Orwell vs. Huxley

[spoon]

http://www.recombinantrecords.net/do...-to-Death.html

Brave New World is the only Huxley book that i've read and that was years ago. it didn't have anywhere near as much of an impact as 1984 did, but that's possibly because Huxley wasn't as good a writer. but were his less dramatic predictions more accurate?

[Hectic Cum Balthazar]

I read them at school when I was 15 and re-read them both about 3 years ago or something. Orwell was a better writer but Huxley was definitely a lot closer to the mark I reckon and I found Brave New World a lot more interesting and prescient.. for all the reasons in that graphic you posted. I think maybe Orwell was brutalised by his experiences and Huxley was able to take a more lofty and more balanced approach... Huxley has a lot more empathy.

[Yer_Maw]

I think 1984 is less a vision of the future, more a vision of how britain would be under nazi/soviet type occupation into the future rather than consumerism gone to seed so not a surprise seeing those differences.

[Hectic Cum Balthazar]

yeah that's a good point.. he certainly nailed the all the areas in which the british excel in oppression.. surveillance and curtain twitching, small-minded peer pressure and mob mentality.

[Orang Utan]

cheers for that - i'm blatantly nicking it to kick off a heated debate on another forum

[Hectic Cum Balthazar]

Originally Posted by Orang Utan

cheers for that - i'm blatantly nicking it to kick off a heated debate on another forum

outrageous behaviour.. *cough*.. I'm just off to tidy the shed.

[spoon]

is there much scope for a heated debate about this? it seems fairly bang on to me. it does make me want to go back and read Brave New World though. shame there hasn't been a decent film adaptation yet. i suppose if that happened we might hear the term 'Huxleyan' thrown around more.

[Hectic Cum Balthazar]

Maybe, but I think 'Huxleyan' is a lot harder to grasp because it's a lot subtler and insidious than rigid totalitarianism, there isn't a simple shorthand like 'big brother' that people can grab hold of easily. Plus the morality of the society in Brave New World isn't as cut and dry as 1984.

[Orang Utan]

there seems to be lot of hate for huxley online on account of him being a pro-eugenic anti-semite, but then orwell was a state informer.....

[Spandex]

One thing I think Orwell made real was the idea of doublethink. And the idea of endless war with constantly shifting "enemies".

But Huxley nailed the thing where the world is awful but everyone comfy thinks it's fine

[Yer_Maw]

what exactly is an IED, doublespeak for BOMB?

[Spandex]

Yeah. The kind made by BADDIES. The GOODIES don't need to "I" their "ED"s

[Hectic Cum Balthazar]

Originally Posted by Orang Utan

there seems to be lot of hate for huxley online on account of him being a pro-eugenic anti-semite, but then orwell was a state informer.....

It is surprising how many respected people were before WWII.. Bertrand Russell was another one. It's not wrong to discuss Eugenics...

[Orang Utan]

i know - i read a book called our hidden lives - ordinary people's diaries written during the austere post war years - all part of the mass observation project. despite the fresh knowledge of the holocaust, they were all so casually anti-semitic. i was quite shocked.

[Hectic Cum Balthazar]

I was referring to the eugenics bit rather than the anti-semitic bit.

[Orang Utan]

yes, i see that now.
eugenics was very fashionable at one point and seen as socially progressive - it was practiced in 'enlightened' places like sweden until quite recently, wasn't it?

[Hectic Cum Balthazar]

well it depends on your definition eh, there are plenty of things done in all the western world today that would fit into the definition of eugenics.

[V Knid esq]

Originally Posted by Hectic Cum Balthazar

well it depends on your definition eh, there are plenty of things done in all the western world today that would fit into the definition of eugenics.

Why say "Western"? There are plenty of things done right across the world that could fit the definition of eugenics if you want to look for them.

Originally Posted by Spandex

But Huxley nailed the thing where the world is awful but everyone comfy thinks it's fine

AKA the thing where there are bad things going on, but happy people are happy?

