1984 v. Brave New World • Hacker News Board

Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#151

Post by spiritplumber » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 1:40 AM UTC

lanaius wrote: post #79

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…

>it describes how the system must allow some non hereditary class movement. If the class system is too rigid, pressure builds up as talented individual press against the ceiling. If some are allowed to progress and there are prominent examples the class system becomes less explicit and more stable. Just like Whitman, Price, and Haddad[1]! [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLlVa6HjV8k

But... last season winners?

Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#152

Post by epidemian » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 2:02 AM UTC

jonnathanson wrote: post #143

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…

"If not for the eugenics, genetics and soma, it sounds like a nice place to live! Freer sex, freer entertainment, more automation, more leisure... It's radical, certainly, but not in a bad way" Well, it's all fun and games if you happen to win the genetic dice roll and end up as an Alpha. I imagine it's considerably less fun if you're a Gamma. More to the point, the world in Brave New World isn't dystopian on account…

As the grand parent, i also see the society of Brave New World as much less dystopian than usually portrayed.

> Well, it's all fun and games if you happen to win the genetic dice roll and end up as an Alpha. I imagine it's considerably less fun if you're a Gamma.

Yes, from the external point of view of a book reader, i would prefer to "win the genetic dice roll". But if i were decanted as a Gamma, i wouldn't mind, i wouldn't prefer to be an Alpha, with all that complex work they do, i'd prefer my simpler life. The casts system in BNW works only because the members of each cast feel happy to belong to their cast.

> It will never question anything, and because it will never question anything, it will never improve itself.

This is actually why i think the vision of Huxley in BNW is not as dystopian as 1984 [spoilers of both books ahead!]: they not only not kill or get rid of the free thinkers (Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson) as they do in 1984, they actually send them to an island with an environment more suitable for their mental fostering, thus allowing new ideas to be born, and maybe very very gradually be introduced in the society.

Yeah, it's quite a bummer that no radical improvement can happen; the society could stuck in a local maximum. But it's a trade-off for stability, peace and abundance.

Would Huxley live today, i'd wager his vision of BNW would not include such a restrictive casts system. BNW's society had a great desire for efficiency, so it is expected that they would use computers to thoroughly automate as much labor as possible. And with that thorough automation, there'd be no need for conditioning humans to accept and do the worst kinds of labors that Deltas, Gammas and Epsilons do.

I guess the means of control applied to higher casts would still "make sense" in order to maintain social stability, which is rather discomforting. But without the restrictive casting system, that future doesn't seem as bleak.

Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#153

Post by scottlocklin » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 2:16 AM UTC

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…

"The legitimately dystopian part of Brave New World are often technical in nature—effectively mind control through drugs and a caste system propped up by genetic engineering. "

"Caste system via selective breeding," actually. If you believe Charles Murray, that's what we have now. We also have some huge fraction of the population taking soma pills, and while the words "father and mother" are not yet considered dirty words, we're half way there. I submit the reason you don't consider BNW a dystopia would be the uncomfortable realization that this is more or less the world we live in, minus the enlightened caste of "alphas."

Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#154

Post by vegedor » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 2:20 AM UTC

vec wrote: post #127

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…

> 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 questio…

> objectively

So, what's the entity without agency (agenda?) that would be objective. There is no objectivity. I don't know how well documented it is, but I doubt I really want to know. If it is well known, why isn't it prevented regularly or is it?

> Why is it about mental illness that causes otherwise smart, empathetic, and scientifically literate people to start clutching their pearls?

It's treating the symptom, not the problem. Just a hunch.

Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#155

Post by vikingo » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 2:37 AM UTC

I think Neil Postman wrote the most concise examination of this topic in the foreword to "Amusing Ourselves to Death"[1]:

"We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares. But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right."

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Busi...

Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#156

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 3:12 AM UTC

vegedor wrote: post #154

vec wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 questio…

> objectively So, what's the entity without agency (agenda?) that would be objective . There is no objectivity. I don't know how well documented it is, but I doubt I really want to know. If it is well known, why isn't it prevented regularly or is it? > Why is it about mental illness that causes otherwise smart, empathetic, and scientifically literate people to start clutching their pearls? It's treating the symptom,…

[deleted]

Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#157

Post by programmarchy » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 3:39 AM UTC

Related, there's some very interesting connections between Huxley and MKULTRA, the CIA program that performed experiments on people with drugs (LSD) and hypnosis, among other things. So it appears that he was more than just an author, and actually a key player in pushing the Brave New World "agenda" forward.

https://webbrain.com/brainpage/brain/6FBA86B0-0C57-9FCA-5CF9...

Quoting his speech at UC Berkeley in 1962:

> If you are going to control any population for any length of time you must have some measure of consent. It’s exceedingly difficult to see how pure terrorism can function indefinitely. It can function for a fairly long time, but I think sooner or later you have to bring in an element of persuasion. An element of getting people to consent to what is happening to them. Well, it seems to me that the nature of the Ultimate Revolution with which we are now faced is precisely this: that we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy who have always existed and presumably always will exist, to get people actually to love their servitude!

Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#158

Post by Phrodo_00 » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 3:52 AM UTC

zanny wrote: post #148

jonnathanson wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Technologic/scientific achievements don't hold any intrinsic meaning. It's like saying you make art for art's sake instead of for an audience. That's the same as saying there's no point to your work." I'm not sure I follow your logic from sentence A to sentence C here. I think I get what you're saying, but you kind of lose me on the point about "That's the same as saying there's no point to your work." Are you sugge…

This back and forth reiterates why I like BNW so much more. For some people it is just simply not a dystopia, yet for others it seems so much worse than Airstrip One because at least in 1984 there is still ambition and motivation, albeit aggressively quashed, but with a fundamental inability of the party to just violently stop everyone from trying.

I think that the ingsoc could simply stop anyone from trying to escape, they are so confident in this, that they go way ahead and make them fundamentally change their view to one of compliance, it's not out of strict necessity (although the system does benefit from it), but rather because they can do it.

Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#159

Post by jpatokal » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 4:07 AM UTC

phaus wrote: post #107

Loughla wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>It just tasted wrong; like someone would have stood up and said, "No thank you" well before the point the book stepped into. The current state of North Korea indicates that this statement is wrong. When the odds are so overwhelmingly stacked against you, its hard to start a rebellion. Granted, things weren't looking very good for the U.S. when the revolutionary war began, but we had astronomically good odds when com…

Absolute dictatorships are funny things. Romania under Ceaucescu was not far short of North Korea and seemed pretty stable for decades, but then some brave soul said "Boo" during one of the Leader's speeches and it all fell apart within 24 hours: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Revolution

I can fairly easily envision the same happening in North Korea, where by all accounts nearly the entire population is dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. One big protest in Pyongyang, and boom.

Re: 1984 v. Brave New World

#160

Post by onan_barbarian » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 4:46 AM UTC

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…

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

Let's conjugate together: "I understand X, you believe Y, they are obsessed with certain poorly defined abstractions T, U and V" (after the old saw: "I am erotic, you are kinky, they are perverted").

You reel off things like "Freer sex, freer entertainment, more automation, more leisure" as if all these things are an a priori universal good while values that you don't prize are wrapped up in a snarky prelude (people are apparently "obsessed" with "certain abstractions" that are "poorly defined"). Later on other people's ideas about the meaningfulness of life are presented as "cultural ideas" that "many people" don't question. Hilariously, you then go on to sense "condescending overtones" in a cartoon....

To quote the Dude: "Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man."

I don't doubt from your perspective that Huxley's dystopia doesn't sound so bad. I think that tells us more about you than it does about Huxley's dystopias.