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I don't get the fascination with mapping 1984 onto current events when Brave New World always seems to fit so much better: http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/mic

I don't get the fascination with mapping 1984 onto current events when Brave New World always seems to fit so much better: http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2010/07/amusing-ourselves-to-death/ http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2010/07/amusi... Sure, we're all talking about PRISM now but give it a month or two.

dangoldin 13y ago
How about Fahrenheit 451 or We? Almost every dystopian novel shares something with the world.
- minimaxir 13y ago
  Fahrenheit 451 is primarily about censorship of information, although government surveillance plays a small part.
  - bcRIPster 13y ago
    Well, yes, censorship via disappearing history and feeding the masses a steady stream of meaningless entertainment to keep them complacent and detached from each other.
- derleth 13y ago
  Fahrenheit 451 is primarily about self-censorship, born of a desire to avoid causing offense. Or, if you believe Bradbury, it's about Television Is Evil and nothing else: http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/ http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenh... > Fahrenheit 451 is not, he says firmly, a story about government censorship. Nor was it a response to Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose investigations had already instilled fear and stifled the creativity of thousands. [snip] > Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature. > “Television gives you the dates of Napoleon, but not who he was,” Bradbury says, summarizing TV’s content with a single word that he spits out as an epithet: “factoids.” He says this while sitting in a room dominated by a gigantic flat-panel television broadcasting the Fox News Channel, muted, factoids crawling across the bottom of the screen.
- stplsd 13y ago
  Because we live int this shiny Brave New World in sea of irrelevance and nobody knows/cares about We. And because BNW is clearly plagiarism of We, that adds another quite ironic dimension.
devindotcom 13y ago
I don't really see how BNW maps better. 1984 was about surveillance, oppression, and central control of narrative of life. BNW is about the choice to surrender to comfort - certainly applicable in this day and age, but not onto current events, I'd say.
- mindslight 13y ago
  The two themes are not incompatible. Brave New World is about the carrot, 1984 is about the stick. In 1984, the upper classes which controlled big brother would've been true believers who led comfortable lives and had better things to do than mind the surveillance. In BNW, those who refused the distractions and instead put their energy into undermining the system would've been discovered and remedied somehow.
  - jmngomes 13y ago
    Agreed. And building on that analogy, Animal Farm would be about the stick holders.
    - e3pi 13y ago
      "My fellow mobile tethered sheep(See image-Wired <1>), ask not what your country can do for you, and don't even think about asking what the long term storage of your private metadata can do for security-cleared high-salary retires' revoving door into fear-mongering intel private enterprise, isn't it simply much more pleasant to just eat, keep oogling 'metamedia', and consume more? Ain't it great being a sheep"? Munch, munch! Please herewith be guided accordingly; John F. Alexander <1> http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/06/phew-it-was-just-metadata-not-think-again/ http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/06/phew-it-was-just-metada...
      - ScottBurson 13y ago
        "Oogling", eh? I like that! A combination of ogling and googling.
run4yourlives 13y ago
I'm pretty sure it is because of two reasons: 1. More people have read 1984 than have read Brave New World. 2. Brave New World is so ridiculously accurate that most people are too afraid to think about what this means. We fear 1984 while living (for the most part, the only real difference is that we don't have, or need, a direct controlling force) Brave New World.
- widdershins 13y ago
  Brave New World is a much more ambiguous dystopia. Many people could read it and say, "Hey, everyone's happy with their lot. They are conditioned to love their work and the entertainment's great. What's the problem?". That's a much more subtle kind of situation to grok.
  - Djehngo 13y ago
    I remember struggling with this idea, I think my conclusion was that in brave new world people are given happiness but deprived of choice, understanding and meaning.
- weinzierl 13y ago
  "We fear *1984* while living *Brave New World*". -- run4yourlives % went straight to my fortune cookie quote file.
  - chaostheory 13y ago
    It depends on the country. Sure most people in the West live in Brave New World, but in places like North Korea, those people are definitely living in 1984.
- megablast 13y ago
  1984 has world wide surveillance and control through the media. Can you not see why people are using these reasons to bring up 1984?
- afterburner 13y ago
fennecfoxen 13y ago
I'm personally favoring things going more like a slow-motion version of C. S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength (the interesting half of which is what Orwell kinda ripped off writing 1984 - it's sort of a spiritual prequel). To wit: launching a grand patriotic endeavor with much fanfare and overwhelming public support (exploiting a sense of national unity and purpose fostered by the recent war), having that endeavor set up a secret parallel justice system answerable to nobody, indefinite detentions... oh, and the ensuing clashes between the wronged and the merely indifferent... the lowly everyday employees in the terrible scheme for world domination who wish they could get out of it, or do something about it, but fear for their lives and their futures... (Postscript. Then there's a bunch of Christian allegory tacked on inelegantly, which, as Orwell pointed out, undermines the dystopian horror - c.f. http://www.lewisiana.nl/orwell/ http://www.lewisiana.nl/orwell/ )
- ghc 13y ago
  The reason That Hideous Strength is a better blueprint for what's happening than Brave New World or 1984 is that its focus is on the intersection of communication, government and human behavior, rather than on a dystopian future enabled by new technology. Instead of trying to paint a picture of the future it deftly holds a mirror up in front of us, one that reflects just as well in any era.
