Why do people think that BNW represents a dystopia? The whole point of the work is that it is in fact a utopia or as close as you can get. The reason for this is to undermine the notion that one should even want to organize a society around happiness in the first place (undermining one of the central assumptions of nearly 2500 years of western political philosophy). To this end I think Huxley succeeds brilliantly. Furthermore he raises far deeper questions of what it means to be human in ways that Orwell simply does not address. Finally the fact that many identify his depiction of the future as dystopian is a good sign that he successfully gets readers to reevaluate their own thinking about what it means to live a fulfilling life, since I think almost all of us here would agree that the world Huxley depicts is in some ways thoroughly empty of any real fulfillment or achievement.
1984 v. Brave New World
141–150 of 204 posts
Re: 1984 v. Brave New World
#142Interesting. The "final revolution" that Huxley describes could also be called "the singularity" from transhumanism. In the end, we all become subservient to "the system" through our own choice. The system need not be run by humans. The thing is, the indoctrination of children and coordinated use of psychotropic drugs as a means of control would be morally repugnant to a human. But for a non-human ruling class, moral…
> No such AI exists today
Do you have any reasoning to back up this assertion?
I see quite a number of self-modifying systems that are unintelligible to humans, unaccountable to others, and that exert significant control over the larger world. Whether these systems qualify as 'AI' seems like a question of how developed they are, and that seems like just a matter of time and available resources.
Re: 1984 v. Brave New World
#143I 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 of torture suffered, atrocities committed, or free expression squelched, a la 1984. The real horror of Brave New World is the complete reduction of the human race to a soulless, animalistic state. Or a robotic state, if you prefer that sort of analogy.
The humanity we encounter in Brave New World is a dead end: artistically, culturally, technologically, philosophically, and evolutionarily. This humanity will never reach beyond its comfort zone to achieve anything else. It will never colonize the solar system, or explore the stars. It will never make brilliant art, or profound discoveries. It will never question anything, and because it will never question anything, it will never improve itself. If you believe that humanity's crown jewel is its capacity for self-improvement and progress, then the world in Brave New World is a severely bleak one. It is a vision of the human race infantilized, neutered, and forever trapped in that infant state. (If there are any ihyperintelligent beings out there, bent on conquering Earth and rendering humanity a null threat, Brave New World reads like a perfect playbook).
On a visceral level, sure, I suppose I'd rather live in Huxley's dystopia than in Orwell's. That doesn't make Huxley's vision any less scary for me. Big Brother puts us in a cage; Huxley's society convinces us the cage doesn't exist.
From the standpoint of literary merit, 1984 is the superior book. But that's a whole different discussion, and I digress.
Re: 1984 v. Brave New World
#144I 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…
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 can achieve great things in chess, but I don't squander my life obsessed with chess, because no one in the real world cares. But someone can play football instead, and it's not a waste of time because with it comes status, money, and so on. You're saying humans are going to stop being competitive. And if we're relieved of the nagging sense that we have to achieve something, you could consider that a cure.
Re: 1984 v. Brave New World
#145These 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…
Huxely's mechanisms of Soma, infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis feel less real. Marijuana legalization is Soma. We don't need as many workers any more, and pot will help to keep the drones passive.
It doesn't matter what Soma 'is'. As someone responded below, maybe it's religion. Maybe it's smartphones with endless social notifications. Maybe it's Farmville and similar internet addiction patterns. Sure, pot addiction might get you there too. It doesn't have to be just one thing, as long as it leads you to becoming a complacent, passive pawn unwilling to think past immediate gratification.
Re: 1984 v. Brave New World
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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…
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 can achieve great things in chess, but I don't squander my life obsessed with chess, because no one in the real world cares . But someone can play football instead, and it's not a waste of time because with it comes st…
"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 suggesting I've made a statement whose logical outcome is "There's no point to your work?"
"You're saying humans are going to stop being competitive."
That's not really what I said. I said humans in Huxley's world are going to stop trying. Trying, full stop. We can fill in the blank however we wish: trying to explore; trying to create; trying to question; trying to answer; trying to figure out; trying to obtain; trying to..., etc. Sure, I guess you could fit "compete" in there, but competition was not the crux of my point.
"And if we're relieved of the nagging sense that we have to achieve something, you could consider that a cure."
It's not about a "nagging sense that we have to achieve something." It's about a nagging sense that we can improve our lot beyond its current state, whatever that state happens to be. Maybe we can and maybe we can't. But we try, and over time, we usually do. It's not that the trying holds any intrinsic meaning -- and you'll notice that I've been very careful to avoid words like "meaning," which I find squishy and soft for arguments like these. Rather, it's that trying has a chance at improving our circumstances in some measurable way.
Even if you remove "meaning" from the act of trying, you can still place a value on trying. That value, very simply put, is the expected value of whatever you're trying to do/build/make/learn/achieve, plus any ancillary achievements/learnings/accomplishments/etc. along the way. (Recognizing, of course, that progress is not teleological or deterministic!)
Let's take this a step further, though. Let's play with the assumption that a life of care-free leisure is perfectly fine, if not exemplary. Ok. Then isn't a life of superior leisure and more entertainment even better? The citizens of Huxley's world -- at least the privileged Alphas -- have it pretty good, from a purely hedonic standpoint. But certainly they could have it even better. They never will, because they've lost their ability to wonder what "better" might be. That wonderment, even absent any intrinsic value, is still a very valuable thing to have lost.
Even if we evaluate Brave New World's society from a purely utilitarian standpoint, we conclude that society can do better. For example: a society based on pure leisure and entertainment, just as in BNW, but in which there are no subordinate/slave classes. That would be an improvement, I'd think.
Re: 1984 v. Brave New World
#147Illustrates it well: http://postimg.org/image/ue0pdq56r/
That comic is based on Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death. It originally appeared at...
http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourse...
...but was apparently taken down due at the copyright holders' request. More on the book:
Re: 1984 v. Brave New World
#148Earlier 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 can achieve great things in chess, but I don't squander my life obsessed with chess, because no one in the real world cares . But someone can play football instead, and it's not a waste of time because with it comes st…
"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.
Re: 1984 v. Brave New World
#149Orwell's rulers seem to have a much more satisfying experience of ruling. I don't think it's enough to have mere control; I think "lust for power" implies a certain sadism. They want to be Trujillo[1] or Kim Jong Il[2] - someone to be respected, feared, and absolutely obeyed. The point of being Big Brother was to attain the pleasure of torturing Smith, inside and out. (It wouldn't surprise me, or anyone I think, if they killed Smith after all was said and done.)
Huxley discounts the pure pleasure of putting your boot on someone's face, of being able to raping anyone in your country at will (as Trujillo was particularly fond of doing). Intriguingly, I think it is this class of evil people that will actively prevent humanity from turning into the Brave New World cul-de-sac, since it represents a steady-state that absolutely denies the kind of sadism that they crave.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Trujillo [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jong-il
Re: 1984 v. Brave New World
#150These 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…
>Huxely's mechanisms of [...] infant conditioning [...] feel[s] less real
One word: Circumcision. Do I need to explain?