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1984 v. Brave New World

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Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#121

Post by philwelch »

mankyd wrote: post #53
netcan wrote: post #22

These are two giants in science fiction, in political philosophy and in pop culture. I'm a big fan of both. Great to read a discussion between them. First, there's the artistic stele of the books. 1984 has got this graphic novel, Noir feel to it, like Walking Dead or Sin City. Brave New World has this brightly colored surreal feel to it. It's hard to compare books that are different in this way. Overall, Orwell's wor…

A comic that juxtaposes then nicely: http://www.juxtapoz.com/current/huxley-vs-orwell-in-graphic-... I strongly feel that BNW is more realistic. Neither will play out in entirety, but we are certainly addicts of our opioid receptors.

I always find it ironic that this comic gets posted on blogspammy content farms, but this one seems to be not so bad.

Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#122

Post by mindslight »

tikhonj wrote: post #98

I actually agree with some of the other commenters in this thread: Huxley's dystopia is, well, far less dystopian than Orwell's. Or, in a more nuanced look, Huxley's book suffers an unfortunate dichotomy: the things that are bad are not realistic and the things that are realistic are not bad. The legitimately dystopian part of Brave New World are often technical in nature—effectively mind control through drugs and a…

> departure from ... our obsession with certain abstractions (the poorly defined "real vs superficial", "honor", "the dignity of work"¹...etc)

That's easy to say in California, but not New England. Mental models give one the ability to plan ahead, and are necessarily based on heuristics. Winter is coming.

Some specific heuristics, and the ways they are interpreted, are a bit outdated. But it sounds like you're advocating for letting go of independent moralistic thought, and going along with the flow of what feels good.

> It's also a bit grating because I sense some condescending overtones. "Look at all those people who don't care about the world but just distract themselves with popular entertainment. How shallow!" Obviously you, the reader, do not belong to this group ... I mean, I follow the news, I care about recent events and where does it get me? Nowhere

I take the opposite analysis - World events are a stratum of popular entertainment, and politicians are just a different set of celebrities. Each focused topic makes you feel a way, but it's ultimately tourism because your opinion on something that will not affect you and that you have no input to does not matter. Any discussion of topics where an intelligent decision could actually be reached ultimately get lost in the noise and clamped to one of two choices. Voting itself has devolved into a team sport where you channel all your built up outrage at the "other people" who are messing up the world, but it ultimately just signals assent to the entire system.

My two main points do seem a bit at odds, and I think the second is what causes people to depart from the first. They don't want to be like the people who cling to the first yet deny the second and thus spend their time shouting at the TV, especially as we all now carry self-activating TVs in our pockets. But I think the resolution is embodied in phrases such as "be the change you want to see in the world", "cypherpunks write code", etc. (Not that any mantra is free of problems, but I digress..)

Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#123

Post by [deleted] »

monochr wrote: post #95
codeulike wrote: post #7

At the time of this letter, Aldous Huxley was very into 'Animal Magnetism' and Hypnotism (read his novel 'Island' to see his utopian vision for such things). He seems to somewhat overrate their potence. 65 years later Animal Magnetism is long forgotten and hypnotism is slightly helpful for giving up smoking or being a bit less angry. I feel sorry for past thinkers who could only stumble upon ideas from books and dige…

Yes, what a horrid fate to have the weeks and months needed to think ideas through. How horrible to go to a library to find what you need. The sheer inhumanity of going 20 minutes without compulsively checking a glowing screen because you feel restless.

[deleted]

Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#124

Post by dreamfactory2 »

stormbrew wrote: post #15
bpodgursky wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO Huxley's predictions are much harder to appreciate given the relativity of cultural norms to what we grew up experiencing. While it's certainly possible to be desensitized to totalitarian oppression, I think it's harder to really appreciate the a more gradual cultural shift wrt acceptance of mood-altering prescription drugs, sexuality, mass market entertainment, etc. Not scientific in the slightest, I just think…

One of the issues I have with Huxley's view of things is that I think it makes a massive leap from the idea of people being content to that being pathologized into being oppressed. Part of that is that I'm not sure there's ever been a point in history in which the majority of people actively contribute to the political sphere on a regular basis. They have always been distracted by something (often mere survival). Eve…

BNW is about infantilisation of the populace. Amazingly, nobody here seems to have talked about ownership of power/wealth - that's the difference between the sedated, patronised citizenry and the conscious, responsible one.

Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#125

Post by codeulike »

monochr wrote: post #95
codeulike wrote: post #7

At the time of this letter, Aldous Huxley was very into 'Animal Magnetism' and Hypnotism (read his novel 'Island' to see his utopian vision for such things). He seems to somewhat overrate their potence. 65 years later Animal Magnetism is long forgotten and hypnotism is slightly helpful for giving up smoking or being a bit less angry. I feel sorry for past thinkers who could only stumble upon ideas from books and dige…

Yes, what a horrid fate to have the weeks and months needed to think ideas through. How horrible to go to a library to find what you need. The sheer inhumanity of going 20 minutes without compulsively checking a glowing screen because you feel restless.

Yes, what a horrid fate to have the weeks and months needed to think ideas through.

Thing is, thinking ideas through on your own sometimes doesn't help much. For ideas to really develop, they need dialogue, and experimentation and evidence, and for people to communicate with each other. IMHO People who are left to think about things on their own for too long can become defensive and obsessed with their own ideas and end up in dead ends, like Huxley did with his ideas about drug-enhanced hypnotism.