  - elwin 13y ago
    Another virtue of That Hideous Strength is that Lewis is good at blurring the lines between "good guys" and "bad guys". Instead of Thought Police, he shows Mark Studdock and Feverstone doing evil things out of ordinary motives that we all share. To continue your metaphor, when it holds up a mirror, we can all see our own faces. It makes us consider how little it might take to turn us into collaborators in such a future. That might be a useful thought for tech companies right now.
- Perceval 13y ago
  Orwell owes more to James Burnham's non-fiction book The Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World. Orwell's pamphlet-within-a-book in 1984 "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism" is more or less a condensed version of Burnham's thesis. Orwell even reviewed Burnham's book when it came out: http://www.george-orwell.org/James_Burnham_and_the_Managerial_Revolution/0.html http://www.george-orwell.org/James_Burnham_and_the_Manageria...
mtgx 13y ago
I think so far 1984 is a much better match. Not perfect, but so far better than BNW.
tpurves 13y ago
How about Player Piano? In my mind this book really speaks to the root cause of what's causing divides and imbalances in the modern world, in a way hackernewsians might relate to: "The story takes place in a near-future society that is almost totally mechanized, eliminating the need for human laborers. This widespread mechanization creates conflict between the wealthy upper class—the engineers and managers who keep society running—and the lower class, whose skills and purpose in society have been replaced by machines. " -wikipedia
goostavos 13y ago
Perhaps because the world is not a hard dichotomy and people can see elements of both stories in current events..? Add on top of that the current popular story of persistent surveillance via the NSA, and it's not huge leap to get from NSA to Big Brother to 1984.
grey-area 13y ago
There are lots of similarities with 1984: Eternal war against an ill-defined enemy The perversion of everyday language in order to hide the truth Rewriting history frequently so that what becomes important is allegiance to the party rather than the truth (first Obama opposed mass surveillance, now he's for it). The impression of ubiquitous surveillance, and the use of technology to control the masses, even if its not clear just now much there actually is (NSLs etc) Two minutes hate, where hatred is channelled at an arbitrary, abstract enemy (talk radio) Indefinite and secret detention, and of course torture Information strictly controlled and the truth at a premium (this one is more like Kafka I guess) I admit there are elements of Brave New World that fit very well too (particularly those highlighted in that cartoon), but lots of other predictions of 1984 do chime quite nicely with the current situation in the US (even if the society depicted is absolutely nothing like the current US in many ways).
baddox 13y ago
I strongly disagree with this. 1984 fits much better and is much less far-fetched. The society in 1984 is very similar to real-world society at the time; the only real differences are the ubiquity of government propaganda, rationing of resources, the state-sanctioned class system, and telescreens, and even all of these are already present in lesser ways and could conceivably be intensified to 1984 levels in five or ten years. I frequently experience things that are virtually identical to events in 1984 (e.g. government lies that society immediately accepts, people regurgitating pro-government phrases that are hammered into children's brains in public school, justifications for war and militarism, demonization of political dissidents, the newly-prominent surveillance, etc.). The society in A Brave New World is a dystopian science fiction fantasy world that is a far cry from any society that has ever existed. I think both books are good and offer important warnings to society, but 1984 is simply a much more grounded and realistic view of a conceivable totalitarian state in the near future.
- Nav_Panel 13y ago
  >The society in A Brave New World is a dystopian science fiction fantasy world that is a far cry from any society that has ever existed. Could you justify this further? I'm curious as to your reasons for writing off Brave New World. I just recently finished it (I've read 1984 a few times already too), and I found Brave New World to resemble life in America a lot more than 1984 did, at least based on my personal experiences and not what I hear on the news. However, before I go and write up a bunch of stuff, I am interested in hearing your view.
  - Taylorious 13y ago
    I agree. I read A Brave New World as a kid, but being relatively young (22) it wasn't that long ago (maybe 7 years ago?) and it was post 9/11. It blew my mind how closely the culture of the society in the book resembled society today (at least in the USA). Another book that I read around the same time as A Brave New World was Fahrenheit 451. Of course, people always associate that book with censorship issues, but there were also similar themes to A Brave New World, in respect to society being distracted and not caring about important stuff etc. There were a lot of interesting predictions in the book too. Whenever I see someone walking around with headphones on blocking out the world, I am always reminded of Fahrenheit 451 (especially when it's me!). EDIT: some predictions in Fahrenheit 451: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/06/06/ray-bradbury-dead-how-accurate-predictions-fahrenheit-451_n_1574126.html http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/06/06/ray-bradbury-dead...
rjzzleep 13y ago
it's probably because she is not completely inaccurate with her analysis. but that is also why the whole concept of peace in star trek was based on the fact that everyone was speaking one language, dressing one way etc. it took me over ten years after growing up with star trek to actually realize how poisonous those thoughts are. I also counted the amount of cameras between green park station and victoria, just walking through the tube one day. I think the number was something around 30, but it's been a while.
duaneb 13y ago
They address different parts of society. I wouldn't say either is more or less likely as they could both end up being true or neither.

