This is a false dichotomy. It's quite possible - and indeed, probably much more likely - that aspects of both are becoming bigger parts of our lives at the same time.
These two aspects of human culture - authoritarianism and dissipation have always been with us, this isn't new; 'dictatorship' & 'bread and circuses' would both be familiar concepts to citizens of ancient Rome.
I disagree. An ineffective totalitarian system is not totalitarian. A totalitarian system is only totalitarian insofar as it can effect fear on the part of those subjected to it. If the US government (or any other government) were able to suppress the output of media that criticized it by its intelligence services such that ordinary people would not dare reporting what was happening in their communities, this indeed would be totalitarian. The trend, however, is mostly to ignore problematic areas in favor of ones that make one happy. For instance, focusing on the bright side rather than the dark side of mass immigration with a few selected pieces of anecdotal evidence. One can almost always spot this selective highlighting at the expense of the larger dataset by the departure from math and "feel good" (or, conversely, "shock") stories. Since in general people prefer to feel good about themselves, they are either drawn to news which invalidates other parties (other races, members of other political parties) or to fluffy Hollywood productions (there is immense feel good value in watching things blow up on screen, esp. when the other side is ascribed to be "evil").
That said, I have no doubt that there are many who would wish to see the United States (or other places) become more totalitiarian than in fact they are. The free market system we are in has reduced virtually everything to economic motives, which are good about preserving certain information channels at the expense of others.
People seem to assume it's a choice between Huxley, Orwell, or the combination of the two. They miss a very big option, which is that humanity is in fact better off than it used to be. Marx was dead wrong about the future(remember, he thought that global communist revolution was inevitable) but he was dead right about the time that he lived in. Up until the 1950s or 60s or so, a good half of the population wasn't able to hold any but a rare few jobs. During the early days of the Industrial Revolution up until about the decade of the 1900s, you would be considered lucky if you were paid in money rather than company scrip that would be useless outside of the company town you lived in, meaning that if you wanted to change jobs you pretty much lost all your money. In the Middle Ages, ...if I have to explain to you why the Middle Ages sucked compared to today, you're already a lost cause. I could go on.
You're absolutely right -- things are much better now than any time in history, for a majority of the world's population.
But "better" really means "more choices are available." We should try to make sure that we make the best choices, and that's what posts like these are trying to help us do.
Yeah, but most of the reforms moving us past that point (OSHA, non-discrimination, overtime pay, etc) were actually the work of bonafide socialists.
That was good enough for a while. Now we're starting to see worker's discontent again, it's focused on boogeymen, immigrants and liberals for now, but it'll make it's way back to employers eventually.
Orwell was specifically warning about the dangers of a communist totalitarian state. He was one of the few left-leaning writers that spoke out against Stalinism. North Korea has become, in every sense, a '1984' state. China and the former Soviet Union seem to be in transition from '1984' to 'Brave New World'.
"A young man Demick interviewed read 1984 after he escaped to [South Korea]. He was startled to learn that George Orwell, back in the 1940s, had perfectly understood the thinking of modern North Koreans."
Yap, Brave New World is much more interesting to those who want to understand what might be our future than 1984. I believe that's common sense to those who read both novels.
Also interesting is Brave New World Revisited, a book written 30 years after he's other book where he compares it with 1984 by Orwell. He also makes some guesses about the future[1].
I love dystopias and Brave New World is the best.
spoiler
[1] The most important one being about soma and how it's so similar to lsd.
This comic rings mostly true for me, but I disagree a bit with the claim that information in 1984 was restricted; Good information was hard to find, but if I recall correctly, bad information was abundant.
For example, even when Winston begins to realize that he's being fed B.S. information by the government, the book he reads for "real" information is also (probably) filled with lies. I find this point to be especially poignant today as some niche alternative news outlets (such as conspiracy theory web sites) are as inaccurate as the outlets they seek to criticize.
