Orwell v Huxley

[marxbro]

I suppose this topic has been previously adressed but it is always a good idea to apply it today todays totalitarianisms, imperialisms, capitalisms. I'm tempeted to discover what socailist thought in my genre around the world think.

Who is more qualified as a Utopia? Is soceity going to love their punishment like Huxley said or are they going to fight it? Were 'the Controller' and 'O'Brien' the ones controling; isn't 'the controller' more like the opression of Orwell? How do you think Orwell would have stood on topics like conformaty? Would Huxley sound more like Orwell had he considered nuclear fission in his utopian blue-prints?

I leave it at that. To those who have considered the contrasting views of Huxley and Orwell, let me know your thoughts. Thanks

[Pete]

I think the 'system' 'controlls' 'itself' when it gets to the point that we are at now with our own, and the point shown in BNW and 1984. Look at A Handmaid's Tale by Margret Atwood, especially the last section. That part, in itself, more or less explains what I think you are going to ask. Of course I don't feel like spoiling the story, but A Handmaid's Tale brings the distopia right to home with all the Americans on this forum. Nothing like Christian fundamentalism to make a novel out of?

-Pete

[Hate Is Art]

who is huxley? what books/literature has he done if any? what is he famous for?

[Pete]

Aldous Huxley, he wrote Brave New World, and twenty years later Brave New World Revisited. The first was a novel about a distopia, wher ehe projected his ideas of the future onto our world, the second was him applying what happened to the world in the twenty years and how it fit his predictions.

[honest intellectual]

I don't think Aldous Huxley was right in his prediction that people could be 'programmed' to fit certain social castes. George Orwell's view of a psychological, rather than genetic control is more realistic. (OK, so genes weren't discovered when 'Brave New World' was written and so aren't mentioned in it, but that's basically what he was talking about.)

I just got a biography of Huxley, I'll let you know what I think when I've finished it.

[Fear]

While 1984 is very real, in the sense of "Big Brother", Huxley is even more right in BNW. The sad but inevitable truth of the situation, is that without expansionism(into space) the world will eventually have a population problem. This could lead to a situation similar to Huxley's BNW, in controlling the people and which caste system someone is born into. As for "punishment", I wouldn't really go that far. In the probable population explosion, the use of control could save millions(or perhaps billions) of lives. Also, I think Huxley was very right in his prediction that people could be 'programmed'. Science is moving in many directions. Nothing is impossible.

[marxbro]

Huxley believe that people could be controlled through their love, while Orwell thought it was through their hate. I don't know if anyone of you are familiar with Berkhofer (a historian). He said that everyone fits into a world view--right extremists and communists alike--that their are no true individuals. This is like Huxley (their are no individuals, everyone's conformed); but i don't agree with Berkhofer, for my view is more like Orwell. This all ties together because I don't think that everyone has the same world view, now or at any time. People can't be told what to think because they are told to love it like Huxley said. In our free society, one in which allows us to free talk about conflicting ideals like this forum, we are taught by love; the majority of Americans love pop culture, love to get in to the lives of abnormalcy (Michael Jackson). But when a soceity becomes surpressed/opressed they citizens and the soceity are lead by hate. If our government were to become the utopian controllers they are in BNW and 1984, our soceity would have to become one lead by hate. The arisocracy of government can never tell us what to love, because they cannot control us because they do not know who we are. We are individuals and that is our nature; cognitave reasoning and the strive to be better seperates us from other animals that love to be controlled though love, like a dog. Orwell was right.

[bazonix]

Huxley also wrote the Doors of Perception and the Perennial Philosophy. Both excellent books and the second one is often overlooked. It's a far better, more positive book than Brave New World.

I conclude.

[apathy maybe]

Brave New World is actually not a distopia in the usual sense of the word. While you wouldn't want to live in the world of 1984 unless you were in the top caste, in Brave New World you wouldn't want to live in any other caste. The people are happy where they are in society, except when they have brains (the Alphas).

[JokingClown]

In a way BNW is similar to The Matrix. People are happy in their lives, because they have been purposefully decieved to believe so. Ignorance is bliss.

[marxbro]

Rage Against the Machine quoted 1984 in Testify, "who controls the past, controls the future. who controls the present, controls the past." crazy...

