BNW is a deeper book than 1984 because with BNW the first task is to say why that world is even bad to begin with. BNW represents the logical conclusion of a philosophy in which happiness is the top priority. In my opinion it shows that happiness can not be the top priority of life, contrary to the propaganda of marketers and psychologists over the past century. Life is not inherently happy and the attempt to make it that way destroys it. One of the many paradoxes is that if you accept unhappiness and just get on with the job, greater happiness can follow.
I like both 1984 and BNW, for different reasons, so my comment is not directly related to those books; I'm simply growing somewhat frustrated of "happiness as an end-goal" being perceived as wrong, and that's certainly not the point either of those books were trying to make.
I agree that there has been a sickening amount of "feel-good" propaganda in the relatively recent past, in no small part thanks to the movie industry, but please note that this "feel-good" tendency and the true pursuit of happiness are two completely different things.
I'm under the impression, possibly wrongly, that a lot of people confuse instant gratification with happiness. Confusing the two is seeing the forest for the trees, like assuming sex is the same as love. Real happiness is deep-rooted, it isn't swayed easily, nor is it a direct consequence of transient events.
No real advocate of the pursuit of happiness has ever believed that life was inherently happy, however most think that life provides the conditions and the tools to make it happen. The subject has evidently been discussed ad nauseam, but I think Buddhism[1] covers the basics really well.
> One of the many paradoxes is that if you accept unhappiness and just get on with the job, greater happiness can follow.
Subsequently (and hopefully not being too pedantic) I don't think there is any paradox here, simply a misunderstanding on your part. I honestly don't think "unhappiness" should even be a word, there is "sadness", but even that is not a direct antonym of "happiness". In your sentence, replacing "unhappiness" with "trouble" (or "problems") shows that there is no paradox, simply a difference in scope(s) of understanding.
I'm not even sure any of this makes sense to anybody, it took a very long time for it to even make sense to myself.
[1] I'm not Buddhist, I just appreciate the teachings, like I do other beliefs.
“The Savage nodded, frowning. "You got rid of them. Yes, that's just like you. Getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it. Whether 'tis better in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows or outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them...But you don't do either. Neither suffer nor oppose. You just abolish the slings and arrows. It's too easy."
..."What you need," the Savage went on, "is something with tears for a change. Nothing costs enough here.”
The Savage's conversation with Mustapha Mond in chapter 17 has a lot of heady stuff. It feels like a modern Book of Ecclesiastes.
The whole book is thought-provoking, but chapter 17 in particular says something to modern society and our desire to constantly entertain ourselves. This is why to me Brave New World is more relevant today than 1984. We've all seen 1984 in real-life, through totalitarian states. Society as a whole rejects categorically the world of 1984. But engineered utopia of Brave New World is a lot closer than we realize, and in mass advertising and relentless consumerism, as a society we show a desire to accept it as devastating as it is to individualism and broader and nobler concerns.
I never quite understood was was 'dystopian' about Brave New World. A world in which everybody is happy and content with who they are and the circumstances they live in, how is that dystopian? He threw in some bad things (the people in the reserves, the people who didn't take their meds, the 'conditioning' of the children) but never really justified why they'd be necessary. All of them (and the 'orgy-porgies') were, I felt, added to be able to make the argument that the society he was portraying was morally wrong.
Boy oh boy. Well, the thing is it is a society that is completely in thrall to a system of basic pleasure orchestrated with the questionable justification that a life without real pleasure or pain is a better one. The people are oblivious to all art and real achievement, they have no desires and no ambitions, they create nothing and have no desire to, they feel no real emotions and all sex is mechanical, and they happily march to their own deaths at a certain age. If a vision of humanity as infinitely complacent, all advancement come to an end, a billion pampered babies with their unremarkable and entirely calculated lives engineered since before birth — if that doesn't strike you as a dystopia, an "inverted utopia" in which what is meant to be perfect is anything but, well brother, I don't know what should!