Francis Fukayama made this very same assertion years ago in an essay in The Times Literary Supplement or The New York Review of Books. I remember reading this maybe six, seven years ago and his assertion was that the Huxlean(?) view of the future and not the Orwellian view of the future was coming to pass. I thought that it gelled with his capitalistic view of the world in general. It's a futile debate because clearly our present world exhibits traits from both of Huxley's and Orwell's imaginings. Arguably Orwell was by far the superior craftsman and wordsmith which is why I think his images carry more weight and are more current. Their visions are both culturally very important and this kind of "who's better?" malarky is ... um, malarky! Like I said before Eric Blair to Tony Blair in < 50 years ftw!
A cute cartoon, but seeing as I just ([imo]unfortunately) read "Brave New World" in a very in depth literature class (apologize for the fallacy call to authority) , I don't find the Cartoon to be accurate at all.
For example, books were banned in "Brave New World" -remember all that Shakespeare drama? Huxley was saying people are going to be controlled by the government because in the Brave New World, the government breeds humans for different purposes, and all those humans know are pleasures which are completely dependent on the government, like daily rations of soma, a drug which prevents aging and sadness.
But there's a difference between the banning in Brave New World and what we consider the term to mean today (or what it meant in 1984). Most World State citizens couldn't read at all so banning books was done so they wouldn't be tempted to learn. The government wasn't taking something away as much as they were simply not giving the population access to it.
Books were essentially like illegal drugs in our society. The Government had decided they were harmful to the citizenry and attempted to restrict them from coming in. But it's clearly a fairly minor thing (again equivalent to our drug policy where most personal use offenders get drug treatment rather than punishment).
For example, John the Savage is allowed both to quote Shakespeare and to interact with those who come to the reservation. Yet there's no Government repression and it's certainly not like in 1984 where you get a lobotomy. So the banning of books really reinforces the cartoon's point because what the government has done is to convince the population that books are bad for them and then offered the ban as a way to keep the population from being harmed by them.
[Note that there's a ton of Brave New World that's not in the comic, as pointed out by dbz. I'm reacting to the comic's version.]
Note that, unlike Orwell's dystopia, Huxley's doesn't require squashing every voice of dissent - as long as the majority of people don't care, there is little danger in allowing some dissidents.
Some would say that this, in fact, has already happened - Berlusconi controls a sufficiently large part of the population via the media that he's effectively untouchable. In the American situation, there's Fox News and its competitors.
The reason is that Aldous Huxley's vision was far easier to implement. It didn't require a massive conspiracy, which is extremely difficult. Anyone who has ever been a checkout supervisor at Wal-Mart will tell you how hard it is to coordinate a large number of people with individual personalities, desires, etc. even if the end goal is something as simple as everyone taking a 15 minute break without having too few cashiers at once.
Huxley's vision just required a bunch of people independently trying to make money and becoming good at it, which is pretty much what people do best.
Huxley, of course, wasn't all doom and gloom. His last, wonderful, novel 'Island' describes a very sensible, somewhat libertarian utopia, the antidote to BNW.
His utopia is based on a very open education and a love and understanding for the natural world. It reminds me of Iain Bank's 'Culture', sans the technology.
It's relatively overlooked as a work. My guess is the same factors that make doom and gloom sell newspapers make BNW the more popular novel.
It seems that they both are right in a sense. Overindulgence of the self (Huxley) leads to destruction while overindulgence of Others (Orwell) does the same. Indulging in the personal pleasures leads people to forget about everything else while trying to take care of others too much leads to trying to run their lives when they don't listen to you even though you think you are right.
Beyond just that the cartoonist misses (or outright distorts) the points of Brave New World, ey makes the truly bizarre (and yet oddly common) assumption that at some golden age in the past, "the people" were less distracted by their own lives and what entertained them and were more civic and more aware.
They weren't. Before they were playing video games, they were playing ping pong, board games, cards, or catch. Before they were watching YouTube, they were watching TV or listening to radio shows. Despite the journalistic myth-making about their own industry, the news has always been cluttered with trivialities and partisanship in every medium.
