Huxley or Orwell?

[Dr.reid_16]

in their books, Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) and George Orwell (1984) both authors tried to predict what was going to happen to humanity, basically. Both men had terrific opinions, but I'm leaning more towards Aldous Huxley because he wrote about exactly what's going on now. Here's a link that pretty much explains it clearer than I can, check it out, and let me know what you think! :)


http://wallbase.cc/wallpaper/659345

[marcolfo]

I think it depends on what part of the world you live.
if you live in the US of course you will think Huxley´s future seem smore accurate, but if you live say in Libya, Orwell´s seems more plausible.

[PeterL]

Huxley was a much more intelligent and thoughtful man. In many ways he was right. 1984 was somewhat overdone, but it many ways it is very close to the mark. He was off on the year, but he was right about government intrusion into private matters and about the perpetual war. Huxley was a better writer, but his opinions have not yet happened, while Orwell'sview only misses on two-way, mural TV in every room, whether or not you want it.

[prickly_pete]

The above posted is correct I think. Orwell was more worried about government infringements on personal liberty. Huxley realized that big government is just a minor issue in comparison to the massive loss of freedom and dignity caused by the industrial revolution.

[Syd A]

Orwell was also right about the language. Torture is not torture if you call it an interrogation technique; theft is not theft if you call it taxation; slavery is not slavery if you call it conscription; murder victims are not murder victims if you call them collateral damage, etc. Newspeak can justify anything.

Both works were great, but Orwell was so right on so many things that I'd have to go with him.

[endgame]

in italy we live as winston. our government is a sort of big brother that uses the thought police .. so i think orwell was right

[cyberbob]

Orwell. Not even close.

[Dark Muse]

That was quite an interesting little comparison which was both amusing and frightening at the same time. In truth I have to say that I do think there are examples of both within the world. And I do think that there are some Orwelleque things taking place within the United States.

[prickly_pete]

Orwell. Not even close.

Honestly I can't see how Huxley isn't a more radical and original thinker. Orwell questioned totalitarianism and social injustice - pretty easy targets. Huxley questioned the entire basis for modern technological life - something almost nobody had or has since been willing to seriously do.

[stlukesguild]

What is so original about Orwell? He took half of his damn novel from Yevgeny Zamyatin's We

[Ole Miss Rebel]

Huxley and Orwell are both excellent at portraying dysphoric worlds and advocating their political opinions. However, I feel you're asking: "Which writer's prophecy, Huxley's Brave New World or Orwell's 1984, holds true today?" To that question, I answer Huxley.

Huxley was able to critically analyze modern society and suggested that our way of life will cause dysphoria. He suggests that the society and neurochemistry of man itself (the pleasure of the drug) is responsible for our demise; not simply an obtuse government.

Orwell demonstrated an outlandish prison planet, a clear warning of what could happen under complete totalitarianism but these ideas weren't too hard to come up with, especially with World War II in 1984's wake. However, I don't think anyone could have written these ideas with as much fluidity as Orwell.

You can use concepts from both authors and apply them deftly to today's circumstances.

[OrphanPip]

Huxley questioned the entire basis for modern technological life - something almost nobody had or has since been willing to seriously do.

That's not really true, otherwise we wouldn't have had Luddites, Amish or Metanites. Huxley's ideas are not groundbreaking, it is merely in dialogue with the scientific Utopian Victorian works, particularly Welles' Men Like Gods.

However, you can find criticism of scientific Utopianism amongst other Victorians, like Stevenson and Arnold.

And the glut of anti-technological/scientific post-modernist writings that followed the war makes the idea almost a trite cliche these days.

I would also contend that authors who have actually studied and debated how technology is affecting us now in the present, like McLuhan or Baudrillard, are probably more important critics of this sort than Huxley. He reaches a broader audience through high school classes though.

[Panglossian]

I like the cartoon, though the word feared is over-used. There's aspects of both authors' ideas in society - then again, does art imitate life or does life imitate art...

[G L Wilson]

I like the cartoon, though the word feared is over-used. There's aspects of both authors' ideas in society - then again, does art imitate life or does life imitate art...

I would say to that question that art imitates life, first and foremost.

[Gregory Samsa]

What is so original about Orwell? He took half of his damn novel from Yevgeny Zamyatin's We

Have you read We? It's Huxley who took from We.

"I cheerfully ripped off the plot of Brave New World, whose plot had been cheerfully ripped off from Yevgeny Zamyatin's We." - Kurt Vonnegut.

[G L Wilson]

Have you read We? It's Huxley who took from We.

"I cheerfully ripped off the plot of Brave New World, whose plot had been cheerfully ripped off from Yevgeny Zamyatin's We." - Kurt Vonnegut.

No-one ripped off anyone, they're all originals.

[logophile]

No-one ripped off anyone, they're all originals.