It's a shame that recombinantrecords.net has removed that from his site, even though it's original work, because lawyers sued him for using the title of a (good) book "Amusing Ourselves to Death". Then, 9GAG & other sites have no problems copying the content. It just goes to show you that you can't stop information flow. All you can do it stop legitimate players from controlling it.
I think the reality is a combination of the two. Most of the world (including the media) is so distracted by the entertainment trivia of Brave New World that almost no one cares about the 1984 surveillance/censorship world that is being constructed all around is.
Some of this stuff is expanded on in Huxley's forword to BNW[1], btw, written in 1947. I have always been fascinated by this assertion in it:
As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends compensatingly to increase.
He doesn't support this axiom in the forword (or this letter), and I've always wondered if anyone has ever written a compelling, historically-based, argument for this idea.
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 it's easier to miss the subtler ways that Huxley's predictions have been realized.
While I probably agree with you about the prison system, I dislike your graph. Using the absolute incarceration count is misleading, as the population has grown threefold since the 1920s. To put it differently, I could say that the there are 200 million more Americans out of prison now than there were in the 20s, so we must be better off now than before.
The next graph down on the wiki page is far more representative:
It actually makes your case stronger by showing a relatively flat line from the 20's through the 70's, indicating that this is really a recent trend. The other graph made it look like a historical inevitability, since the prison population is always increasing.
I'm not convinced by the thesis that sexual freedom is inversely related to political and economic freedom, but if you were to chart virtually any of indicator "sexual freedom" over the same time period as that graph of prison population the trend line would certainly be moving in the same direction.[1] Same goes for "level of alarm at the apparent 'decadence' of modern society expressed by economically poorer and religiously strict cultures" which is a pretty major theme in the book.
For all Brave New World's glib exaggeration for comic effect, I'd argue that anticipating sexual liberation (and mass consumerism and distraction-based mass media strategy) was a far more perceptive view of the future than Orwell's ideological slavery. Whatever the intended or actual psychological effects of the "War on Drugs" may be, those prison sentences certainly aren't an Orwellian attempt to unite the population in support of the executive.
Then again, Huxley was satirising what he perceived as relatively novel trends emerging in the United States whereas Orwell directed his ire at the Soviet Union, fascism and highlighted tendencies present in virtually every other authoritarian state that had gone before.
I think both sides of it go hand in hand. The government is only having such an easy time of going Orwellian on us because we've become so Huxlian and easily distracted.
I think both Orwell and Huxley had some extremely prescient insight on the future, and I personally felt that we have come to somewhat of an Orwellian time period, although a lot of Huxley's predictions will be seen in the long term future as well.
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 world felt more real to me, like it could have been brought about by real political circumstances. The system itself is evolved around the principle that whatever improves control survives. It feels like a political system that has devolved into its current state with the original vision or rhetoric of the ideology that brought it about remaining as a vestige, like Marxism in China.
Huxley's world feels a little more fake to me. It's like some political genius designed it head to tail and things went ahead as planned. It's like Canberra (If you go there, you'll see what I mean). That makes it feel more like a made up word to me, inorganic.
Orwell's "mechanisms," training society to gradually train their minds using language, euphemism, historical revisionism, social penalties for bad thought patterns and as much control over what people see & hear as possible… it feels real to me. We see that stuff at work now as Orwell saw it in his time. It feels possible, though I think Winston's are inevitable too. Euphemisms to control thought is stronger today than it was in Orwell's time.
Huxely's mechanisms of Soma, infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis feel less real. I can't count that against the author or the book though. Brave New World is distant future. That's inevitably more fantastical and less realistic. I think he's right though about using pleasantness over direct confrontation. Humans are pleasure seeking and denied pleasure, there will always be a force of instability.
The point where 1984 slips ahead though is the book-in-the-book 'The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, by Emmanuel Goldstein.' In particular, 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. I don't know if it's some of my earliest political exposure being socialist, but that just rings true to me. I see it today. Statistically, classes are fairly rigid, but individually, they are malleable.