dangoldin 13y ago

How about Fahrenheit 451 or We? Almost every dystopian novel shares something with the world.

minimaxir 13y ago
Fahrenheit 451 is primarily about censorship of information, although government surveillance plays a small part.
- bcRIPster 13y ago
  Well, yes, censorship via disappearing history and feeding the masses a steady stream of meaningless entertainment to keep them complacent and detached from each other.
derleth 13y ago
Fahrenheit 451 is primarily about self-censorship, born of a desire to avoid causing offense. Or, if you believe Bradbury, it's about Television Is Evil and nothing else: http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/ http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenh... > Fahrenheit 451 is not, he says firmly, a story about government censorship. Nor was it a response to Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose investigations had already instilled fear and stifled the creativity of thousands. [snip] > Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature. > “Television gives you the dates of Napoleon, but not who he was,” Bradbury says, summarizing TV’s content with a single word that he spits out as an epithet: “factoids.” He says this while sitting in a room dominated by a gigantic flat-panel television broadcasting the Fox News Channel, muted, factoids crawling across the bottom of the screen.
stplsd 13y ago
Because we live int this shiny Brave New World in sea of irrelevance and nobody knows/cares about We. And because BNW is clearly plagiarism of We, that adds another quite ironic dimension.

devindotcom 13y ago

I don't really see how BNW maps better. 1984 was about surveillance, oppression, and central control of narrative of life. BNW is about the choice to surrender to comfort - certainly applicable in this day and age, but not onto current events, I'd say.

