9 ms·

In my opinion, Huxwell's Brave New World is much more 'accurate' for Western world, while 1984's surveillance state is what we observe in the East.

thrownthrow 7y ago
Huxley
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
petjuh 7y ago
Orwell's book primary point wasn't about the surveillance (although there is plenty of surveillance there, to be sure), it was about how history is rewritten and people are trained to change their beliefs on command. It's much more about "2+2=5" than about the Big Brother TV-show with the cameras. I myself thought the book was about surveillance before I read it, mostly because of the "Big Brother" TV show.
- kilo_bravo_3 7y ago
  I must be reading it wrong, because I thought it was about how love was the most important and powerful emotion and how the final defeat of the two protagonists was the realization that they no longer loved each other and instead loved the state. All of the Big Brother, Ministries of Whatever, censorship, and surveillance stuff was just window dressing for the love message. Even Brave New World, to me, is about love. The society spurns familial love (like between John and his mother) and committed relationships (like between everyone and everyone) and pain or discomfort is a prerequisite for love and the pursuit of happiness has all but eliminated true love from the world. John kills himself because he hurt the woman he loved, he is humiliated for loving his mother, and is frustrated by the fact that the woman he loves can't love him because she is too busy pursuing simple, immediate, pleasures. At least, that's my recollection of the two books.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > I must be reading it wrong, because I thought it was about how love was the most important and powerful emotion and how the final defeat of the two protagonists was the realization that they no longer loved each other and instead loved the state. That's...an interesting perspective, but I think the audience is expected to already view love with that importance, so that the love storyline instead underlines the power of the control of the state. Similarly with BNW. I think you are reading things that the authors perceived and sought to leverage in their contemporary audience with as being instead the message of the work: neither is about love, but the effect the dystopia described has on love is a key part of painting the picture because of what readers are expected to already feel about love.
  - cwkoss 7y ago
    > I thought it was about how love was the most important and powerful emotion and how the final defeat of the two protagonists was the realization that they no longer loved each other and instead loved the state. My takeaway was that love was the most important emotion yet the state has the power to control even love. I don't think we're supposed to believe his love for Big Brother is genuine, but rather manufactured much like revisions to history.
  - robocat 7y ago
    > because I thought it was about how love was the most important and powerful emotion Except that she doesn't love him and she immediately and fully confesses everything and betrays him. The book is about the political classes, while the majority of the population (the proles) are not discussed a lot, they seem to have simple lives and can love.
    - godelski 7y ago
      You can have a story about love and love not triumph. I'd definitely say that that was a big element of the book. But I'd also include the class struggle and the so called dressing. Calling the setting a dressing seems a bit of an underplay. Settings are really important and generally also hold a message. But then again, I'm confused about why there's so much discussion about "I thought it was about" and not "this element is what struck me". Because 1984 is about ALL of those things.
- maxxxxx 7y ago
  " it was about how history is rewritten and people are trained to change their beliefs on command." That has been achieved in hyperpartisan US politics already. A lot of people of people will change their opinion and perception of the real world immediately once it's convenient for "their" party.
  - kmonsen 7y ago
    If you asked any Republican 5 years ago Russia was the enemy, but now they are the good guys.
    - jlawson 7y ago
      An interesting case, since this seems to be reversed. Democrats mocked Romney's anti-Russia position in 2012. And remember the "reset button"? Now many think Putin controls American elections and the US President himself. Which Republican politician says Russia is 'the good guys'?
      - mfatica 7y ago