I'm very biased though I think 1984 is one of the most important books I read as a teenager. It shaped how I saw things.
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 digest them one at a time, rather than instantly find the history and connections and evidence and counter-arguments for an idea as we can now.
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.
I think the problem with Huxleys predictions come from his not realizing how blunt an instrument narcotics are... Fine work and subtle tweaks are beyond our power (just look at the side effects)... Using drugs to adjust personality is like using a sledgehammer to rearrange porcelain figurines. Not that we might not get there of course.... but we'll have many years of boots stomping on faces in the interim.
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 caste system propped up by genetic engineering. These don't just require advances in technology but also a surprising level of social organization. Where 1984 feels like a continuous progression from a Soviet Union that never collapsed, these core parts of Brave New World comes of as discontinuous, a jump both socially and technically.
And without these extreme social and technical changes, it stops being a dystopia. 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—a radical departure from our current almost Puritan work ethic and our obsession with certain abstractions (the poorly defined "real vs superficial", "honor", "the dignity of work"¹...etc) sounds like just what we need.
I like giving people what they want, even if I think it's shallow or superficial. Then again, I've never been one to treat hedonism as a bad word.
That cartoon people like to pass around really captures my thoughts—in a way that's opposite to its intended message! It shows how some of the believable things in Brave New World are believable, but never shows why they're bad. It just assumes, and ties into cultural ideas (like "hard work is good" or "your life must have meaning") that many people don't question. But it misses the mark because it ignores the parts that are not plausible but actually created the dystopian environment.
The cartoon (much more than the book itself) is 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. And hey, I don't disagree per se—I think most popular distractions are shallow and have much better alternatives—but I also think there's nothing inherently wrong with enjoying them. I mean, I follow the news, I care about recent events and where does it get me? Nowhere. I guess I could vote² a bit better, but all it's done is sour me on all major candidates. Is this meaningfully better than comfortable ignorance? No, but people tell me it is. And here I am.
Really, Brave New World minus the implausible bits and with a larger dash of individual freedom thrown in is pretty much as far from dystopian as it can get. Radical, certainly, and jarring—very different from our current social order—but fundamentally good. It feels like it's just a few exaggerated risks thrown in to make leisure and entertainment seem crass and indolent. 1984, on the other hand, doesn't feel all that different from my parents' tales about the Soviet Union.
I know which one I'm more afraid of!
footnotes
¹ I've always really disliked this phrase. It's one part rationalization and one part a way to keep people down and working even if they don't want to. Doing something menial or boring or easily automatable just for the sake of working is not my picture of dignity!
² Haha, no I can't, because I'm not a citizen. So I'd have to become a citizen first. It doesn't matter, but it is annoying.
"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.
> 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. These don't just require advances in technology but also a surprising level of social organization. Where 1984 feels like a continuous progression from a Soviet Union that never collapsed, these core parts of Brave New World comes of as discontinuous, a jump both socially and technically.
These seems like crazy steps in our modern society, but keep in mind, Huxley was writing this in 1931. Eugenics were something readily embraced by the upper classes. The Soviet Union gravitated towards the totalitarian state it was, but at that time, it wouldn't have been crazy to imagine a government (imagine a less jingoistic Germany, with all the creativity and efficiency), creating something very much like what Huxley envisions. In fact, had the West not had the ongoing competition with the totalitarian Soviet Union, the capitalist impulses could have merged with a much larger government, and the United States, or Continental European powers could have turned into something like that. Constant conflict both militarily and ideologically may have been the only thing that prevented it.
> 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.
You may be right, but that's probably not fair to Huxley. In writing his book, he was speaking directly to his readers, trying to convince them that they were not so different from the utopia which he mocks.
> And hey, I don't disagree per se—I think most popular distractions are shallow and have much better alternatives—but I also think there's nothing inherently wrong with enjoying them. I mean, I follow the news, I care about recent events and where does it get me? Nowhere. I guess I could vote² a bit better, but all it's done is sour me on all major candidates. Is this meaningfully better than comfortable ignorance? No, but people tell me it is. And here I am.