^ I agree with this sentiment. Each book has its own positives and negatives. To be honest, I don't see much point in pinning either book up against modern society, because regardless of if they were correct or incorrect in their predictions, they don't deal with the issue of how to escape from the fairly grim futures they depict. What amazes me is the amount of people who constantly talk about "Big Brother Society" and how frighteningly accurate Orwell/Huxley's depictions of the future were, and yet they don't do a thing about it. If we are living in the bleak dystopian future they both wrote about, and everyone agrees on the point (which for a start would contradict 1984, since the majority of the population seemed content and unaware of their slavery) then do something about it.

[Emil Miller]

Without getting into the long-standing debate on who originated what with reference to these novels, I would say that Neil Postman's argument is more accurate than his opponents. The cartoons given as illustration to his viewpoint are a compelling reproduction of the way we live now, where the Pavlovian response to trivia is self-evident to those who bother to observe it.
Orwell has been proven wrong insofar as his satire on the Soviet Union is concerned although its mirror image, globalisation, has replaced communism as a major threat to individual liberty and thought.

[prickly_pete]

That's not really true, otherwise we wouldn't have had Luddites, Amish or Metanites.

Oh how could I forget that Amish and the Metanites. What a powerful voice they have in our society lol

[G L Wilson]

Why does it have to be either/or? Why can Huxley and Orwell not both be right?

[OrphanPip]

Oh how could I forget that Amish and the Metanites. What a powerful voice they have in our society lol

I'm sorry, but you said almost no one has questioned these things. I pointed out that can not be true because there are very obvious examples of large groups of people basing their entire lifestyles on questioning those things. Moreover, I included other authors, and pointed out that the idea is not rare, before or after Huxley.

Huxley only approaches being a powerful voice, in that his works has been interpolated by high school teachers everywhere since the 1970s. Far more people have read Huxley uncritically than those who have approached him as an adult and read the book seriously.

[G L Wilson]

I'm sorry, but you said almost no one has questioned these things. I pointed out that can not be true because there are very obvious examples of large groups of people basing their entire lifestyles on questioning those things. Moreover, I included other authors, and pointed out that the idea is not rare, before or after Huxley.

Huxley only approaches being a powerful voice, in that his works has been interpolated by high school teachers everywhere since the 1970s. Far more people have read Huxley uncritically than those who have approached him as an adult and read the book seriously.

What's to criticise? The man was right.

[prickly_pete]

I'm sorry, but you said almost no one has questioned these things. I pointed out that can not be true because there are very obvious examples of large groups of people basing their entire lifestyles on questioning those things. Moreover, I included other authors, and pointed out that the idea is not rare, before or after Huxley.

There's less than 200,000 Amish folks living in the United States and Canada. But sure, Huxley is not the only Luddite and wasn't the first Luddite and probably wouldn't even consider himself a Luddite, but at any rate I can't see how taking a profounding anti-technological stance isn't a radical position to hold in this day in age.

Orwell on the other hand was basically anti-totalitarian which, I think, is something almost everyone can agree on. An anti-technology stance, I think, folks would find a lot more difficulty coping with.

[stlukesguild]

Have you read We? It's Huxley who took from We.

"I cheerfully ripped off the plot of Brave New World, whose plot had been cheerfully ripped off from Yevgeny Zamyatin's We." - Kurt Vonnegut.

It appears I might ask the same question of you... and Kurt Vonnegut.


It is a book in which one man, living in a totalitarian society a number of years in the future, gradually finds himself rebelling against the dehumanising forces of an omnipotent, omniscient dictator. Encouraged by a woman who seems to represent the political and sexual freedom of the pre-revolutionary era (and with whom he sleeps in an ancient house that is one of the few manifestations of a former world), he writes down his thoughts of rebellion – perhaps rather imprudently – as a 24-hour clock ticks in his grim, lonely flat. In the end, the system discovers both the man and the woman, and after a period of physical and mental trauma the protagonist discovers he loves the state that has oppressed him throughout, and betrays his fellow rebels. The story is intended as a warning against and a prediction of the natural conclusions of totalitarianism.

This is a description of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, which was first published 60 years ago on Monday. But it is also the plot of Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, a Russian novel originally published in English in 1924...

Orwell reviewed We for Tribune in 1946, three years before he published Nineteen Eighty-Four. In his review, he called Zamyatin's book an influence on Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, though Huxley always denied anything of the sort. "It is in effect a study of the Machine," Orwell wrote of We, "the genie that man has thoughtlessly let out of its bottle and cannot put back again. This is a book to look out for when an English version appears." He seems to have taken his own advice.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/jun/08/george-orwell-1984-zamyatin-we

"Tomorrow I'll see the same sight that's repeated from one year to the next, bringing new excitement each time: the mighty chalice of harmony, the people's arms reverently uplifted. Tomorrow is the day for the annual election of the Benefactor. Tomorrow we once more place the keys to the unshakeable fortress of our happiness into the hands of the Benefactor."

The words could have come from a public information minister in Iraq, but didn't. No, those are the words of the protagonist of a novel set in the future, in the twenty-sixth century, in the standardized land of OneState, but one that was written well before anyone had ever heard of Saddam Hussein.

The passage continues,"It goes without saying that this has no resemblance to the disorderly, unorganized elections in ancient times, when -- it's hard to say this with a straight face -- they couldn't even tell before the election how it would come out. To establish a state on the basis of absolutely unpredictable randomness blindly -- could there be anything more idiotic?"