mindslight 13y ago
The two themes are not incompatible. Brave New World is about the carrot, 1984 is about the stick. In 1984, the upper classes which controlled big brother would've been true believers who led comfortable lives and had better things to do than mind the surveillance. In BNW, those who refused the distractions and instead put their energy into undermining the system would've been discovered and remedied somehow.
- jmngomes 13y ago
  Agreed. And building on that analogy, Animal Farm would be about the stick holders.
  - e3pi 13y ago
    "My fellow mobile tethered sheep(See image-Wired <1>), ask not what your country can do for you, and don't even think about asking what the long term storage of your private metadata can do for security-cleared high-salary retires' revoving door into fear-mongering intel private enterprise, isn't it simply much more pleasant to just eat, keep oogling 'metamedia', and consume more? Ain't it great being a sheep"? Munch, munch! Please herewith be guided accordingly; John F. Alexander <1> http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/06/phew-it-was-just-metadata-not-think-again/ http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/06/phew-it-was-just-metada...
    - ScottBurson 13y ago
      "Oogling", eh? I like that! A combination of ogling and googling.

run4yourlives 13y ago

I'm pretty sure it is because of two reasons: 1. More people have read 1984 than have read Brave New World. 2. Brave New World is so ridiculously accurate that most people are too afraid to think about what this means. We fear 1984 while living (for the most part, the only real difference is that we don't have, or need, a direct controlling force) Brave New World.

widdershins 13y ago
Brave New World is a much more ambiguous dystopia. Many people could read it and say, "Hey, everyone's happy with their lot. They are conditioned to love their work and the entertainment's great. What's the problem?". That's a much more subtle kind of situation to grok.
- Djehngo 13y ago
  I remember struggling with this idea, I think my conclusion was that in brave new world people are given happiness but deprived of choice, understanding and meaning.
weinzierl 13y ago
"We fear *1984* while living *Brave New World*". -- run4yourlives % went straight to my fortune cookie quote file.
- chaostheory 13y ago
  It depends on the country. Sure most people in the West live in Brave New World, but in places like North Korea, those people are definitely living in 1984.
megablast 13y ago
1984 has world wide surveillance and control through the media. Can you not see why people are using these reasons to bring up 1984?
afterburner 13y ago

fennecfoxen 13y ago

I'm personally favoring things going more like a slow-motion version of C. S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength (the interesting half of which is what Orwell kinda ripped off writing 1984 - it's sort of a spiritual prequel). To wit: launching a grand patriotic endeavor with much fanfare and overwhelming public support (exploiting a sense of national unity and purpose fostered by the recent war), having that endeavor set up a secret parallel justice system answerable to nobody, indefinite detentions... oh, and the ensuing clashes between the wronged and the merely indifferent... the lowly everyday employees in the terrible scheme for world domination who wish they could get out of it, or do something about it, but fear for their lives and their futures... (Postscript. Then there's a bunch of Christian allegory tacked on inelegantly, which, as Orwell pointed out, undermines the dystopian horror - c.f. http://www.lewisiana.nl/orwell/ http://www.lewisiana.nl/orwell/ )

ghc 13y ago
The reason That Hideous Strength is a better blueprint for what's happening than Brave New World or 1984 is that its focus is on the intersection of communication, government and human behavior, rather than on a dystopian future enabled by new technology. Instead of trying to paint a picture of the future it deftly holds a mirror up in front of us, one that reflects just as well in any era.
- elwin 13y ago
  Another virtue of That Hideous Strength is that Lewis is good at blurring the lines between "good guys" and "bad guys". Instead of Thought Police, he shows Mark Studdock and Feverstone doing evil things out of ordinary motives that we all share. To continue your metaphor, when it holds up a mirror, we can all see our own faces. It makes us consider how little it might take to turn us into collaborators in such a future. That might be a useful thought for tech companies right now.
Perceval 13y ago
Orwell owes more to James Burnham's non-fiction book The Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World. Orwell's pamphlet-within-a-book in 1984 "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism" is more or less a condensed version of Burnham's thesis. Orwell even reviewed Burnham's book when it came out: http://www.george-orwell.org/James_Burnham_and_the_Managerial_Revolution/0.html http://www.george-orwell.org/James_Burnham_and_the_Manageria...

mtgx 13y ago

I think so far 1984 is a much better match. Not perfect, but so far better than BNW.