        None of them, it's simply misinformation. These people never have any response to actual debate on this topic. How do people think Trump is controlled by Russia when he's been harder on Russia than anyone else. He armed Ukraine, supported sanctions, and threatened to leave NATO because Germany wanted to build a massive new gas pipeline from Russia, thus making them even more dependent on Russia.
        Spooky23 7y ago
        They did. There was a conservative narrative in the circa 2013 timeframe that Russia had been a key ally in the war on terror by allowing military logistics for Afghanistan to travel by rail through their sphere of influence. Obama was said to have insulted our Russian friends and as a result we were forced to use unreliable roads in Pakistan instead. IIRC, there was notion that we would be playing a 19th century style “great game” in Central Asia, basically paying off Russia to contain China’s ambitions for heavy rail service into the Middle East. End of the day, there are lots of different policy positions floated out there as a result of our nearly two decades at war and the various stakeholders as alliances shift. The difference in the current administration is the unbridled graft and influence peddling. Everything is transactional.
- natechols 7y ago
  I think Orwell's point was even simpler: the overriding purpose of totalitarian political systems is power over individuals, "a boot stamping on a human face - forever". The actual ideology and stated goals are just window dressing towards this end.
  - arethuza 7y ago
    As O'Brien says: "We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power." Edit: Personally, it's this self-awareness of their own real motives that make the Inner Party of Ingsoc so scary.
- godelski 7y ago
  There's something ironic about this whole comment. If it was intended, then well done.
pseudolus 7y ago
I don't think Huxley's Brave New World has aged too well. Many of its central concepts such as 'soma', 'hatchery and conditioning centers', and the caste system - alphas to epsilons - don't have readily transposable equivalents in our modern day society. Granted, many of the technologies in 1984 don't either, but its central concepts resound to our times.
- tasuki 7y ago
  > Many of its central concepts such as 'soma', 'hatchery and conditioning centers', and the caste system - alphas to epsilons - don't have readily transposable equivalents in our modern day society Ah, not yet! Give it time! - Soma, I'm sure you can imagine - Conditioning centers... advertisement everywhere? - Caste system... genetic engineering for the rich
  - ahartmetz 7y ago
    Caste system: lack of social mobility
  - nn3 7y ago
    North Korea has a caste system based on the family's behavior in WW2. China is actively working on one based on the citizen score.
- sonnyblarney 7y ago
  Well, we are totally addicted to antidepressants and all sorts of other mood altering drugs we wouldn't need otherwise. Every time I see how many people are taking meth for 'ADHD' I think of Soma. And it would be very easy to make the argument that America has a 'caste system'. Zuck, Bezos, Gates all went to schools almost none of us could even consider affording to attend.
  - unethical_ban 7y ago
    Not meth or anti-depressants, but even alcohol and weed to excess. And yeah, more than anything I think we have a caste system. Social mobility is decreasing, and we certainly don't interact with people of far-away economic classes unless it is required (usually). I don't think the poor like being poor the same way the Epsilons were pleased not to be burdened with responsibility.
gregoryexe 7y ago
Huxley yes, but mostly his emphasis on pleasure over pain and self in order to pacify the population. But designer babies are already here so he could end up being correct on many more things.
umadon 7y ago
Yes, here in the West we are too moral for mass state surveillance.
dragonwriter 7y ago
The West is Brave New World on the surface with a 1984 surveillance state underneath. Obviously, not fully either one, but elements of both are present.
bamboozled 7y ago
Read about Australia’s stance on encryption laws and the recent raids on media offices and see if you still think the same way. Also see the five eyes network.
otakucode 7y ago
