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Huxley vs. Orwell


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Orwell wasn't making predictions about the future in 1984, it was very much a book of its time, based on the totalitarian regimes at that time and the way they operated. It's still relevant because prototype Stalinist states still exist, like North Korea, and totalitarian regimes ultimately work on the same principles.

 

Just started reading Brave New World again, it's awesome.

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Orwell wasn't making predictions about the future in 1984, it was very much a book of its time, based on the totalitarian regimes at that time and the way they operated. It's still relevant because prototype Stalinist states still exist, like North Korea, and totalitarian regimes ultimately work on the same principles.

 

Just started reading Brave New World again, it's awesome.

 

Yeah I read it again recently.

 

Are you denying we are airstrip one btw? :lol:

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Orwell wasn't making predictions about the future in 1984, it was very much a book of its time, based on the totalitarian regimes at that time and the way they operated. It's still relevant because prototype Stalinist states still exist, like North Korea, and totalitarian regimes ultimately work on the same principles.

 

Just started reading Brave New World again, it's awesome.

 

Yeah I read it again recently.

 

Are you denying we are airstrip one btw? :lol:

 

Yeah, don't be silly now. People point to the surveillance technology in 1984 and CCTV nowadays as if Orwell had predicted this type of thing and as if the government here are monitoring us in such a way as that in the book. Preposterous numbers of people were employed in Stalin's Russia to monitor communications between ordinary folk and to capture any insubordinate types. Orwell was a great observer and captured the essence of totalitarian regimes, rather than making great predictions of the future. He wrote Animal Farm and 1984 to 'puncture the communist myth' (his own words I think, maybe paraphrasing) as there was a great deal of censorship regarding criticism of Stalin post-WW2 and also many of the 'intelligentsia' were credulous in their belief that a utopia had been created in Russia.

 

As for Huxley being right, well he's not far wrong is he! Especially about the corrosive affect of entertainment. I think all us 'forum dwellers' should be able to recognize that, in ourselves as much as anyone else.

Edited by Kevin S. Assilleekunt
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It's clever if you don't read into it or think about it juxtaposed to the books. Both sides of the strip are applicable to modern society but the assertion that Huxley or Orwell were trying to predict the future is incorrect, besides the people of Brave New World didn't labour which is why leisure was killing them - the people portrayed above clearly work jobs or would have to work jobs to facilitate their leisure.

 

Orwell did write about a never ending war - similar to the never ending war on terror. Plus it's claiming Huxley is correct because ''nobody wants to read books anymore'' which is frankly utter bollocks as people read all the time, in fact due to blogging and online news sites people probably spend more time reading than before or they can use ebay to buy the exact books they want. Even use an amazon kindle - which have sold more than 8 million units. I imagine a lot of people read on ipads too!

 

Orwell didn't write about fear and pain as tools to control as much as the power to control what people interpret as fear and pain. He wrote about total control over everything which isn't too far divorced from communist/fascist agendas.

 

So to summarise, bollocks comic strip, not clever or correct but I guess it gets people talking!

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Huxley for me. BNW is a great book and Huxley sounded quite an enigmatic character. He took LSD after he wrote The Doors of Perception and said that experience was the real deal and mescaline was just a walk in the park. Was mates with Leary in the 60s.

 

Never read The Marriage of Heaven and Hell but Blake was clearly a genius. If i was going to nick a phrase from Blake it would be 'the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom'. :lol:

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Huxley for me. BNW is a great book and Huxley sounded quite an enigmatic character. He took LSD after he wrote The Doors of Perception and said that experience was the real deal and mescaline was just a walk in the park. Was mates with Leary in the 60s.

 

Never read The Marriage of Heaven and Hell but Blake was clearly a genius. If i was going to nick a phrase from Blake it would be 'the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom'. :lol:

 

Like Huxley and Orwell but both by breeding and by chance or perhaps via the Fabians or The Astor family did get a peak behind the curtain.

 

Check out the Frankfurt school.

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It's clever if you don't read into it or think about it juxtaposed to the books. Both sides of the strip are applicable to modern society but the assertion that Huxley or Orwell were trying to predict the future is incorrect, besides the people of Brave New World didn't labour which is why leisure was killing them - the people portrayed above clearly work jobs or would have to work jobs to facilitate their leisure.

 

Orwell did write about a never ending war - similar to the never ending war on terror. Plus it's claiming Huxley is correct because ''nobody wants to read books anymore'' which is frankly utter bollocks as people read all the time, in fact due to blogging and online news sites people probably spend more time reading than before or they can use ebay to buy the exact books they want. Even use an amazon kindle - which have sold more than 8 million units. I imagine a lot of people read on ipads too!

 

Orwell didn't write about fear and pain as tools to control as much as the power to control what people interpret as fear and pain. He wrote about total control over everything which isn't too far divorced from communist/fascist agendas.

