counter to the claim that we're moving closer towards it.
 
Cuddles said:
Indeed. There's also the unstated assumption that being distracted by fripperies is necessarily a bad thing. Unless you argue that such distraction will lead to an Idiocracy-style future, which Huxley didn't and I think it pretty clear isn't actually happening, what's so bad about spending your free time on mindless entertainment? When it comes down to it, virtually all advancement over human history has been aimed either at allowing us more free time, or at developing new ways to waste it. So even if we really do now have more free time and more distractions in it, what's the problem?



True. The other problem is the extremely common assumption that reading is good while other forms of entertainment are bad. But why is watching, say, Schindler's List somehow worse than reading the latest Mills and Boon trash just because one is a book and the other on TV? Don't get me wrong, I love reading and read more than pretty much anyone else I know. But reading is ultimately just a form of escapist entertainment, and is no way inherently superior to any other form of entertainment (although of course a specific medium may be better in any particular case).

Specifically to Brave New World and Neil Postman's point (the cartoon just copied a passage out of his book and drew some pictures on it), there is really no difference between mass produced trashy TV and mass produced trashy books. So the mere fact that people do or do not want to read is irrelevant. What matters is what they choose to read or what they choose to watch. And mass produced tat has always been the preferred material, whether it's plays, pamphlets, books or TV. I suppose you could argue that means we've always been in the Brave New World, but that's rather counter to the claim that we're moving closer towards it.
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Thank you for bring up that point. The cartoon mocks people who watch "The Biggest Loser." I consider that to be one of the better and more useful shows on TV. Contestants who are facing death by being 200+ pounds overweight are given access to dietitians, personal trainers, and inspirational coaches and are shown how to change their lives. They are given a chance to cooperate as a team and to compete in an effort to marshal their discipline as they lose weight and discover the self-respect that comes from achieving an incredibly difficult goal. Many viewers write in to describe how they, too, lost weight by learning the lessons that the show teaches. Not all reality TV is crap.
 
brodski said:
It's just a shame that his ideas about the links between language, thought and politics where such utter nonsense.
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Really? Sure he takes it to extremes but the basic premise that the struggle for political ideology is carried out through control of the language is pretty relevant. Look at how raising revenue becomes a "tax on jobs" or "a death tax", how liberal is redefined as an insult in America, how the abortion debate struggles for language supremacy - pro life or pro choice, how israel needs to call its Palestinian barrier a fence not a wall....etc etc

If you control the words used you certainly affect the debate.
 
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No comparison - Brave New World is the more accurate prediction.

We have come to embrace our oppressors. <--A bit hyperbolic but grains of truth
 
andyandy said:
Really? Sure he takes it to extremes but the basic premise that the struggle for political ideology is carried out through control of the language is pretty apt. Look at how raising revenue becomes a "tax on jobs" or "a death tax", how liberal is redefined as an insult in America, how the abortion debate struggles for language supremacy - pro life or pro choice, how israel needs to call it's Palestinian barrier a fence not a wall....etc etc

If you control the words used you certainly affect the debate.
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Only to a certain extent, look at the treadmill of language with regards to technical terms which become insults, you can call something which is seen as bad something good all you want, but all that does in the end is change eth connotations of the "good" word. Idiot, moron and so on.
It can work eth other way as well. When the term "prime minister" was introduced into the political language it was an insult, it was an attempt to frame the issue in a way which was insulting to the First Lord of the Treasury. What happened was that people accepted the primacy of the FLOtT and the label became neutral or positive.
Orwell's hypnotis went much, much further, he believed that you could control language through eth dictionary, when in fact people will use whatever language is effective only rarely making reference to prescribed rules and he believed that you could control thought by restricting language- that if you removed a word from common usage people would be unable to conceive of the concept. That is utter, utter bollocks.
 
Ladewig said:
Thank you for bring up that point. The cartoon mocks people who watch "The Biggest Loser." I consider that to be one of the better and more useful shows on TV. Contestants who are facing death by being 200+ pounds overweight are given access to dietitians, personal trainers, and inspirational coaches and are shown how to change their lives. They are given a chance to cooperate as a team and to compete in an effort to marshal their discipline as they lose weight and discover the self-respect that comes from achieving an incredibly difficult goal. Many viewers write in to describe how they, too, lost weight by learning the lessons that the show teaches. Not all reality TV is crap.
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And then there's the other step of what we choose to do with whatever information we take from our chosen form of entertainment.

If you watch the Biggest Loser and it inspires you to lead a healthier lifestyle that is a fantastic and real change in a persons life.

I confess I've watched a marathon of the Biggest Loser and I ordered a meat lover's pizza while I mocked the fatties. Not a lot of positive change there. At all.

You can read War and Peace and if you take nothing away from it it's really not like you've accomplished anything. If a Garfield cartoon inspires you to be better to cats that's more positive than reading any work of literature that has no affect on your life.

It isn't necessarily the greatness of the work or the medium it's presented in. It's the affect on the person that really matters.

I don't sound like Oprah do I?
 
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