[Helmholtz]

Huxley believe that people could be controlled through their love, while Orwell thought it was through their hate.... Huxley [says] their are no individuals, everyone's conformed.... People can't be told what to think because they are told to love it like Huxley said.

But Jon, in both books, no one cares about thinking. In 1984, the lower class (what were they called again?) is permanently self-unconscious. In BNW, everyone's to occupied with routine sex, perfect jobs, and the feelies to actually have an opinion about anything (except the Alphas who are smart enough to realize that their lives are meaningless).

I think BNW is far more relevant to modern times than 1984. We don't have the malevolent government that 1984 proposes; in the last part of the book, the goal behind the government is control, and the philosophy presented is that one only has control when one has the power to inflict suffering. Our government, if it seeks to invade our private lives, is not seeking to inflict suffering - it is seeking to sustain itself. The more conscious people are of the benefits of the government, the more willing they will be to pay taxes, tolerate high salaries for politicians, etc.

In BNW, the rationale behind the government was efficiency. If low-level workers think their jobs are the perfect jobs, they will love doing them and will do them all the more efficiently. Simultaneously, no time is lost by competition between workers to ascend the job ladder. This seems to be much closer to modern American business/gov't philosophy than Orwell's argument of control and suffering. Corporations solely seek profits, and profits rise with efficiency.

The fact that the people in BNW are genetically engineered is not the most relevant aspect of that book. The important part is that they are kept in check with constant distraction. And when they do become depressingly aware of the futility of their existence, they take soma to feel better. Basically, the people in BNW have an infinite appetite for distraction and have a powerful aversion to pain.

These characteristics resemble American society very closely. We use condoms and other contraception when we have sex so that it will be devoid of any pain/consequences that would otherwise arise. We accept pornography because, hey, it feels good, yet we give little thought to the fact that it devalues the intimate, loving sexual act. We support abortion rights because it allows the woman to avoid the pain of giving birth, as well as the suffering that may result from raising the child or giving the child up for adoption. In summary, American culture avoids any form of pain whenever possible. This supports my belief that BNW was more accurate. I would even venture to say that we are already there.

[Rasta Sapian]

Orwell's "Animal Farm" was a nice little book, simple but its ideology goes deep!

[hazard]

both provide the basis for modern reality in the "first world" nations of this planet

one just has to look past the character relations and see the measures used to control the population. BNW uses drugs while 84 uses TV. in combination, the working classess only serve their society and are either drugged or frightened into doing so.

what neither of these books mention is what their respective scieties hope to accomplish. in our world it is rather simple. the generation of capital. one must assume then that both of the societies control the working class for this same said reason. this is sort of besides the point, but since both societies discuss the neutralization of love, it is easy to contrast this effect on our own society.

capital, ie. "money", means more than the people forced to generate it. even worse is the fact they are, as a species, denied access to the love ideal in order to better fascilitate the generation of capital. clearly, the notion of love as it is sold to the working class is a watered down and stale version that meets somewhere in between 84 and BNW.

BNW has love equalling sex, and excessive sex that serves no purpose except to pass the time the working class spends not working. and drugs are used to enhance this. look at the sex industry and drug industry and advertising industry. nothing but sex, and excessive sex at that. love is used as a front for sex, and is also the preffered way for its expression. which is itself so bizarre and ridiculous I fail to understand how this is even allowed to continue.

84 has love equalling crime. this society has decided to eliminate this emotion as it serves as an empassioning element that could lead to insurrection. in conjunction with BNW, love is elminated in our society for the same purpose as it is in 84. the public is sold, that is instructed so as to believe what they partake in as being love, and anything else is a crime of some kind. many mental "disorders" are similarly defined as having a connection to love, or lack of it, as an illness. obsession, depression, bi-polar and similar "illnessess" all have a direct relation to the ELIMINATION of LOVE within society.

overall I prefer 84 to BNW. at least it identifies LOVE as an enemy to society. BNW just drugs the workers and lets 'em all fuck each other to oblivian then go back to work and do it all over again. BNW seems, probably to many, like an ideal version of their own world. some sort of perverse heaven. 84 has a more responsible approach to this subject and why it should not be tolerated.