And there have always been people complaining how everyone but they has descended into terrible trogolodytes who only care about their own lives and interests - and not what smart people like themselves find important.
Let us not forget about the great skill our minds have at making connections between things which many not actually be true.
Just as startuprules points out that while many in the US are thinking that they have big brother looking over them, when they are compared to China they realize that it is mostly just their imagination.
What I find most interesting is how many of us would say we are part of the problem? So if it affects everybody, but we're not a part of it, does it really affect everybody.
Also, lets not forget about the drop in things like tv ratings, where a big show in the 80's was 10s of millions of people, and a big show today has a much smaller viewership.
We still think everybody is watching American Idol (or whatever) because it's everwhere, but in reality, it seems very few are actually watching or even taking an interest.
I am not convinced. Somehow the 1984s still seem to be just around the corner all the time. Any kind of incident, and politicians try to make a case for 1984 laws and censorship.
At least if my neighbors amuse themselves to death, I am not forced to participate. I also don't think average people of all ages (as in centuries, eons) were usually preoccupied with highly intellectual endeavors. So the lament of us all becoming more stupid is probably also an old one.
And of course intelligence has been rising as measured by IQ.
I think the books are a warning and contain some truth. I have not read BNW, but 1984 can be used as Machiavelli's Prince, as a prescription, rather than description, of how it could be.
So the book is a warning.
Also, I wanted to say, although it might have been written to describe communism, I think unless you take it literally, much of it resonates with democratic societies also. For example, how the three states keep being at war one day and friends another and how everyone forgets this and how they always are at war. That is quite a good description of the west in some ways.
The world in Brave New World was portrayed in a very negative light, but I found it to be a utopia where everyone is happy. I don't see why a future where people have everything they may want and are happy all the time without fear is a bad world to be in...
Well, I would rather live in a world that is making technological progress than a world where everyone was happy all the time. I think people need to be at least a little unhappy to drive progress.
[+] [-] dflock|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jd|15 years ago|reply
That said, I have no doubt that there are many who would wish to see the United States (or other places) become more totalitiarian than in fact they are. The free market system we are in has reduced virtually everything to economic motives, which are good about preserving certain information channels at the expense of others.
[+] [-] arethuza|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] william42|15 years ago|reply
Want a real dystopia? Read a history book.
[+] [-] dstorrs|15 years ago|reply
But "better" really means "more choices are available." We should try to make sure that we make the best choices, and that's what posts like these are trying to help us do.
[+] [-] jbooth|15 years ago|reply
That was good enough for a while. Now we're starting to see worker's discontent again, it's focused on boogeymen, immigrants and liberals for now, but it'll make it's way back to employers eventually.
[+] [-] GiraffeNecktie|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JustinSeriously|15 years ago|reply
"A young man Demick interviewed read 1984 after he escaped to [South Korea]. He was startled to learn that George Orwell, back in the 1940s, had perfectly understood the thinking of modern North Koreans."
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/07/24/robert-fulfor...
[+] [-] dublinclontarf|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wheels|15 years ago|reply
And the original discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=627476
Edit: (article link was changed by moderator)
[+] [-] iaskwhy|15 years ago|reply
Also interesting is Brave New World Revisited, a book written 30 years after he's other book where he compares it with 1984 by Orwell. He also makes some guesses about the future[1].
I love dystopias and Brave New World is the best.
spoiler
[1] The most important one being about soma and how it's so similar to lsd.
[+] [-] iterationx|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jraines|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hjkl|15 years ago|reply
For example, even when Winston begins to realize that he's being fed B.S. information by the government, the book he reads for "real" information is also (probably) filled with lies. I find this point to be especially poignant today as some niche alternative news outlets (such as conspiracy theory web sites) are as inaccurate as the outlets they seek to criticize.
[+] [-] igravious|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] absconditus|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aardvark|15 years ago|reply
Postman wrote this 25 years ago. If anything, his observation is even more true today.