But here's the thing. At that stage, you have two choices. Either realize that our societies are flawed and struggle to do something about it, whether you can turn the tide or not, or take the soma, act like the world is okay (in the West, or own small worlds often are perfectly fine), and do nothing. What is disconcerting about our society, and similar to Brave New World, is apathy and consumerism have caused a lot of people (not necessarily you), to fall into the latter column, which could very easily lead to 1984.
> Really, Brave New World minus the implausible bits and with a larger dash of individual freedom thrown in is pretty much as far from dystopian as it can get. Radical, certainly, and jarring—very different from our current social order—but fundamentally good.
And that's why Brave New World is far more frightening: an educated, intelligent person looks at it now and thinks, 'that's not so bad!'
I think comparing Brave New World to 1984 misses a bit of the point. The books came out near each other and deal with similar themes, so they very often get compared to each other. But they are also significant and important books in isolation.
Yes, BNW is a better dystopia to live in than 1984. But... it's still a dystopia. Free thinkers are socially ostracized, personal preferences (outside a certain set) are ignored, personal destiny is decided at conception (one case where the world of 1984 is preferable). It's a shocking world, and one that I wouldn't want to live in.
And inevitably, the discussion revolves around the fact that it's not as bad as 1984. As if "actually only the second-worst dystopia in classic fiction" is anything but damning.
Having a dystopia-off distracts from a significant part of the value that these works have to us as members of a society: There is more than one road to hell (and more than one hell to reach). 1984 shows an example of a possible future, why it is bad, and how it got that way. BNW shows an example of a very different future, why it is bad, and (less clearly) how it got that way. They give useful common ideas for possible outcomes of current actions. While BNW is preferable to 1984, it still shows that avoiding a 1984 outcome as hard as you can is not enough because there are other ways that freedom can be destroyed. To simply say "I would prefer my freedom be destroyed in one of these two ways" is not the most useful thing one can take away from reading these two books.
> 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.
> 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..)
I rather like this interpretation, actually. But I'm still going to try disagreeing.
Speaking more broadly, Orwell portrays a world where the freedoms of people are forcibly oppressed, whereas Huxley portrays a world where they are willingly oppressed. The people in Brave New World are more caught up in (what Huxley might call) a shallow culture, disinterested in the real world. This view does not seem so far fetched after all. Looking at the modern world, how easy it is to turn a blind eye to the troubles of far off countries when you are living in relative comfort?
Fahrenheit 451 is interesting novel to consider from this point of view as well, as I think it portrays a middle ground between these two extremes.
"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."
I think your main point is wrong. It might be that some of the technological advancements are still (73 years after it was written) unrealistic, but they are not what makes the world 'bad': They are just tools to bring the ideas about caste and class to their extremes, and make them clearer that way.
I would agree though that not all aspects of the 'dystopian world' are bad, and it's very interesting to read his utopian book Island, that definitely embraces drug and hedonism, but in a different way.
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."
I've always believed that Huxley was closer in regards to the wealthy and upper middle class of society, whereas Orwell's predictions appear to line up better with the experiences of the poor and lower middle.
I think Huxley hit some interesting notes for those with lower income levels, especially if you consider consider cheap entertainment and junk food to be opiates. As far as sexual mores, marriage rates are at an all-time low, and pornography is basically free.
Something I realized only recently regarding Brave New World and 1984: the former is a criticism of its own society, that is, Western commercialism, capitalism, entertainment, and escapism. The latter is a criticism of the other society, that is, Soviet Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist Communism.
From the point of view that criticism of your own enemy is often far easier to swallow than criticism of yourself, it isn't quite so surprising that 1984 is the more popular and better-known work.
Both are tremendously prescient.
As noted elsewhere in comments, Neil Postman, particularly Amusing Ourselves to Death, continues Huxley's critique. Postman himself is very strongly influenced by (and studied under) Marshall McLuhan. You'll also find this theme in Jason Benlevi's Too Much Magic, and other more recent works.