 

So to summarise, bollocks comic strip, not clever or correct but I guess it gets people talking!

 

Nicely written Tom.

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Huxley for me. BNW is a great book and Huxley sounded quite an enigmatic character. He took LSD after he wrote The Doors of Perception and said that experience was the real deal and mescaline was just a walk in the park. Was mates with Leary in the 60s.

 

Never read The Marriage of Heaven and Hell but Blake was clearly a genius. If i was going to nick a phrase from Blake it would be 'the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom'. :lol:

 

Like Huxley and Orwell but both by breeding and by chance or perhaps via the Fabians or The Astor family did get a peak behind the curtain.

 

 

That sentence hurts. What do you mean? :razz:

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Huxley for me. BNW is a great book and Huxley sounded quite an enigmatic character. He took LSD after he wrote The Doors of Perception and said that experience was the real deal and mescaline was just a walk in the park. Was mates with Leary in the 60s.

 

Never read The Marriage of Heaven and Hell but Blake was clearly a genius. If i was going to nick a phrase from Blake it would be 'the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom'. :lol:

 

Like Huxley and Orwell but both by breeding and by chance or perhaps via the Fabians or The Astor family did get a peak behind the curtain.

 

 

That sentence hurts. What do you mean? :razz:

 

Well this was his brother..

 

"Huxley was a prominent member of the British Eugenics Society,[67] and was Vice-President (1937–1944) and President (1959–1962). He thought eugenics was important for removing undesirable variants from the human gene pool; but at least after World War II he believed race was a meaningless concept in biology, and its application to humans was highly inconsistent.[68]

 

Huxley was an outspoken critic of the most extreme eugenicism in the 1920s and 1930s (the stimulus for which was the greater fertility of the 'feckless' poor compared to the 'responsible' prosperous classes). He was, nevertheless, a leading figure in the eugenics movement (see, for example, Eugenics manifesto)"

 

 

If one looks carefully at A.Huxley his dark vision was perhaps not as much flights of fancy as one would initially imagine (bearing in mind the people he hung out with and class and privelege as it were at the time). They were amongst the elite that were keen on scientific dictatorship (It's basically this that is manifested in BNW).

 

P.

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Fabians at the time were keen to remodel society (before breakfast ideally)...Here's one of em..In his pomp..

 

 

Orwell was of course a Fabian and the editor of the Tribune.

 

Where he wrote under the witty soudenim A. Freeman iirc.

Edited by Park Life
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His brother was a eugenics freak and this may have influenced his dark vision? Even better.

 

Quite.

 

This is a deep old rabbit hole but many are reluctant to go down it and of course some never surface again. :lol:

 

It was a strange old period when the monied and well bred were gadding around Africa and India keeping the wogs in their place and once back home began to wonder (over cucumber sarnies) what quite to do about the shabby old english working class and its traditions and affectations. Won't do you know!! Some of them were quite keen on Hitlers methods as history later reveals.

Edited by Park Life
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Anyway for Orwell's 1984 influences I enjoyed Koestler the most! :lol:

 

(or for 1984 influenced, 1985 by Anthony Burgess explores Orwell brilliantly!)

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Anyway for Orwell's 1984 influences I enjoyed Koestler the most! :lol:

 

(or for 1984 influenced, 1985 by Anthony Burgess explores Orwell brilliantly!)

 

Darkness at Noon is one of my all time faves. Still have a well thumbed paperback somewhere.

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He managed to sign a contract at Liverpool so yes, yes he can!

 

Unless he just punched the table and both parties agreed that was sufficient.

 

 

Alternative answer : Could Judas?!

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Anyway for Orwell's 1984 influences I enjoyed Koestler the most! :razz:

 

(or for 1984 influenced, 1985 by Anthony Burgess explores Orwell brilliantly!)

 

Darkness at Noon is one of my all time faves. Still have a well thumbed paperback somewhere.

 

 

I have it paperback, I doubt they did it hardback! :lol:

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Anyway for Orwell's 1984 influences I enjoyed Koestler the most! :razz:

 

(or for 1984 influenced, 1985 by Anthony Burgess explores Orwell brilliantly!)

 

Darkness at Noon is one of my all time faves. Still have a well thumbed paperback somewhere.

 

 

I have it paperback, I doubt they did it hardback! :lol:

 

Not even the Gulag version? :death:

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cartoon is excellent but doesnt explain the underlying issues in both books, content merely to paraphrase.

 

between bnw and 1984 my favourite is 1984. that is not to say that bnw is not without merit.

 

 

 

 

please excuse my ramblings. ive been on the pish since 1.

 

 

 

p.s. in answer to parky's question earlier, weve been airstrip 1 since 1942.

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