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People make too much of what Orwell supposedly feared may happen some day. He was writing about stuff the Soviet and British governments were doing in his time,
by tehnub 2y ago
People make too much of what Orwell supposedly feared may happen some day. He was writing about stuff the Soviet and British governments were doing in his time, and in particular, imagined what Soviet rule over Britain may look like. Assigning this philosophy to him and criticizing him for it seems unfair.
- _yb2s 2y agoAlso… maybe he achieved his purpose? Most people have read his books, and it helped generate a widespread aversion to authoritarianism… actually preventing it from happening in the USA and Britain. Many countries nowadays do have societies and governments that look a lot like 1984.
- Mistletoe 2y agoI think you are right. I wish people paid attention to Blade Runner, Alien, etc. and realized what an equal or greater danger unchecked corporations are.
- hermitcrab 2y agoAnother, non-fictional, example of a corporation run wild is the British East India company. At one point they had a larger army than Britain. Because many of the British establishment had investments in the company and because the awful things it did were 'out of sight' it seems they were allowed to do pretty much whatever they wanted. As long as they kept turning a profit.
- kbolino 2y agoBoth the EIC and its Dutch equivalent VOC were eventually dissolved by their respective governments. This disarms people from viewing even rampant corporations as truly dangerous; even corporations that fielded armies and waged wars ultimately weren't beyond the reach of the law.
- hermitcrab 2y agoI understand that the EIC were only dissolved by Britain, after 274 years, when it was no longer profitable/viable.
- Mistletoe 2y agoThis seems so very close to Google etc. today. No one wants to corral tech because their entire portfolio value is tied to tech through something as simple as the SP500.
- bdowling 2y agoNo, most people pretended to read Animal Farm and 1984 in middle school and haven’t thought about them since. They didn’t understand them at the time, and they don’t see the similar manipulations going on in today’s society.
- scarecrowbob 2y agoI agree. _Animal Farm_ was taught to me by my capitalist and authoritarian teachers as an anti-communist screed. The problem with the farm is that the pigs end up being capitalists, though I have never seen or heard of the text being taught to children as an anti-capitalist text. This culture does a very good job of assuming that the field of possibilities can easily and quickly be reduced to two choices and, further, that we're forced to choose between the two and, finally, that anyone who thinks there are additional possible choices is "being childish and unrealistic". I find the US to be highly authoritarian, full of easy examples double-thought and duck speak. I don't, however think folks are being manipulated: I think that the fundamental authoritarian move is that folks here have manipulated themselves. To me, that's close to the point of 1984. Or Mark Fisher's books, or Ursula Le Guin. I'm in the middle of Butler's _The Parable of the Sower_ and it's feeling like that self-deception is core to what is happening in that book as well: folks reducing the world to some pretty horrible binaries and then becoming happily ensnared in the ensuing problems.
- takinola 2y ago> I find the US to be highly authoritarian, full of easy examples double-thought and duck speak. I’m curious to know where else you have lived (I assume you live in the US). As someone that has lived under an authoritarian regime, I find this statement really hard to agree with. The US is far from perfect but it is far from authoritarian in my opinion.
- _yb2s 2y agoIt's neither anti-capitalist nor anti-communist, just anti-authoritarian.
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- 363874844 2y agoDid it really though? Ideological censorship has been on the rise for awhile. Books might only be occasionally banned but that's because their relevance in the modern zeitgeist has waned. The privatization of the public square has nonetheless meant that moderation of communication has become widespread and politically charged.
- _yb2s 2y agoI didn't claim Orwell had universally eliminated all traces authoritarianism... it is rising in popularity right now. Only that it may have shifted things enough to keep us from literally living in a 1984-esque society nowadays... enough so that people in this thread and the article above are saying Orwell was "wrong."
- kbolino 2y agoThis seems like a stronger argument that Fahrenheit 451 has failed in its purpose than that Nineteen Eighty-Four did.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- skeeter2020 2y agoDid he fear what would happen, or propose extrapolating the current experience as a cautionary tale? Meanwhile Huxley presented a world where we voluntarily pursue ignoble goals. I don't think we're criticizing him as much as mourning we appear to have palced the yoke upon ourselves.
- m463 2y agoWhy can't it be both outcomes at once?
- bccdee 2y agoYeah I think this is a misreading of Orwell. Orwell wasn't afraid that the government would point a gun at the public's heads and the people would hate it. He was afraid that, when that happened, the people would love it. Authoritarians are popular. The January 6th Capitol attack was perpetrated by people who wanted the state to exert itself violently, because they believed The State and The People were one and the same, and anyone who is a victim of The State was not truly part of The People to begin with. The threat of Big Brother is not that he'll watch us, but that we will believe he is watching everyone else on our behalf. Police militarization and mass incarceration are already proof that Americans are willing to cede rights when they believe that only "outsiders" will suffer as a result.
- GTP 2y agoI see "The Circle" as being the updated version of 1984 that is more relevant in our times. In that novel, it's not a government spying on people but is a big company, and the protagonist gradually gives away her privacy in exchange for some services or benefits.