I've seen good arguments about both being more suitable to our time. Brave New World captured more of the 'entertainment as anaesthesia' technique, while 1984 captured more of the paranoia-as-virtue we're burdened with. However, we have some very large deviations from Huxley's vision. No one would dream of sending their children to be raised by the state. If a drug like Soma existed (yes there is a drug called Soma now, but I mean a substance that acts as the one in Huxleys book does) it would be aggressively and hatefully prohibited. One of the most prescient things about 1984 that really stuck out to me at the time I read it, and which I think someone could VERY easily get away with actually creating today with few even batting an eye was the Youth Anti-Sex League. It only gets slight mention in the book, I believe Winston's neighbors children were teenaged members. Brave New World handled sexuality very differently, with its 'orgy porgys' and whatnot. That's certainly not the state we have today, where discussion of sex is fine so long as you're condemning anyone who is having or seeking it, especially if they're outside of their 20s or ugly, fat, disabled, etc. Ultimately, both books are a product of their times and provide interesting insights nonetheless. I don't know what benefit there is in holding one up as 'more alike' the dystopia we've created.
- travisoneill1 7y ago
  > If a drug like Soma existed (yes there is a drug called Soma now, but I mean a substance that acts as the one in Huxleys book does) it would be aggressively and hatefully prohibited. It's called Xanax and it's handed out like candy > The wholesale cost in the United States is less than US$0.03 per dose as of 2018.[15] In 2016, it was the 19th most prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 27 million prescriptions.[16] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alprazolam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alprazolam
  - Trilkhai 7y ago
    Soma in BNW is described in a way that matches a combination of opiates and hallucinogens -- it artificially elevates mood, makes everything seem wonderful and pleasantly exciting, causes sensory hallucinations similar to synaesthesia, and so forth. That's a whole world away from Xanax, which merely controls anxiety & nausea with a side-effect of feeling sedated.
alex_c 7y ago
I generally avoid politics on HN, but: “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening” seems lifted straight out of 1984. A few years ago I agreed with you. Now I’m not so sure. https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-44959340/donald-trump-what-you-re-seeing-and-what-you-re-reading-is-not-what-s-happening https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-44959340/donald-...
n4r9 7y ago
It seems very strange in the first paragraph to claim that 1984 has "outlasted in public awareness" three other books that are very much still in public awareness. Also, in terms of enduring effect, I'd wager that a lot more people have seen the film A Clockwork Orange than have read 1984.
ahartmetz 7y ago
And 1984 is incredibly well written while Brave New World is a very dull read. I've read 1984 two or three times and I think I skimmed the last 100 pages or so of Brave New World, something I rarely do with novels.
hawaiian 7y ago
I believe that the range and depth of surveillance are pretty much equal in both the East and the West, and the difference is entirely in the respective societies' willingness to acknowledge that they're being surveilled.
rorykoehler 7y ago
Surveillance capitalism has changed that narrative imo. China is still more blatant but for how long?
jlos 7y ago
I'd suggest both novels demonstrate the same basic concern: technology in extending our our ability to carry out our desires will actually invigorate our base passions for agression and pleasure, destroying our humanity in the process. In 1984, true power is a boot on another persons neck, and even the last shred of resistance is destroyed in the protagonist, who in the last scenes sheds tears of repentant joy for big brother before he turns himself in for his rightful execution. In Brave New World, the desire for sensual pleasure has completely eroded all capacity to enjoy love, truth, and beauty. Likewise, Huxley's Savage finds the world unlivable and takes his own life at the end of the novel.
UncleSlacky 7y ago
There's an interesting comparison of the two works in cartoon form here: https://biblioklept.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/huxley-orwell-amusing-ourselves-to-death.jpg https://biblioklept.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/huxley-orwel... ...taken from "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
cameroncooper 7y ago
I tend to agree. As much as I love 1984, I tend to agree with some of the points Huxley made in his letter to Orwell in 1949. "Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful. My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World." The letter is very interesting and worth a read. https://cognitive-liberty.online/orwell-versus-huxley/ https://cognitive-liberty.online/orwell-versus-huxley/