The foreword to _Amusing Ourselves to Death_ (which I haven't read otherwise) does a fair job of comparing _Brave New World_ and _Nineteen Eighty-Four_:
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.
I think the central thesis of BNW, insofar as it is relevant to western societies and their possible futures, is that escapism is bad in excess.
In the information age, access to entertainment is utterly unfettered, and it's shockingly easy at times to get caught in a dopamine loop (example: Zynga, candy crush). While this is, I believe, a valid concern, I find the conspiratorial aspects a little absurd. Claims that this is orchestrated specifically to prevent the unwashed masses seizing power describe such an undertaking so as to be unfeasible. We're in this position due to very, very, rapid changes in technology that as a society, we have yet to fully adapt to and understand.
I have always liked this excerpt from the video game Deus Ex. It to me foreshadows where the security state seems to be heading
---
When one maniac can wipe out a city of twenty million with a microbe developed
in his basement, a new approach to law enforcement becomes necessary. Every
citizen in the world must be placed under surveillance. That means sky-cams at
every intersection, computer-mediated analysis of every phone call, e-mail, and
snail-mail, and a purely electronic economy in which every transaction is
recorded and data-mined for suspicious activity.
We are close to achieving this goal. Some would say that human liberty has been
compromised, but the reality is just the opposite. As surveillance expands,
people become free from danger, free to walk alone at night, free to work in a
safe place, and free to buy any legal product or service without the threat of
fraud. One day every man and woman will quietly earn credits, purchase items for
quiet homes on quiet streets, have cook-outs with neighbors and strangers alike,
and sleep with doors and windows wide open. If that isn't the tranquil dream of
every free civilization throughout history, what is?
-- Anna Navarre, Agent, UNATCO
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.
> 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!
Orwell'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.
"Within the next generation I believe that the world's rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience."
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.
Sadly, we are learning this is not an either-or proposition: it's perfectly logical that some elements of society will seek to narcoticize us while others worry about increasing our surveillance and control.
And the worst part? Both of these elements do these things because we ask them to.
[+] [-] wmnwmn|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grownseed|11 years ago|reply
I agree that there has been a sickening amount of "feel-good" propaganda in the relatively recent past, in no small part thanks to the movie industry, but please note that this "feel-good" tendency and the true pursuit of happiness are two completely different things.
I'm under the impression, possibly wrongly, that a lot of people confuse instant gratification with happiness. Confusing the two is seeing the forest for the trees, like assuming sex is the same as love. Real happiness is deep-rooted, it isn't swayed easily, nor is it a direct consequence of transient events.
No real advocate of the pursuit of happiness has ever believed that life was inherently happy, however most think that life provides the conditions and the tools to make it happen. The subject has evidently been discussed ad nauseam, but I think Buddhism[1] covers the basics really well.
> One of the many paradoxes is that if you accept unhappiness and just get on with the job, greater happiness can follow.
Subsequently (and hopefully not being too pedantic) I don't think there is any paradox here, simply a misunderstanding on your part. I honestly don't think "unhappiness" should even be a word, there is "sadness", but even that is not a direct antonym of "happiness". In your sentence, replacing "unhappiness" with "trouble" (or "problems") shows that there is no paradox, simply a difference in scope(s) of understanding.
I'm not even sure any of this makes sense to anybody, it took a very long time for it to even make sense to myself.
[1] I'm not Buddhist, I just appreciate the teachings, like I do other beliefs.
[+] [-] aaron-lebo|11 years ago|reply
..."What you need," the Savage went on, "is something with tears for a change. Nothing costs enough here.”
The Savage's conversation with Mustapha Mond in chapter 17 has a lot of heady stuff. It feels like a modern Book of Ecclesiastes.
