"Brave New World" vs "1984"

[Psi Baba]

I think one of the chief differences in the two visions is that the Orwellian world requires, as Skeptic Ginger pointed out, some level of control and coercion. Although it's true that totalitarian rule often comes about due to complacency and apathy on the part of the people, such a situation still requires an active and deliberate creation of that kind of societal structure, brought about only with great effort, planning, and expense.

On the other hand, the type of world we have now, with the abundance of information, distractions, and amusements, is something that more or less evolved that way due to technology and commerce being developed to give us what we desire and what we need (not to mention the freedom to choose which of those things we might partake of), and thousands of individual profit-seekers looking to get their piece of the economic pie that comes with it. It does not, as some would believe, seem to be the result of a deliberate "bread and circuses" kind of manipulation with the purpose of keeping us blind to what is really going on.

 

[Good Lt]

I think the last panels of that comic have it slightly off (the hate/love dichotomy isn't the right one), but it had it right further up in the panel.

Bottom line:

Orwell = tyranny by pain, provided by the state
Huxley = tyranny by pleasure, provided by the state

Huxley's prison is that of a crack addict being essentially imprisoned to the whims of his dealer, which will make the addict do anything to get the fix.

Orwell's prison is, well, prison minus due process and human rights.

Today's world (for most, save North Korea and some exceptions) is closer to Huxley, for sure, but Orwell is never far off if the tyranny of pleasure isn't working as it's supposed to.

 

[Beerina]

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.

The cartoon's analysis assumes our society is "the" society. Orwell was much closer to the truth for much of the world, and still is. As such, he was a warning to the West to be careful and not fall down that path.

 

[brodski]

It does not, as some would believe, seem to be the result of a deliberate "bread and circuses" kind of manipulation with the purpose of keeping us blind to what is really going on.

In which case it is nothing like living in The World State. We have no cast system, no hypnopædia, no Fordism. The fact that there is easy access to mass media does not mean that we are living in an oppressive state.
We are more free and generally better off (on average) than we ever have been. The fact that Orwell's nightmare didn't come true doesn't mean that Huxley's reactionary nonsense must therefore have predicted the totalitarian system we now all suffer under- it is quiet possible fro them to have both been completely wrong.
Or it would have been if either were trying to predict the future rather than satirise their own times.

 

[Mark6]

Keep in mind that quite a few people who had read "Brave New World" do not consider it a dystopia at all, and would not mind living in it. No decisions to make, your job is tailored to your psyche so you are never bored (well, both are tailored to each other, but end result is the same), no depression, and plenty of consequence-free sex. This appeals to a certain type of personality -- mayb underrepresented on JREF, but in fact very common.

 

[Noztradamus]

Based soley on the cartoon, Huxley is obviously more right. I haven't read Brave New World to compare though.

The cartoonist. like Huxley, is an elitist snob and thinks the middle classes can be passivated by pleasure. Sometimes yes, but that's also the segment of society that breeds Bin-Ladens and the G20 protesters.

Huxleyworld would never work, while NKorea shows that a stable society can be based on 1984. Just because the whole world did not go 1984 doesn't mean Orwell missed, because the book was a warning rather than a prediction.

So Orwell defeats Huxley

Round 2

Rosseau v. Voltaire: who had the better understanding of human nature?

 

[Wowbagger]

Keep in mind that Orwell was not really writing about the future. The year the novel 1984 takes place in is actually one of its least important aspects. It's not even known by characters in the novel. The title was chosen almost arbitrarily (He published it in 1948).

The novel was meant to be a commentary of regimes for his day, disguised as a future nightmare.

 

[andyandy]

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.

If the word red was removed from the dictionary and you had never seen red would you be able to conceive of it?

I think the words that are used to describe concepts are incredibly important. I would argue that the successful right wing framing of funding reforms of elderly care as a "death tax" was the primary reason why it did not gain any traction. It's not that people are unable to conceive of alternatives in this case, it's just that the language is so powerful that it controls and channels thought in a particular direction.

But it's not just language that is central to Orwell's society - it's the wider state of information being controlled - if you do not have access to correct information then you do not have the ability to think in critical terms (or, what you think are critical terms are in fact not....)

 

[brodski]

If the word red was removed from the dictionary and you had never seen red would you be able to conceive of it?

yes. There was a time before the word red existed, do you think that we never conceived of the concept before it had a name? Did the word red appear and eth people dream up a colour for it to describe? If you think that's nuts you can see why I think Orwell was massively wrong.

In fact it’s interesting that you picked colour as your example, work from the late 60’s proved that colour recognition was not dependant on language. This was done specifically to test the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis that thought followed language.

I think the words that are used to describe concepts are incredibly important. I would argue that the successful right wing framing of funding reforms of elderly care as a "death tax" was the primary reason why it did not gain any traction. It's not that people are unable to conceive of alternatives in this case, it's just that the language is so powerful that it controls and channels thought in a particular direction.

yet we have seen that this is a short term effect and not always successful. When a negative term is given (and sticks) to something which is generally regarded as good, what happens is that the word becomes a positive word. Also, death tax was the name given to inheritance tax and had nothing to do with elderly care. I think you’re thinking of death panels- something which never existed at all. This was a basic political smear and had very little of interest to say about Strong Whorfianism.

But it's not just language that is central to Orwell's society - it's the wider state of information being controlled - if you do not have access to correct information then you do not have the ability to think in critical terms (or, what you think are critical terms are in fact not....)

That’s not true. You have the ability to think in critical terms without access to information, but you may be less likely to be pushed in that direction.

 

[Number Six]

I've read both books and judged purely on their predictions they're both spectacularly wrong but I don't think the point of either of them was to be literal predictions so even though they're wrong I think they're both good books. If I had to pick which was less wrong in it's predictions I'd pick Brave New World.

