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Has anyone here looked into the claim that both iconic works were inspired by ideas from the very same book, Bertrand Russell's 1931 classic "The Scientific Out

Has anyone here looked into the claim that both iconic works were inspired by ideas from the very same book, Bertrand Russell's 1931 classic "The Scientific Outlook"? Russell himself covers certain aspects of this in his "Prefatory note to the second edition" of Scientific Outlook, where he actually mentions the direct influence of this book upon both Brave new world and upon Burnham's "The Managerial Revolution", a book which contained projections of the future which, as Orwell scholars agree, both horrified and fascinated him and, in turn, turned out to be the inspiration for much of "1984".

robocat 5y ago
“Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was written in four months and published in 1932, a year after the first appearance of The Scientific Outlook. Huxley's book mirrored Russell's prognostications on a number of points, from the divison of the population into Alphas, Betas and Epsilons, to the removal of sexual restrictions. There is no evidence that Huxley borrowed directly from Russell, but the two figures moved in overlapping circles, and one can imagine these conceits going the rounds of Bloomsbury dinner parties.”. “[James Burnham's The Managerial Revolution] was published in 1941 and is a rather more sober work of political analysis. Burnham, writing early in the Second World War, argued that the world would soon divide into two or three superstates. Within each a self-elected oligarchy would gain power and maintain a permanent readiness for war, using scientific techniques of surveillance and propaganda to keep the rest of the populace under control. It is unclear whether Russell really inspired Burnham, but Burnham certainly influenced a yet futher dystopic vision. George Orwell not only read Burnham's book, but commented on it through the 1940s in a series of articles and pamphlets.”, and “As Russell himself observes, in the Prefatory Note to the second edition of The Scientific Outlook in 1949 ‘The material of the last few chapters may now seem more familiar that at the time of the first edition, since it has been popularised in two widely read books, Huxley's Brave New World and Burnham's Managerial Revolution. I do not suggest that my book had any influence on either of these, but the parallels are interesting, and will, I hope, persuade my readers that my fears are more than an individual phantasy.’” - from an introduction of a further reprint of The Scientific Outlook by Bertrand Russell. “But Huxley clearly plundered Chapter 15 of Russell’s book, ‘Education in a Scientific Age’. Russell here departs from his expository mode (he was an incorrigible pontificator) to try his arm at a satirical prophecy about the socially engineered and class stratified society of the scientifically managed future. Children, he predicts, will be conditioned ‘some time before birth’ (by ‘thermal treatment of the embryo’) for their station in life. Manual workers (like Huxley’s Epsilons) ‘will be discouraged from serious thought and in general will be bred for patience and muscle rather than brain’. The society of the scientific future will be tranquillized by ‘new forms of drunkenness’ (i.e. ‘Soma’ in Brave New World). The only problem in this perfect world state will be ‘the psychology of the governors’ (i.e. disruptive Alpha-pluses, like Bernard Marx in Brave New World). If there were patent-protection in fictional scenarios any lawyer would have taken Russell’s case. The whole framework of Brave New World is to be found in the fifteenth chapter of The Scientific Outlook.” - from the Editorial Review below the fold at: https://www.amazon.com/Brave-New-World-Aldoux-Huxley-ebook/dp/B00VKD5QP0 https://www.amazon.com/Brave-New-World-Aldoux-Huxley-ebook/d...

robocat 5y ago

“Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was written in four months and published in 1932, a year after the first appearance of The Scientific Outlook. Huxley's book mirrored Russell's prognostications on a number of points, from the divison of the population into Alphas, Betas and Epsilons, to the removal of sexual restrictions. There is no evidence that Huxley borrowed directly from Russell, but the two figures moved in overlapping circles, and one can imagine these conceits going the rounds of Bloomsbury dinner parties.”. “[James Burnham's The Managerial Revolution] was published in 1941 and is a rather more sober work of political analysis. Burnham, writing early in the Second World War, argued that the world would soon divide into two or three superstates. Within each a self-elected oligarchy would gain power and maintain a permanent readiness for war, using scientific techniques of surveillance and propaganda to keep the rest of the populace under control. It is unclear whether Russell really inspired Burnham, but Burnham certainly influenced a yet futher dystopic vision. George Orwell not only read Burnham's book, but commented on it through the 1940s in a series of articles and pamphlets.”, and “As Russell himself observes, in the Prefatory Note to the second edition of The Scientific Outlook in 1949 ‘The material of the last few chapters may now seem more familiar that at the time of the first edition, since it has been popularised in two widely read books, Huxley's Brave New World and Burnham's Managerial Revolution. I do not suggest that my book had any influence on either of these, but the parallels are interesting, and will, I hope, persuade my readers that my fears are more than an individual phantasy.’” - from an introduction of a further reprint of The Scientific Outlook by Bertrand Russell. “But Huxley clearly plundered Chapter 15 of Russell’s book, ‘Education in a Scientific Age’. Russell here departs from his expository mode (he was an incorrigible pontificator) to try his arm at a satirical prophecy about the socially engineered and class stratified society of the scientifically managed future. Children, he predicts, will be conditioned ‘some time before birth’ (by ‘thermal treatment of the embryo’) for their station in life. Manual workers (like Huxley’s Epsilons) ‘will be discouraged from serious thought and in general will be bred for patience and muscle rather than brain’. The society of the scientific future will be tranquillized by ‘new forms of drunkenness’ (i.e. ‘Soma’ in Brave New World). The only problem in this perfect world state will be ‘the psychology of the governors’ (i.e. disruptive Alpha-pluses, like Bernard Marx in Brave New World). If there were patent-protection in fictional scenarios any lawyer would have taken Russell’s case. The whole framework of Brave New World is to be found in the fifteenth chapter of The Scientific Outlook.” - from the Editorial Review below the fold at: https://www.amazon.com/Brave-New-World-Aldoux-Huxley-ebook/dp/B00VKD5QP0 https://www.amazon.com/Brave-New-World-Aldoux-Huxley-ebook/d...