The whole book is thought-provoking, but chapter 17 in particular says something to modern society and our desire to constantly entertain ourselves. This is why to me Brave New World is more relevant today than 1984. We've all seen 1984 in real-life, through totalitarian states. Society as a whole rejects categorically the world of 1984. But engineered utopia of Brave New World is a lot closer than we realize, and in mass advertising and relentless consumerism, as a society we show a desire to accept it as devastating as it is to individualism and broader and nobler concerns.
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3204877-brave-new-worl...
[+] [-] genghisjahn|11 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqaNi0UfOoI
[+] [-] roel_v|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devindotcom|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aprdm|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnvschmitt|11 years ago|reply
It's a shame that recombinantrecords.net has removed that from his site, even though it's original work, because lawyers sued him for using the title of a (good) book "Amusing Ourselves to Death". Then, 9GAG & other sites have no problems copying the content. It just goes to show you that you can't stop information flow. All you can do it stop legitimate players from controlling it.
[+] [-] myth_buster|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gojomo|11 years ago|reply
http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourse...
...but was apparently taken down due at the copyright holders' request. More on the book:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
[+] [-] prof_hobart|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] efa|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OGC|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] stormbrew|11 years ago|reply
Some of this stuff is expanded on in Huxley's forword to BNW[1], btw, written in 1947. I have always been fascinated by this assertion in it:
He doesn't support this axiom in the forword (or this letter), and I've always wondered if anyone has ever written a compelling, historically-based, argument for this idea.[1] http://www.wealthandwant.com/auth/Huxley.html
[+] [-] bpodgursky|11 years ago|reply
Not scientific in the slightest, I just think it's easier to miss the subtler ways that Huxley's predictions have been realized.
[+] [-] rprospero|11 years ago|reply
The next graph down on the wiki page is far more representative:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/U.S...
It actually makes your case stronger by showing a relatively flat line from the 20's through the 70's, indicating that this is really a recent trend. The other graph made it look like a historical inevitability, since the prison population is always increasing.
[+] [-] notahacker|11 years ago|reply
For all Brave New World's glib exaggeration for comic effect, I'd argue that anticipating sexual liberation (and mass consumerism and distraction-based mass media strategy) was a far more perceptive view of the future than Orwell's ideological slavery. Whatever the intended or actual psychological effects of the "War on Drugs" may be, those prison sentences certainly aren't an Orwellian attempt to unite the population in support of the executive. Then again, Huxley was satirising what he perceived as relatively novel trends emerging in the United States whereas Orwell directed his ire at the Soviet Union, fascism and highlighted tendencies present in virtually every other authoritarian state that had gone before.
[+] [-] delecti|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krrishd|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] netcan|11 years ago|reply
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 world felt more real to me, like it could have been brought about by real political circumstances. The system itself is evolved around the principle that whatever improves control survives. It feels like a political system that has devolved into its current state with the original vision or rhetoric of the ideology that brought it about remaining as a vestige, like Marxism in China.
Huxley's world feels a little more fake to me. It's like some political genius designed it head to tail and things went ahead as planned. It's like Canberra (If you go there, you'll see what I mean). That makes it feel more like a made up word to me, inorganic.
Orwell's "mechanisms," training society to gradually train their minds using language, euphemism, historical revisionism, social penalties for bad thought patterns and as much control over what people see & hear as possible… it feels real to me. We see that stuff at work now as Orwell saw it in his time. It feels possible, though I think Winston's are inevitable too. Euphemisms to control thought is stronger today than it was in Orwell's time.
Huxely's mechanisms of Soma, infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis feel less real. I can't count that against the author or the book though. Brave New World is distant future. That's inevitably more fantastical and less realistic. I think he's right though about using pleasantness over direct confrontation. Humans are pleasure seeking and denied pleasure, there will always be a force of instability.
The point where 1984 slips ahead though is the book-in-the-book 'The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, by Emmanuel Goldstein.' In particular, 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. I don't know if it's some of my earliest political exposure being socialist, but that just rings true to me. I see it today. Statistically, classes are fairly rigid, but individually, they are malleable.