thrownthrow 7y ago

Huxley

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

petjuh 7y ago

Orwell's book primary point wasn't about the surveillance (although there is plenty of surveillance there, to be sure), it was about how history is rewritten and people are trained to change their beliefs on command. It's much more about "2+2=5" than about the Big Brother TV-show with the cameras. I myself thought the book was about surveillance before I read it, mostly because of the "Big Brother" TV show.

kilo_bravo_3 7y ago
I must be reading it wrong, because I thought it was about how love was the most important and powerful emotion and how the final defeat of the two protagonists was the realization that they no longer loved each other and instead loved the state. All of the Big Brother, Ministries of Whatever, censorship, and surveillance stuff was just window dressing for the love message. Even Brave New World, to me, is about love. The society spurns familial love (like between John and his mother) and committed relationships (like between everyone and everyone) and pain or discomfort is a prerequisite for love and the pursuit of happiness has all but eliminated true love from the world. John kills himself because he hurt the woman he loved, he is humiliated for loving his mother, and is frustrated by the fact that the woman he loves can't love him because she is too busy pursuing simple, immediate, pleasures. At least, that's my recollection of the two books.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > I must be reading it wrong, because I thought it was about how love was the most important and powerful emotion and how the final defeat of the two protagonists was the realization that they no longer loved each other and instead loved the state. That's...an interesting perspective, but I think the audience is expected to already view love with that importance, so that the love storyline instead underlines the power of the control of the state. Similarly with BNW. I think you are reading things that the authors perceived and sought to leverage in their contemporary audience with as being instead the message of the work: neither is about love, but the effect the dystopia described has on love is a key part of painting the picture because of what readers are expected to already feel about love.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  > I thought it was about how love was the most important and powerful emotion and how the final defeat of the two protagonists was the realization that they no longer loved each other and instead loved the state. My takeaway was that love was the most important emotion yet the state has the power to control even love. I don't think we're supposed to believe his love for Big Brother is genuine, but rather manufactured much like revisions to history.
- robocat 7y ago
  > because I thought it was about how love was the most important and powerful emotion Except that she doesn't love him and she immediately and fully confesses everything and betrays him. The book is about the political classes, while the majority of the population (the proles) are not discussed a lot, they seem to have simple lives and can love.
  - godelski 7y ago
    You can have a story about love and love not triumph. I'd definitely say that that was a big element of the book. But I'd also include the class struggle and the so called dressing. Calling the setting a dressing seems a bit of an underplay. Settings are really important and generally also hold a message. But then again, I'm confused about why there's so much discussion about "I thought it was about" and not "this element is what struck me". Because 1984 is about ALL of those things.
maxxxxx 7y ago
" it was about how history is rewritten and people are trained to change their beliefs on command." That has been achieved in hyperpartisan US politics already. A lot of people of people will change their opinion and perception of the real world immediately once it's convenient for "their" party.
- kmonsen 7y ago
  If you asked any Republican 5 years ago Russia was the enemy, but now they are the good guys.
  - jlawson 7y ago
    An interesting case, since this seems to be reversed. Democrats mocked Romney's anti-Russia position in 2012. And remember the "reset button"? Now many think Putin controls American elections and the US President himself. Which Republican politician says Russia is 'the good guys'?
    - mfatica 7y ago
      None of them, it's simply misinformation. These people never have any response to actual debate on this topic. How do people think Trump is controlled by Russia when he's been harder on Russia than anyone else. He armed Ukraine, supported sanctions, and threatened to leave NATO because Germany wanted to build a massive new gas pipeline from Russia, thus making them even more dependent on Russia.
      - Spooky23 7y ago
        They did. There was a conservative narrative in the circa 2013 timeframe that Russia had been a key ally in the war on terror by allowing military logistics for Afghanistan to travel by rail through their sphere of influence. Obama was said to have insulted our Russian friends and as a result we were forced to use unreliable roads in Pakistan instead. IIRC, there was notion that we would be playing a 19th century style “great game” in Central Asia, basically paying off Russia to contain China’s ambitions for heavy rail service into the Middle East. End of the day, there are lots of different policy positions floated out there as a result of our nearly two decades at war and the various stakeholders as alliances shift. The difference in the current administration is the unbridled graft and influence peddling. Everything is transactional.
natechols 7y ago
I think Orwell's point was even simpler: the overriding purpose of totalitarian political systems is power over individuals, "a boot stamping on a human face - forever". The actual ideology and stated goals are just window dressing towards this end.
- arethuza 7y ago
  As O'Brien says: "We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power." Edit: Personally, it's this self-awareness of their own real motives that make the Inner Party of Ingsoc so scary.
godelski 7y ago
There's something ironic about this whole comment. If it was intended, then well done.

pseudolus 7y ago

I don't think Huxley's Brave New World has aged too well. Many of its central concepts such as 'soma', 'hatchery and conditioning centers', and the caste system - alphas to epsilons - don't have readily transposable equivalents in our modern day society. Granted, many of the technologies in 1984 don't either, but its central concepts resound to our times.

tasuki 7y ago
> Many of its central concepts such as 'soma', 'hatchery and conditioning centers', and the caste system - alphas to epsilons - don't have readily transposable equivalents in our modern day society Ah, not yet! Give it time! - Soma, I'm sure you can imagine - Conditioning centers... advertisement everywhere? - Caste system... genetic engineering for the rich
- ahartmetz 7y ago
  Caste system: lack of social mobility
- nn3 7y ago
  North Korea has a caste system based on the family's behavior in WW2. China is actively working on one based on the citizen score.
sonnyblarney 7y ago
Well, we are totally addicted to antidepressants and all sorts of other mood altering drugs we wouldn't need otherwise. Every time I see how many people are taking meth for 'ADHD' I think of Soma. And it would be very easy to make the argument that America has a 'caste system'. Zuck, Bezos, Gates all went to schools almost none of us could even consider affording to attend.
- unethical_ban 7y ago
  Not meth or anti-depressants, but even alcohol and weed to excess. And yeah, more than anything I think we have a caste system. Social mobility is decreasing, and we certainly don't interact with people of far-away economic classes unless it is required (usually). I don't think the poor like being poor the same way the Epsilons were pleased not to be burdened with responsibility.

gregoryexe 7y ago

Huxley yes, but mostly his emphasis on pleasure over pain and self in order to pacify the population. But designer babies are already here so he could end up being correct on many more things.

umadon 7y ago

Yes, here in the West we are too moral for mass state surveillance.