tpurves 13y ago

How about Player Piano? In my mind this book really speaks to the root cause of what's causing divides and imbalances in the modern world, in a way hackernewsians might relate to: "The story takes place in a near-future society that is almost totally mechanized, eliminating the need for human laborers. This widespread mechanization creates conflict between the wealthy upper class—the engineers and managers who keep society running—and the lower class, whose skills and purpose in society have been replaced by machines. " -wikipedia

goostavos 13y ago

Perhaps because the world is not a hard dichotomy and people can see elements of both stories in current events..? Add on top of that the current popular story of persistent surveillance via the NSA, and it's not huge leap to get from NSA to Big Brother to 1984.

grey-area 13y ago

There are lots of similarities with 1984: Eternal war against an ill-defined enemy The perversion of everyday language in order to hide the truth Rewriting history frequently so that what becomes important is allegiance to the party rather than the truth (first Obama opposed mass surveillance, now he's for it). The impression of ubiquitous surveillance, and the use of technology to control the masses, even if its not clear just now much there actually is (NSLs etc) Two minutes hate, where hatred is channelled at an arbitrary, abstract enemy (talk radio) Indefinite and secret detention, and of course torture Information strictly controlled and the truth at a premium (this one is more like Kafka I guess) I admit there are elements of Brave New World that fit very well too (particularly those highlighted in that cartoon), but lots of other predictions of 1984 do chime quite nicely with the current situation in the US (even if the society depicted is absolutely nothing like the current US in many ways).

baddox 13y ago

I strongly disagree with this. 1984 fits much better and is much less far-fetched. The society in 1984 is very similar to real-world society at the time; the only real differences are the ubiquity of government propaganda, rationing of resources, the state-sanctioned class system, and telescreens, and even all of these are already present in lesser ways and could conceivably be intensified to 1984 levels in five or ten years. I frequently experience things that are virtually identical to events in 1984 (e.g. government lies that society immediately accepts, people regurgitating pro-government phrases that are hammered into children's brains in public school, justifications for war and militarism, demonization of political dissidents, the newly-prominent surveillance, etc.). The society in A Brave New World is a dystopian science fiction fantasy world that is a far cry from any society that has ever existed. I think both books are good and offer important warnings to society, but 1984 is simply a much more grounded and realistic view of a conceivable totalitarian state in the near future.

Nav_Panel 13y ago
>The society in A Brave New World is a dystopian science fiction fantasy world that is a far cry from any society that has ever existed. Could you justify this further? I'm curious as to your reasons for writing off Brave New World. I just recently finished it (I've read 1984 a few times already too), and I found Brave New World to resemble life in America a lot more than 1984 did, at least based on my personal experiences and not what I hear on the news. However, before I go and write up a bunch of stuff, I am interested in hearing your view.
- Taylorious 13y ago
  I agree. I read A Brave New World as a kid, but being relatively young (22) it wasn't that long ago (maybe 7 years ago?) and it was post 9/11. It blew my mind how closely the culture of the society in the book resembled society today (at least in the USA). Another book that I read around the same time as A Brave New World was Fahrenheit 451. Of course, people always associate that book with censorship issues, but there were also similar themes to A Brave New World, in respect to society being distracted and not caring about important stuff etc. There were a lot of interesting predictions in the book too. Whenever I see someone walking around with headphones on blocking out the world, I am always reminded of Fahrenheit 451 (especially when it's me!). EDIT: some predictions in Fahrenheit 451: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/06/06/ray-bradbury-dead-how-accurate-predictions-fahrenheit-451_n_1574126.html http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/06/06/ray-bradbury-dead...

rjzzleep 13y ago

it's probably because she is not completely inaccurate with her analysis. but that is also why the whole concept of peace in star trek was based on the fact that everyone was speaking one language, dressing one way etc. it took me over ten years after growing up with star trek to actually realize how poisonous those thoughts are. I also counted the amount of cameras between green park station and victoria, just walking through the tube one day. I think the number was something around 30, but it's been a while.

duaneb 13y ago

They address different parts of society. I wouldn't say either is more or less likely as they could both end up being true or neither.