I'm very biased though I think 1984 is one of the most important books I read as a teenager. It shaped how I saw things.
[+] [-] codeulike|11 years ago|reply
I feel sorry for past thinkers who could only stumble upon ideas from books and digest them one at a time, rather than instantly find the history and connections and evidence and counter-arguments for an idea as we can now.
[+] [-] monochr|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dicroce|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tikhonj|11 years ago|reply
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. These don't just require advances in technology but also a surprising level of social organization. Where 1984 feels like a continuous progression from a Soviet Union that never collapsed, these core parts of Brave New World comes of as discontinuous, a jump both socially and technically.
And without these extreme social and technical changes, it stops being a dystopia. 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—a radical departure from our current almost Puritan work ethic and our obsession with certain abstractions (the poorly defined "real vs superficial", "honor", "the dignity of work"¹...etc) sounds like just what we need.
I like giving people what they want, even if I think it's shallow or superficial. Then again, I've never been one to treat hedonism as a bad word.
That cartoon people like to pass around really captures my thoughts—in a way that's opposite to its intended message! It shows how some of the believable things in Brave New World are believable, but never shows why they're bad. It just assumes, and ties into cultural ideas (like "hard work is good" or "your life must have meaning") that many people don't question. But it misses the mark because it ignores the parts that are not plausible but actually created the dystopian environment.
The cartoon (much more than the book itself) is 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. And hey, I don't disagree per se—I think most popular distractions are shallow and have much better alternatives—but I also think there's nothing inherently wrong with enjoying them. I mean, I follow the news, I care about recent events and where does it get me? Nowhere. I guess I could vote² a bit better, but all it's done is sour me on all major candidates. Is this meaningfully better than comfortable ignorance? No, but people tell me it is. And here I am.
Really, Brave New World minus the implausible bits and with a larger dash of individual freedom thrown in is pretty much as far from dystopian as it can get. Radical, certainly, and jarring—very different from our current social order—but fundamentally good. It feels like it's just a few exaggerated risks thrown in to make leisure and entertainment seem crass and indolent. 1984, on the other hand, doesn't feel all that different from my parents' tales about the Soviet Union.
I know which one I'm more afraid of!
footnotes
¹ I've always really disliked this phrase. It's one part rationalization and one part a way to keep people down and working even if they don't want to. Doing something menial or boring or easily automatable just for the sake of working is not my picture of dignity!
² Haha, no I can't, because I'm not a citizen. So I'd have to become a citizen first. It doesn't matter, but it is annoying.
[+] [-] jonnathanson|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] aaron-lebo|11 years ago|reply
These seems like crazy steps in our modern society, but keep in mind, Huxley was writing this in 1931. Eugenics were something readily embraced by the upper classes. The Soviet Union gravitated towards the totalitarian state it was, but at that time, it wouldn't have been crazy to imagine a government (imagine a less jingoistic Germany, with all the creativity and efficiency), creating something very much like what Huxley envisions. In fact, had the West not had the ongoing competition with the totalitarian Soviet Union, the capitalist impulses could have merged with a much larger government, and the United States, or Continental European powers could have turned into something like that. Constant conflict both militarily and ideologically may have been the only thing that prevented it.
> 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.
You may be right, but that's probably not fair to Huxley. In writing his book, he was speaking directly to his readers, trying to convince them that they were not so different from the utopia which he mocks.
> And hey, I don't disagree per se—I think most popular distractions are shallow and have much better alternatives—but I also think there's nothing inherently wrong with enjoying them. I mean, I follow the news, I care about recent events and where does it get me? Nowhere. I guess I could vote² a bit better, but all it's done is sour me on all major candidates. Is this meaningfully better than comfortable ignorance? No, but people tell me it is. And here I am.