Is that actually true, though? Does the desire to change things only come from privation and suffering?


While I do believe the whole Society Of The Spectacle thing that addiction to mass media can destroy people's abilities to think and feel properly, is it a modern thing or is it a basic function of any complex society? After all Juvenal commented on the pacification of the people with "bread and circuses" in 200AD, and I think Machiavelli suggests much the same..... And I do worry that the idea of mass media being corrupting in and of itself can be a bit patronising: "TV and internet make the dumb flock dumber, but I can handle them and use them for good because I'm enlightened and see through the deception".

[Spandex]

Originally Posted by V Knid esq

AKA the thing where there are bad things going on, but happy people are happy?

nah, the thing I said

[V Knid esq]

Originally Posted by Spandex

nah, the thing I said

Well is what you said really true? I.e. do people not want change because they're "comfy"? Is it only non-comfy people that call for change?

[Hectic Cum Balthazar]

Originally Posted by V Knid esq

Why say "Western"? There are plenty of things done right across the world that could fit the definition of eugenics if you want to look for them.

Um cos it's a thread about two distinctly western writers writing about distinctly western interpretations of dystopia/utopia?

[Spandex]

Originally Posted by V Knid esq

Well is what you said really true? I.e. do people not want change because they're "comfy"? Is it only non-comfy people that call for change?

Pretty much I reckon.

[V Knid esq]

Originally Posted by Hectic Cum Balthazar

Um cos it's a thread about two distinctly western writers writing about distinctly western interpretations of dystopia/utopia?

You really think Orwell and Huxley's visions are only applicable to "the West"?

[Hectic Cum Balthazar]

I dunno, do I?

[love_tempo]

What about H.G. Wells though? Both pleasure and pain are needed to control.

[Spandex]

Never read any H.G Wells. Always makes me think of bad sci-fi films

[love_tempo]

Woody Allen based Sleeper on a H.G. Wells story and that's a fantastically bad sci fi film and very funny

[joe pinapples]

I'd rather live in Huxley's book than in Orwell's thats for sure. I think the fact Orwell was writing his book while dying of TB in wet and miserable northern Scotland helped make it the laugh-fest it is. I've always had a problem with the idea that 'Soma' or man made 'fun' drugs are a bad thing, as well as other stuff in Brave New World, Huxley is a bit of a straight-edge hypocrite there, I think. Specially as he went on to be one of LSD's & mescalines biggest advocate/endorser 20 yrs later.

[Spandex]

I don't know that it's the fact that it's a drug that's his problem with it.. in fact I'm sure it isn't. That's why the book's so good.. it's all a bit greyer and so quite believable. As a materialist you have to admit that people who are on drugs which make them FEEL happy are ACTUALLY happy. But if that's ALL there is in your life, then most people would feel you're missing a lot of stuff. I think that's his point... not that soma is wrong but that, by exclusively medicating themselves happy, they're missing out on other stuff that's very right.

It's dangerous to assume you've got the right answer to these kind of things and impose your answers on people.. but it's also dangerous to adopt the relativist position knid's hinting at where you say "who are we to judge?". It's not like we don't have tools to determine what the most probable answers are, even to such "soft" questions as "what makes people genuinely happy and fulfilled?" or even "Do people know what's best for them?" .. obviously they don't always know, otherwise past civilisations would never have petered out after using all their resources etc.

I don't so much see Orwell's and Huxley's visions as two opposing, pie-in-the-sky extremes... as much as two slight exaggerations of the situations we're fairly likely to fall into if we stray off the narrow path between them.

But I just had a pint in the afternoon, and I'm ready for an office-nap now, so I could well be talking slightly tipsy bollocks.

[thepigjockey]

Originally Posted by Spandex

But I just had a pint in the afternoon, and I'm ready for an office-nap now, so I could well be talking slightly tipsy bollocks.

ORLY?