The internet is like a Large Hadron Collider for Ideas.

How horrible to go to a library to find what you need.

Well, frankly yes I find the notion of going to a physical location to find out simple bits of knowledge pretty horrible. You really shouldn't underestimate the immense potential we now have to access knowledge very quickly. Its fashionable to disparage it but frankly I think its a wonder of the modern world.

The sheer inhumanity of going 20 minutes without compulsively checking a glowing screen because you feel restless

"Haha they made a handheld device that contains all human knowledge and now we make fun of each other for looking at it too much" https://twitter.com/Arr/status/309565153924505601

Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#126

Post by notahacker »

vvpan wrote: post #73

Also, a little known fact is that 1984 is essentially a remake of a 1924 novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin "We".

There are certainly enough similarities to make Orwell's review[1] in which he describes the plot of We as "rather weak" and suggests Huxley borrowed heavily from it rather uncharitable.

[1]http://theorwellprize.co.uk/george-orwell/by-orwell/essays-a...

Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#127

Post by vec »

bigtunacan wrote: post #55
netcan wrote: post #22

These are two giants in science fiction, in political philosophy and in pop culture. I'm a big fan of both. Great to read a discussion between them. First, there's the artistic stele of the books. 1984 has got this graphic novel, Noir feel to it, like Walking Dead or Sin City. Brave New World has this brightly colored surreal feel to it. It's hard to compare books that are different in this way. Overall, Orwell's wor…

I feel like 1984 and "A Brave New World" are occurring simultaneously to varying degrees in society, but I expect in the long run, massive unexpected events (world war, sun goes nova, whatever...) that eventually we will settle into something more akin to "A Brave New World". It is simply less effort for those in power to manage a society by drugs and indirect manipulation than by brute force. Think of all the distra…

> Fast forward to that child as an adult; they have spent their whole life on behavioral modifying drugs and start to feel uncomfortable or dissatisfied with their lot in life. What are these "strange feelings", so off to the doctor they go where they can be diagnosed with depression and get put on some Paxil/Prozac/Zoloft so they can be content going back to that same hum drum existence they were starting to question.

Not to derail the conversation too much, but fuck you. That's not even close to what depression is or how it works. Depression isn't when your life sucks so you feel bad, it's when you feel bad for no reason, even when your life is objectively pretty good. It's a well documented medical phenomenon that can fortunately be managed rather well with, among other things, medication. Comments like this, though, serve only to stigmatize treatment and actively discourage people from seeking help.

I have a close family member with depression. They've been on Zoloft for a little over a year now and it has been a huge blessing. The single biggest obstacle to getting them help was helping them overcome the social anxiety and sense of failure caused by stigmatizing and belittling attitudes like yours.

Yes, many more people are on antidepressants than in generations past. Many more people also take antihistamines daily and get an annual flu shot and nobody thinks that signals some downfall of civilization. Modern medicine has provided effective treatments for countless conditions, ranging from minor annoyances to debilitating illnesses, that previous generations had no alternative but to endure quietly. In almost every area, save this one, this is rightly regarded as a triumph of science and a huge net good for humanity. Why is it about mental illness that causes otherwise smart, empathetic, and scientifically literate people to start clutching their pearls?

Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#128

Post by dragonwriter »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #82
bigtunacan wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like 1984 and "A Brave New World" are occurring simultaneously to varying degrees in society, but I expect in the long run, massive unexpected events (world war, sun goes nova, whatever...) that eventually we will settle into something more akin to "A Brave New World". It is simply less effort for those in power to manage a society by drugs and indirect manipulation than by brute force. Think of all the distra…

You hit on something interesting here. With a few exceptions, everyone on this site experienced childhood without the barrage of information and sensations that is the Internet. It is scary to imagine how children who from birth have been trained to always look for entertainment through iPad games and the need to always be connected - how that might affect them. I suspect this is an overblown concern, people probably…

> people probably said the same when the television became a staple in society

I personally witnessed people saying the same thing about TV after it had become a staple in society. I suspect that earlier that they said the same thing about radio.

Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#129

Post by spiritomb »

tikhonj wrote: post #98

I actually agree with some of the other commenters in this thread: Huxley's dystopia is, well, far less dystopian than Orwell's. Or, in a more nuanced look, Huxley's book suffers an unfortunate dichotomy: the things that are bad are not realistic and the things that are realistic are not bad. The legitimately dystopian part of Brave New World are often technical in nature—effectively mind control through drugs and a…

it's the 'ol Cypher talking about liking steak in the matrix .. scary.

Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#130

Post by netcan »

Loughla wrote: post #31
netcan wrote: post #22

These are two giants in science fiction, in political philosophy and in pop culture. I'm a big fan of both. Great to read a discussion between them. First, there's the artistic stele of the books. 1984 has got this graphic novel, Noir feel to it, like Walking Dead or Sin City. Brave New World has this brightly colored surreal feel to it. It's hard to compare books that are different in this way. Overall, Orwell's wor…

See, I'm just the opposite. With as hedonistic as human nature seems to be, it makes perfect sense that the pursuit of happiness leads to nothing but; in other words, A Brave New World. 1984 felt just too dystopian. It just tasted wrong; like someone would have stood up and said, "No thank you" well before the point the book stepped into. A Brave New World? That's simply distraction taken to the nth degree. Perfectly…

Interesting. Maybe it's a matter of where we grew up.
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