But here's the thing. At that stage, you have two choices. Either realize that our societies are flawed and struggle to do something about it, whether you can turn the tide or not, or take the soma, act like the world is okay (in the West, or own small worlds often are perfectly fine), and do nothing. What is disconcerting about our society, and similar to Brave New World, is apathy and consumerism have caused a lot of people (not necessarily you), to fall into the latter column, which could very easily lead to 1984.
[+] [-] wtbob|11 years ago|reply
And that's why Brave New World is far more frightening: an educated, intelligent person looks at it now and thinks, 'that's not so bad!'
[+] [-] lmkg|11 years ago|reply
Yes, BNW is a better dystopia to live in than 1984. But... it's still a dystopia. Free thinkers are socially ostracized, personal preferences (outside a certain set) are ignored, personal destiny is decided at conception (one case where the world of 1984 is preferable). It's a shocking world, and one that I wouldn't want to live in.
And inevitably, the discussion revolves around the fact that it's not as bad as 1984. As if "actually only the second-worst dystopia in classic fiction" is anything but damning.
Having a dystopia-off distracts from a significant part of the value that these works have to us as members of a society: There is more than one road to hell (and more than one hell to reach). 1984 shows an example of a possible future, why it is bad, and how it got that way. BNW shows an example of a very different future, why it is bad, and (less clearly) how it got that way. They give useful common ideas for possible outcomes of current actions. While BNW is preferable to 1984, it still shows that avoiding a 1984 outcome as hard as you can is not enough because there are other ways that freedom can be destroyed. To simply say "I would prefer my freedom be destroyed in one of these two ways" is not the most useful thing one can take away from reading these two books.
[+] [-] onan_barbarian|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] mindslight|11 years ago|reply
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..)
[+] [-] seccess|11 years ago|reply
Speaking more broadly, Orwell portrays a world where the freedoms of people are forcibly oppressed, whereas Huxley portrays a world where they are willingly oppressed. The people in Brave New World are more caught up in (what Huxley might call) a shallow culture, disinterested in the real world. This view does not seem so far fetched after all. Looking at the modern world, how easy it is to turn a blind eye to the troubles of far off countries when you are living in relative comfort?
Fahrenheit 451 is interesting novel to consider from this point of view as well, as I think it portrays a middle ground between these two extremes.
[+] [-] scottlocklin|11 years ago|reply
"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."
[+] [-] jb17|11 years ago|reply
I would agree though that not all aspects of the 'dystopian world' are bad, and it's very interesting to read his utopian book Island, that definitely embraces drug and hedonism, but in a different way.
[+] [-] spiritomb|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cconcepts|11 years ago|reply
Are they not realistic to us because we already exist in a kind of Huxleyan dystopia and therefore we simply perceive them as not bad?
[+] [-] barrkel|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DontBeADick|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vikingo|11 years ago|reply
"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...
[+] [-] hiou|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] humanrebar|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredmorbius|11 years ago|reply
From the point of view that criticism of your own enemy is often far easier to swallow than criticism of yourself, it isn't quite so surprising that 1984 is the more popular and better-known work.
Both are tremendously prescient.
As noted elsewhere in comments, Neil Postman, particularly Amusing Ourselves to Death, continues Huxley's critique. Postman himself is very strongly influenced by (and studied under) Marshall McLuhan. You'll also find this theme in Jason Benlevi's Too Much Magic, and other more recent works.
[+] [-] a3_nm|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] chiaro|11 years ago|reply
In the information age, access to entertainment is utterly unfettered, and it's shockingly easy at times to get caught in a dopamine loop (example: Zynga, candy crush). While this is, I believe, a valid concern, I find the conspiratorial aspects a little absurd. Claims that this is orchestrated specifically to prevent the unwashed masses seizing power describe such an undertaking so as to be unfeasible. We're in this position due to very, very, rapid changes in technology that as a society, we have yet to fully adapt to and understand.
[+] [-] paypaul|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] programmarchy|11 years ago|reply
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!
[+] [-] javajosh|11 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] billgraham|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hyperion2010|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vvpan|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|11 years ago|reply
And the worst part? Both of these elements do these things because we ask them to.