dragonwriter 7y ago

The West is Brave New World on the surface with a 1984 surveillance state underneath. Obviously, not fully either one, but elements of both are present.

bamboozled 7y ago

Read about Australia’s stance on encryption laws and the recent raids on media offices and see if you still think the same way. Also see the five eyes network.

otakucode 7y ago

I've seen good arguments about both being more suitable to our time. Brave New World captured more of the 'entertainment as anaesthesia' technique, while 1984 captured more of the paranoia-as-virtue we're burdened with. However, we have some very large deviations from Huxley's vision. No one would dream of sending their children to be raised by the state. If a drug like Soma existed (yes there is a drug called Soma now, but I mean a substance that acts as the one in Huxleys book does) it would be aggressively and hatefully prohibited. One of the most prescient things about 1984 that really stuck out to me at the time I read it, and which I think someone could VERY easily get away with actually creating today with few even batting an eye was the Youth Anti-Sex League. It only gets slight mention in the book, I believe Winston's neighbors children were teenaged members. Brave New World handled sexuality very differently, with its 'orgy porgys' and whatnot. That's certainly not the state we have today, where discussion of sex is fine so long as you're condemning anyone who is having or seeking it, especially if they're outside of their 20s or ugly, fat, disabled, etc. Ultimately, both books are a product of their times and provide interesting insights nonetheless. I don't know what benefit there is in holding one up as 'more alike' the dystopia we've created.

travisoneill1 7y ago
> If a drug like Soma existed (yes there is a drug called Soma now, but I mean a substance that acts as the one in Huxleys book does) it would be aggressively and hatefully prohibited. It's called Xanax and it's handed out like candy > The wholesale cost in the United States is less than US$0.03 per dose as of 2018.[15] In 2016, it was the 19th most prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 27 million prescriptions.[16] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alprazolam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alprazolam
- Trilkhai 7y ago
  Soma in BNW is described in a way that matches a combination of opiates and hallucinogens -- it artificially elevates mood, makes everything seem wonderful and pleasantly exciting, causes sensory hallucinations similar to synaesthesia, and so forth. That's a whole world away from Xanax, which merely controls anxiety & nausea with a side-effect of feeling sedated.

alex_c 7y ago

I generally avoid politics on HN, but: “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening” seems lifted straight out of 1984. A few years ago I agreed with you. Now I’m not so sure. https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-44959340/donald-trump-what-you-re-seeing-and-what-you-re-reading-is-not-what-s-happening https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-44959340/donald-...

n4r9 7y ago

It seems very strange in the first paragraph to claim that 1984 has "outlasted in public awareness" three other books that are very much still in public awareness. Also, in terms of enduring effect, I'd wager that a lot more people have seen the film A Clockwork Orange than have read 1984.

ahartmetz 7y ago

And 1984 is incredibly well written while Brave New World is a very dull read. I've read 1984 two or three times and I think I skimmed the last 100 pages or so of Brave New World, something I rarely do with novels.

hawaiian 7y ago

I believe that the range and depth of surveillance are pretty much equal in both the East and the West, and the difference is entirely in the respective societies' willingness to acknowledge that they're being surveilled.

rorykoehler 7y ago

Surveillance capitalism has changed that narrative imo. China is still more blatant but for how long?

jlos 7y ago

I'd suggest both novels demonstrate the same basic concern: technology in extending our our ability to carry out our desires will actually invigorate our base passions for agression and pleasure, destroying our humanity in the process. In 1984, true power is a boot on another persons neck, and even the last shred of resistance is destroyed in the protagonist, who in the last scenes sheds tears of repentant joy for big brother before he turns himself in for his rightful execution. In Brave New World, the desire for sensual pleasure has completely eroded all capacity to enjoy love, truth, and beauty. Likewise, Huxley's Savage finds the world unlivable and takes his own life at the end of the novel.

UncleSlacky 7y ago

There's an interesting comparison of the two works in cartoon form here: https://biblioklept.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/huxley-orwell-amusing-ourselves-to-death.jpg https://biblioklept.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/huxley-orwel... ...taken from "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death

cameroncooper 7y ago

I tend to agree. As much as I love 1984, I tend to agree with some of the points Huxley made in his letter to Orwell in 1949. "Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful. My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World." The letter is very interesting and worth a read. https://cognitive-liberty.online/orwell-versus-huxley/ https://cognitive-liberty.online/orwell-versus-huxley/