Which Dystopian Novel Got It Right: Orwell’s ‘1984’ or Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’?

[ABX]

A month ago I would have said that not only is “Brave New World” a livelier, more entertaining book than “1984,” it’s also a more prescient one. Orwell didn’t really have much feel for the future, which to his mind was just another version of the present. His imagined London is merely a drabber, more joyless version of the city, still recovering from the Blitz, where he was living in the mid-1940s, just before beginning the novel. The main technological advancement there is the two-way telescreen, essentially an electronic peephole......

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/13/books/review/which-dystopian-novel-got-it-right-orwells-1984-or-huxleys-brave-new-world.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=mini-moth&region=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below

[Idaho_Cowboy]

I'm no expert, but Huxley seems to have been closer to the case.

Here's what Huxley wrote on the subject:
http://www.openculture.com/2015/03/huxley-to-orwell-my-hellish-vision-of-the-future-is-better-than-yours.html

Here's part of the conclusion:
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. In other words, I feel that the nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four is destined to modulate into the nightmare of a world having more resemblance to that which I imagined in Brave New World. The change will be brought about as a result of a felt need for increased efficiency. Meanwhile, of course, there may be a large scale biological and atomic war — in which case we shall have nightmares of other and scarcely imaginable kinds.

Think real hard about the magic box in your living room and narco hypnosis. People have been entertained into just not caring like never before.

[goatprairie]

I feel more that zombies, liberal zombies from the bizarro world have taken over. In which case the sci-fi novel "The Body Snatchers" by Jack Finney from which they made "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers" was taken is the most accurate depiction of what's going on today.
Liberals today have taken insanity to new levels in their bid to remake a great country into their leftist utopia.
The new, young leftists are almost completely unable to tolerate different points of view. It's like they're zombies.

[geronl]

A very perverted place the 'Brave New World' is. People who aren't slutting around are considered the weirdo's

[Frank Cannon]

Neither.

[Free Vulcan]

Both! Plus Animal Farm, parts of the Terminator, the Borg, Bladerunner, Total Recall, Running Man and a number of other bleak sci-fi movies.

[Smokin Joe]

Neither.

Both. Totalitarianism wrapped in a feather boa. At once a culture becoming increasingly libertine and more totalitarian, with the only 'winning' class the controllers.

[Frank Cannon]

Both. Totalitarianism wrapped in a feather boa. At once a culture becoming increasingly libertine and more totalitarian, with the only 'winning' class the controllers.

I look around and find that life in the US during the 30's and 40's way more totalitarian than today. Just for an example, just check out what the original NRA was all about and rediscover what Fred Korematsu was all steamed up over.

[Smokin Joe]

I look around and find that life in the US during the 30's and 40's way more totalitarian than today. Just for an example, just check out what the original NRA was all about and rediscover what Fred Korematsu was all steamed up over.

Yes, and no. I remember my dad mailing off a check and getting a rifle in the mail. That NRA was around before the National Recovery Act. The rationing of the early '40s was different--there was a war on.

After that, I remember fishing without a license, perfectly legal. I remember before gps trackers, Onstar spying, traffic cams, redlight cameras and tickets in the mail, surveillance drones, wiretaps and computer hacking, laser pickups for the sound vibrations of windows in a room so conversations could be listened in on, when my Social Security card said "Not for Identification Purposes" on it, etc.
The walls have closed in in ways people don't even notice, that's how pervasive it is, because they have embraced the very tech that can be used to enslave them. The tools are all there, built right in, waiting to be used/abused, at a moment's notice.

Just wait for driverless cars that let you out when and where they will...

[Frank Cannon]

Yes, and no. I remember my dad mailing off a check and getting a rifle in the mail. That NRA was around before the National Recovery Act. The rationing of the early '40s was different--there was a war on.

The National Recovery Act forced businesses to do what Roosevelt thought was fair or business owners were thrown in jail. It was signed in 1933 and was one of the most brutal programs the country ever had.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/15/AR2010091505090.html

As for Korematsu, he was mad because Americans were thrown in concentration camps on US soil.

On your point about GPS being a danger, that is what most people call paranoia. Can you point to specific times where random people are swept up and arrested for no reason because of all of this tech? I didn't think so. That's why you have to say that it is "waiting" to be abused.

[Smokin Joe]

The National Recovery Act forced businesses to do what Roosevelt thought was fair or business owners were thrown in jail. It was signed in 1933 and was one of the most brutal programs the country ever had.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/15/AR2010091505090.html

As for Korematsu, he was mad because Americans were thrown in concentration camps on US soil.

On your point about GPS being a danger, that is what most people call paranoia. Can you point to specific times where random people are swept up and arrested for no reason because of all of this tech? I didn't think so. That's why you have to say that it is "waiting" to be abused.

But I did say "waiting". When cash is gone, the circle will be complete. It is only a question of when, not if, everything you do can and will be used against you--and given the 'right' cause, people will demand it. Government run health care really will open that door as the social costs of everything from that second scoop of ice cream to how fast you drive will be everyone's business because of the 'cost to society'. I have seen that waved around in motorcycle helmet studies--even with private insurance or payment picking up medical costs.

Now, there are so many more laws and points of law and groups to cater to that your business has points of control Rooseveldt didn't even dream of, and if one of your competitors doesn't like the way you are 'winning', all that need to be done are allegations of something illegal and the whole thing can be seized and auctioned, even if you are never charged with a crime. The Supreme Court has since said your property can be taken if someone else alleges they can increase the tax base with it, and if you are awaiting birth, well, your life may well be in peril. If your school children are active (and get even a fraction of the bruises and scrapes we did as children, you may be accused of abuse by a school counselor and Social Services, who can seize your children.

Free? Oh, hell no, and it will get worse unless those mechanisms are eliminated or safeguarded against. FDR is the patron saint of half of this crap, the 'hero' who won WWII (how like Stalin to Russians, even today). These people will be beatified because their evils will be overlooked. After all, to their followers, the ends justified the means.