The voice is that of the narrator D-503, in We, the dsytopian novel written by Yevgeny Zamyatin, a Russian naval architect who completed his masterpiece in 1921. We was soon translated into the languages of the world, yet not published in Zamyatin's homeland until 1988.

Zamyatin (1884-1937) had the honor, if it could be called that, of being exiled by both the tsarist and the Stalinist regimes. Concerned with the surrendering of the individual to some monstrous collective utopia of technology, in many ways, Zamyatin's work appeared before its time. In fact, George Orwell acknowledged his debt to Zamyatin for providing the inspiration to write 1984.

http://hnn.us/articles/1098.html

George Orwell, the author of 1984 acknowledged his debt to Zamyatin. The other great English dystopia of our time, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, was evidently written out of the same impulse, though without direct knowledge of Zamyatin's We.

-We- Yevgeny Zamyatin (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) tr. and introduction by Clarence Brown

[prickly_pete]

I think Huxley was more aware of the fact that in order to even have a totalitarian state you need a massive transportation and communications apparatus that can only exist with the necessary technological base.

[G L Wilson]

I think Huxley was more aware of the fact that in order to even have a totalitarian state you need a massive transportation and communications apparatus that can only exist with the necessary technological base.

In fact, total war has only become possible in modern times.

[Alexander III]

In fact, total war has only become possible in modern times.

Have to disagree, Romans did Total War quite often with bitter enemies who would not surrender (e.g Carthage)


As for ripping of previous literature, well thats the bread and butter of most writers throughout the ages.

[G L Wilson]

Have to disagree, Romans did Total War quite often with bitter enemies who would not surrender (e.g Carthage)

Quite right.


As for ripping of previous literature, well thats the bread and butter of most writers throughout the ages.

Quite right again. You are making a habit out of showing me up, Alexander III, I wish you would stop as it does my ego no good at all.

[Heteronym]

Have to disagree, Romans did Total War quite often with bitter enemies who would not surrender (e.g Carthage)


As for ripping of previous literature, well thats the bread and butter of most writers throughout the ages.

I think it's worth distinguishing total war from perpetual war. Carthage was a real enemy to Rome's plans of expansion. It was localised, it had borders and a regular enemy, and so the Romans could wage a war against it. They annihilated it and that was it, life returned to normal.

This was normal warfare. It's quite different from today's perpetual war of creating and maintaining an atmosphere of fear, keeping the army on the alert and the population terrified about a vague, invisible enemy that doesn't have a homeland, an army, a face. It's an enemy that you can keep fighting forever without a real victory, since your objective is not victory but the subjugation of your own population through fear, appeased only with periodical small successes (which may be true or false).

[Heteronym]

Orwell was also right about the language. Torture is not torture if you call it an interrogation technique; theft is not theft if you call it taxation; slavery is not slavery if you call it conscription; murder victims are not murder victims if you call them collateral damage, etc. Newspeak can justify anything.

Of course torture is torture if you call it interrogation techniques. Euphemisms aren't magical spells that cloud peoples' judgements. The fact that you are here writing that you're conscious that interrogation techniques are just a cover for torture shows they haven't managed to fool you.

The fact is there will be always be people who think critically and people who believe everything they're told. There's nothing sinister about it, you don't have to invoke Newspeak to explain it. These euphemisms aren't morally wrong because they brainwash people - because they don't - they're morally wrong because they're attempts at lying and people can see right through them.

And taxation is not theft. Taxation is a state's form of finacing itself: people who form together a society and benefit from it have to accept that money must come from somewhere. The real theft is taxation that isn't directed back to the people in the form of goods and services like schools, roads, hospitals, etc, taxes that are embezzled or poorly administered and result in losses for the people. But I'll gladly pay my taxes and contribute to social security if that means having a pension at the end of my life, and roads and public transportation and a healthcare system.

[libernaut]

I'm with Miller, Neil Postman is definitely right on as far as where we are at and where we could be heading.

As far as huxley and orwell, they had a lot to say and were right in a lot of ways. Huxley's view in my opinion seems to be a more realistic outcome, because in cases of brutal tyranny, as in orwell, there always seems to be the good guy, or lesser evil, to put a stop to it. But in the end that lesser evil turns out to still be evil.

Definitely recommend technopoly by neil postman.

[Trevillian]

I think we are much more influenced by the things we love than the things we hate.

When I was researching/writing my novel The A-Men, I read a lot of dystopian stories to get just the right balance of future world and collapsing society. I wanted to use the trope of the main character entering a riot-torn corporate-run city while mixing this with strong fantasy elements/stories.

I felt that it would be our love for an all encompassing future that would be our eventual downfall.

http://www.trevillian.com

[Arrowni]

Neither one of them was particularly predictive at any point, both were discussing things that were happening during their lifetimes with barely any augmentation.

Maybe is not a legitimate question but whatever: Did this book actually gained from being written as dystopian, or did the dystopia actually ended up devouring the books themselves?