I think what neither author was able to see, and understandably so, was the extent to which technology would decentralize power and make it harder to control people. IIRC in both books there was a small power base, the government or whatever, controlling the lives of the masses to a very high degree, albeit using different methods. In the real world today I think there are many, many more sources of power than back in their day.

 

[PGH]

I've read both books and judged purely on their predictions they're both spectacularly wrong but I don't think the point of either of them was to be literal predictions so even though they're wrong I think they're both good books. If I had to pick which was less wrong in it's predictions I'd pick Brave New World.

I think what neither author was able to see, and understandably so, was the extent to which technology would decentralize power and make it harder to control people. IIRC in both books there was a small power base, the government or whatever, controlling the lives of the masses to a very high degree, albeit using different methods. In the real world today I think there are many, many more sources of power than back in their day.

I agree and we can see in both books that the technology they did envision was controlled by the government and used to oppress the people. Thought monitoring in 1984 and mind control drugs in BNW.

I'd like to think they'd be pleasantly surprised that they're wrong in the fact that the technologies that were invented were put into the hands of the people as a way of freely communicating with each other and exchanging information. So long as you've got that sort of thing it's going to make control from the top down a little tricky.

 

[Pardalis]

Orwell predicted North Korea pretty well. And Iran is heading in that direction. The US is not, and never will.

 

[brodski]

Orwell predicted North Korea pretty well.

Which elements of the society of Airstrip One which were not futures of totalitarian regimes which had existed prior to 1948, do you believe are not features of society in North Korea?

I can't see anything other than trivialities (such as a greeter use of cameras).

 

[Pardalis]

Oh right this has to be about America, I forgot...

 

[andyandy]

yes. There was a time before the word red existed, do you think that we never conceived of the concept before it had a name? Did the word red appear and eth people dream up a colour for it to describe? If you think that's nuts you can see why I think Orwell was massively wrong.

If you had never seen red then why would you conceive of a name for something you did not know existed? The classic thought experiment is that of someone being raised in a artificially sealed environment where there is nothing red. Such a person would not have a name for red, nor would they know that red existed. Colour recognition is distinct from knowledge of colour in the absence of experience.....

yet we have seen that this is a short term effect and not always successful. When a negative term is given (and sticks) to something which is generally regarded as good, what happens is that the word becomes a positive word. Also, death tax was the name given to inheritance tax and had nothing to do with elderly care. I think you’re thinking of death panels- something which never existed at all. This was a basic political smear and had very little of interest to say about Strong Whorfianism.

No - i was referring to this:

The Daily Telegraph has learnt that in an embarrassing climbdown ministers have scrapped advanced proposals for a compulsory scheme that would have been funded partly by a £20,000 “death tax”.

The decision was made amid fears in Cabinet that arguments over funding would lose votes at a general election due within a few weeks.
snip

Ministers began discussing how the scheme would work, including suggestions of offering pensioners the chance to delay retirement or taking a compulsory levy from their estates after their death.
snip

The changes will be seen as a humiliation for the Health Secretary, who had hoped that plans for a National Care Service would be at the heart of Labour’s campaign to win a fourth term. Department of Health officials had worked out detailed proposals, with elderly people offered a choice of three payment options – a 10 per cent levy on estates after death, delaying retirement by a year, or a monthly tax.

Labour was alarmed, however, when the Conservatives accused the Prime Minister of planning a £20,000 inheritance “death tax” on all estates.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ele...-tax-to-pay-for-elderly-care-is-scrapped.html

It was a pretty sensible proposal - certainly worth considering, but no "DEATH TAX DEATH TAX!" screamed the right wing press. Two of the least popular words in the English language, put together.....

That’s not true. You have the ability to think in critical terms without access to information, but you may be less likely to be pushed in that direction.

OK if you grow up in a place where your access to knowledge is strictly controlled then you would have capacity to think critically (if we accept that this is innate) - but what good is that without knowledge? You may be considering the evidence available to you to reach a conclusion but if this evidence is wrong - indeed planted to make you think a certain thing - then critical thinking becomes irrelevant - it is superseded by access to knowledge.

 

[brodski]

If you had never seen red then why would you conceive of a name for something you did not know existed? The classic thought experiment is that of someone being raised in a artificially sealed environment where there is nothing red. Such a person would not have a name for red, nor would they know that red existed. Colour recognition is distinct from knowledge of colour in the absence of experience.....

If you had never seen red, but had heard the word red would you be any more able to conceive it than if you have never heard the word? The science clearly says that there is no difference.
I have heard of Octarine but am no mroe able to conceive of it than if I had never heard the word.

Concepts don't have to have a single word in order to be cognitively meaningful. Removing words form the language does not remove the concepts from the minds of those that speak the langue.
This is why all those stories about “language X has no word for Y” are bollocks. Just because a language does not have a one to one translation for a particular concept does not say anything at all about the culture of the people who sue that language.

 

[CORed]

I never cared much for either Huxley's or Orwell's vision. I always preferred The Jetsons.

Me too. Where's my flying car?

 

[CORed]

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?

Every time I start reading Youtube comments, I become convinced that Pohl and Kornbluth's The Marching Morons was right on the money.

 

[brodski]

Me too. Where's my flying car?

It's been scrapped after being hit from the front, from below and from the side at the same time, before falling out of the sky.

 

[brodski]

Oh right this has to be about America, I forgot...

No, it's about 1984 and Brave New World.
My contention is that neither tried to predict anything of consequence, and neither succeeded in doing so.
So, what novel features of North Korean totalitarianism did Orwell predict?