[+] [-] RyanMcGreal|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dbz|15 years ago|reply
For example, books were banned in "Brave New World" -remember all that Shakespeare drama? Huxley was saying people are going to be controlled by the government because in the Brave New World, the government breeds humans for different purposes, and all those humans know are pleasures which are completely dependent on the government, like daily rations of soma, a drug which prevents aging and sadness.
[+] [-] SamAtt|15 years ago|reply
Books were essentially like illegal drugs in our society. The Government had decided they were harmful to the citizenry and attempted to restrict them from coming in. But it's clearly a fairly minor thing (again equivalent to our drug policy where most personal use offenders get drug treatment rather than punishment).
For example, John the Savage is allowed both to quote Shakespeare and to interact with those who come to the reservation. Yet there's no Government repression and it's certainly not like in 1984 where you get a lobotomy. So the banning of books really reinforces the cartoon's point because what the government has done is to convince the population that books are bad for them and then offered the ban as a way to keep the population from being harmed by them.
[+] [-] JoachimSchipper|15 years ago|reply
Note that, unlike Orwell's dystopia, Huxley's doesn't require squashing every voice of dissent - as long as the majority of people don't care, there is little danger in allowing some dissidents.
Some would say that this, in fact, has already happened - Berlusconi controls a sufficiently large part of the population via the media that he's effectively untouchable. In the American situation, there's Fox News and its competitors.
[+] [-] harscoat|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattmaroon|15 years ago|reply
Huxley's vision just required a bunch of people independently trying to make money and becoming good at it, which is pretty much what people do best.
[+] [-] JanezStupar|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geden|15 years ago|reply
His utopia is based on a very open education and a love and understanding for the natural world. It reminds me of Iain Bank's 'Culture', sans the technology.
It's relatively overlooked as a work. My guess is the same factors that make doom and gloom sell newspapers make BNW the more popular novel.
I'd recommend it as a read to anyone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_(novel)
[+] [-] pope52|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TGJ|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dotcoma|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Semiapies|15 years ago|reply
They weren't. Before they were playing video games, they were playing ping pong, board games, cards, or catch. Before they were watching YouTube, they were watching TV or listening to radio shows. Despite the journalistic myth-making about their own industry, the news has always been cluttered with trivialities and partisanship in every medium.
And there have always been people complaining how everyone but they has descended into terrible trogolodytes who only care about their own lives and interests - and not what smart people like themselves find important.
[+] [-] starkfist|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pedalpete|15 years ago|reply
Just as startuprules points out that while many in the US are thinking that they have big brother looking over them, when they are compared to China they realize that it is mostly just their imagination.
What I find most interesting is how many of us would say we are part of the problem? So if it affects everybody, but we're not a part of it, does it really affect everybody.
Also, lets not forget about the drop in things like tv ratings, where a big show in the 80's was 10s of millions of people, and a big show today has a much smaller viewership.
We still think everybody is watching American Idol (or whatever) because it's everwhere, but in reality, it seems very few are actually watching or even taking an interest.
[+] [-] Tichy|15 years ago|reply
At least if my neighbors amuse themselves to death, I am not forced to participate. I also don't think average people of all ages (as in centuries, eons) were usually preoccupied with highly intellectual endeavors. So the lament of us all becoming more stupid is probably also an old one.
[+] [-] Ardit20|15 years ago|reply
I think the books are a warning and contain some truth. I have not read BNW, but 1984 can be used as Machiavelli's Prince, as a prescription, rather than description, of how it could be.
So the book is a warning.
Also, I wanted to say, although it might have been written to describe communism, I think unless you take it literally, much of it resonates with democratic societies also. For example, how the three states keep being at war one day and friends another and how everyone forgets this and how they always are at war. That is quite a good description of the west in some ways.
[+] [-] StavrosK|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lincolnq|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ckuehne|15 years ago|reply
EDIT: Just read aardvark's comment. So never mind.