1984 vs Brave New World

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Like a Shakespearian drama, it borrows contemporary props to flesh out a classic (power) structure.

No. No, it very much didn't. The closest you could get is that it borrowed futuristic props to flesh out an exaggeration (how much of one is up for debate) of a then-contemporary but non-local power structure. To call the Party "classic" would be a grave mistake, and be grateful for that.

Richard

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
ok, its worse than i thought, but you can always opt out, buy a cottage in the Scottish highlands and forget the world.

Won't help. Even then you can choose between being an efficient member of the modern world (albeit at a physical distance), being an efficient self-sufficient farmer (and you'll have to be efficient to be self-sufficient in the Scottish Highlands!), or, well, starving.

It's easy to complain about the impersonality of modern life, when you run no risk of starvation.

Richard

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
No. No, it very much didn't. The closest you could get is that it borrowed futuristic props to flesh out an exaggeration (how much of one is up for debate) of a then-contemporary but non-local power structure. To call the Party "classic" would be a grave mistake, and be grateful for that.

Richard

I disagree. The Party and the Inquisition were not very different, for instance.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
I disagree. The Party and the Inquisition were not very different, for instance.

And then there is the blueprint for the fascist state in Plato's The Laws.

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Won't help. Even then you can choose between being an efficient member of the modern world (albeit at a physical distance), being an efficient self-sufficient farmer (and you'll have to be efficient to be self-sufficient in the Scottish Highlands!), or, well, starving.

It's easy to complain about the impersonality of modern life, when you run no risk of starvation.

Richard

How often are the Bushmen of the Kalahari reduced to starvation? I think they suffer less from hunger than many 'civilized' nations despite living in one of the least productive areas of the earth. Providing enough food to live on does not require nearly as much work as you seem to think. What requires 'work' is providing all the artificial desires that civilized people seem to think they can't do without.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Is this why many technologies which are meant to save us time in fact consume our
time, like the car (sitting in traffic for hours) or the computer (endless hours of surfing
and blogging)

Thats why I call my broom (as opposed to the vacuum) as my "time machine" 😀

Originally posted by DrKF
"In October of 1949, a few months after the release of George Orwell's dystopian masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four, he received a fascinating letter from fellow author Aldous Huxley — a man who, 17 years previous, had seen his own nightmarish vision of society published, in the form of Brave New World. What begins as a letter of praise soon becomes a brief comp lent 'Letters of Note'.

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/1984-v-brave-new-world.html

The future technological world drowning in pleasure & drugs, may indeed be the more Huxlian realism in Western culture.

My opinion is that Orwell's 1984 was the better of the two books.

But it has been a long time since I read them. It seems to me that I read 1984 about twice voluntarily (maybe revisited it). Brave New World was an assignment.

Originally posted by karoly aczel
Thats why I call my broom (as opposed to the vacuum) as my "time machine" 😀

I prefer to brush out the inside of my truck, it does a better job than the vacuum
cleaner, it burns more calories and is better for the environment.

Originally posted by rwingett
How often are the Bushmen of the Kalahari reduced to starvation? I think they suffer less from hunger than many 'civilized' nations despite living in one of the least productive areas of the earth. Providing enough food to live on does not require nearly as much work as you seem to think. What requires 'work' is providing all the artificial desires that civilized people seem to think they can't do without.

Unfortunately very few 'Bushmen' continue to live in this way. Best to evoke their example in the past tense henceforth.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Unfortunately very few 'Bushmen' continue to live in this way. Best to evoke their example in the past tense henceforth.

How many Bushmen does it take for the example to hold true?

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
I disagree. The Party and the Inquisition were not very different, for instance.

Then I believe you still have the Enlightenment idea of the Inquisition. They didn't actually burn people alive just because of a single accusation of witchcraft, you know. They were no angels, certainly not, but many of their "victims" were actually... shock, horror... acquitted!
This varied a lot by place and time, of course. The worst were certain years of the Spanish Inquisition - logical, because that was mostly a political body. My own Netherlands are a good example. People were indeed burnt at the stake here, with the excuse that they were impenitent "heretics" (read: Calvinists). The real reason was, of course, our struggle for independence from Spanish tyranny. It was the Alcazar which executed these people - and in the end, it was all in vain, since in 1648 we got what we wanted anyway. That doesn't sound much like Miniluv to me.

Besides, the Party was quite clearly based on, well, the Party. The Soviet "Communist" Party, that is, which Orwell despised for having thrown away everything that Communism should stand for. Orwell himself was a great believer in the ideals behind Communism, wrongly or rightly, but honestly. He hated the Soviet Union for not being honest about it - and at that, in any case, he was right. One could also argue for influences from the Nazi Party. Both were very much contemporary - the book was published in 1948.

Richard

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Then I believe you still have the Enlightenment idea of the Inquisition. They didn't actually burn people alive just because of a single accusation of witchcraft, you know. They were no angels, certainly not, but many of their "victims" were actually... shock, horror... acquitted!
This varied a lot by place and time, of course. The worst were ce ...[text shortened]... azi Party. Both were very much contemporary - the book was published in 1948.

Richard

I have in mind chiefly the Spanish Inquisition, responsible for ensuring ideological conformity to Ferdinand and Isabella's centralised absolute rule.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
And then there is the blueprint for the fascist state in Plato's The Laws.

Kim Jong Il is the Eastasian Big Brother.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Kim Jong Il is the Eastasian Big Brother.

Big Brother is dead?

Originally posted by rwingett
Big Brother is dead?

Let's see how long N Korea can hold itself together. Kim Jong Il managed to replace his father in the role...maybe Un will be able to. Maybe not.