/lit/ - Literature

The message of 1984 is that it's possible, and there are no magically convenient safeguards like "~the truth will always win~". You have to defend the truth and prevent things like 1984 from happening, because nature isn't going to do it for you.

>>3746231

>>3746260
That picture seems to completely ignore that plenty of the factors in Oceania existed in the real world (to a certain extent).

Marx was right about it all :"(

Idk I like Brave New World better. This book was pretty cool too, and got freaky towards the end.

>>3746260
this guy knows the score

Both books are great, depicting future events. But Brave New World is much closer to our reality now.

it's already set its course and is on it's way at 100mph

>>3746284
>tfw

>>3746384
*cough* bullshit *cough*
Name one thing about which Marx was right that no one else said at the same time or earlier.

>>3746395
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/k/karl_marx.html

>>3746274
That's the thing though. "Oceania2 existed, but also failed. If by Oceania you mean USSR. Brave New World is still a probable future, even more you can see some trends going into this direction.

>>3746404
>yfw oceania is closer to china

>>3746395
Alienation, though I suppose you might find something about that in Romantic literature.

People who say BNW is closer to reality have forgotten I think that we literally have government agencies monitoring CCTV cameras across the country, if Wikileaks can be trusted. It's unhelpfully reductive to think that all 1984 is about is oppressive, faceless governments. I think that, even if it wasn't really mentioned in the book, the idea that mass media can produce "corpses that don't need to be mourned" is reflected more in 1984 than BNW, for example.

One thing I kept thinking about while reading it is "How do we know it already hasn't happened? How do we know that history didn't happen differently and the history books have been changed to reflect what we accept as truth?"
I was really high while I read most of it.

>>3746408
People who think 1984 is closer forget Amusing Ourselves to Death -- regardless of CCTV.

>>3746260
This might capture what Huxley was going for, maybe (I've only read the novel, not his later comments etc), but to my mind the novel itself actually undermines these points it's allegedly making.

People in BNW aren't 'controlled by inflicting pleasure'- they're born in test-tubes and controlled on the genetic level. They don't want to read books not because they're distracted by the media, but because their brains are pre-conditioned to hate books. And they're not given 'too much information' by the government- the government in BNW is actually more effectively dictatorial than 1984's, because it can do what the Party can't- eliminate the very possibility of dissenting thought.

fucking neat.first time i come to this board because i dont really read books but lately got this book and holy crap i love it.I got to the part where winston got the book and started reading it.It was kind of hard to follow it because of my shit english though.Thanks to this thread i already know what my next book will be.

>>3746415
I can tell.

>>3746231
what do you think this CISPA bullshit is about?

Get ready for the drones watching you in your window, the fucking gogle street cams, fb holding all the info, your im, mail cellphone being recorded...

is happening man.

I enjoy 1984 a bit more than Brave New World, but only because Huxley sacrifices story for ideology, and can go on long tangents of preaching the horrors of our coming world, while it seems that Orwell's book instills the same fear and anxiety over the future by weaving it into the book itself.

Huxley was a visionary and probably a bit closer to the truth, but I find that he was definitely much more of a social commentator than a writer.

It did turn out like this. it's a dark satire of stalinist russia with some scienefictiony monitors thrown in. It didn't last, mostly becasue contrary to the books ideas, it's not that stable. In the book, to be fair, it was stabilized aby a worldwide conspiracy)

>>3746641
are you sure bro?

>>3746260
Every time I see this stupid graphic it makes my head hurt.

Orwell's 1984 showed an understanding the fundamental concepts of soviet-style totalitarianism. One of the reasons we are able to see signs of this kind of dictatorship is because 1984 exists. It acts as inoculation against this kind of dictatorship.

I'm not saying Huxley's dystopian vision is "wrong," but Orwell's work with 1984 and Animal Farm did far more to make the public aware of a political formation that's beyond a shadow of a doubt present in reality. The easiest example is North Korea. Is there anything comparable in terms of Brave New World?

The closest thing we get is 1) a stratified class system with no social mobility, 2) "scary" media initiatives and misinformation, and 3) social passivity. While these elements are present in developed countries, it is nothing close to Huxley's eugenic horrorshow of a world. I can't stand the sheer smugness of the comparison. It doesn't seem serious in the slightest.

I get that it isn't what you're trying to say, but that graphic is fucking stupid.

>>3746664
different thing. You're dealing with incompetent evil, not supremely competent evil.

>>3746706
okay, I guess that would vanish OP's concerns.

also:
http://activepolitic.com:82/News/2012-07-25c/Facebook_Abstainers_could_be_labeled_Suspicious.html

>>3746743
It's still totally different from the literal totalitarian dictatorship that Orwell was parodying and you ought to know this... that doesn't mean it's good, or that you oughtn't to criticize it, just that it's inaccurate to criticize it by invoking Orwell.

>>3746231
I would fight for a 1984 style state, no doubt.

Orwell (understandably, for the information available at the time) significantly underestimated the instability of totalitarianism and long term sustainability of authoritarian, one-party states.

It probably won't happen, and if it did, it would last for maybe a generation before collapse

>>3746692

This is near copypasta level response.

Every time that graphic gets posted, someone retorts with this, and while I prefer BNW, neither are 'correct' or better.

Jesus christ this is Rand level tedium.

>>3746260
Huxley's biggest misstep is the assumption that much of this would be appropriated through government and not buissness

I'm afraid that this may already be happening in a fairly different way.

Think of it this way, if the government one day upped and asked for full, total control of us, the 'inner party' what would stop us for revolting?

Highly sophisticated weaponry which wouldn't kill us and a miltary full of meatheads willing to lay their lives on the line for their government.

>>3746783
>This is near copypasta level response. Every time that graphic gets posted, someone retorts with this, and while I prefer BNW, neither are 'correct' or better. Jesus christ this is Rand level tedium.

Well, I mean, yeah. What the fuck else did you expect in a thread about 1984? We've talked about this shit a million fucking times, and every point has been made repeatedly, and they're mostly quite basic points, and no one has any new points to bring to bear ever, and so we end up just repeating ourselves endlessly, and it's incredibly boring and tedious, but what the fuck are you going to do when people still want to keep coming to /lit/ and making threads about something that we have completely exhausted all discussion about? Of course it's going to be repetitive and tedious.

I mean, we could try to do the "Was Orwell a Socialst" argument if that incredibly tired argument would be more interesting to you instead, I guess.

(not anon you're replying to, btw)

>>3746811
It's more that this argument doesn't need to be played out.

It's the worst kind of false dichotomy.

>>3746809
*from

asimov said that a political state such as the one presente in 1984 is impossible to achieve beyond the textbooks

>>3747041
Asimov doesn't know everything

>>3747041
It's impossible to achieve such a state and have it be one that's stable and enduring. It's not impossible to achieve such a state, it's just that it would be temporary, either collapsing on itself or just straight-up purging everyone.

yhea but that kind of disproves what >>3746242 said, if we consider that such a state is not permanent then in a way that can be considered as a "win" in the end

>>3747041
And yet DPRK exists.

>>3746811
>the "Was Orwell a Socialst" argument
Is there an argument about that? Didn't he, say he was a socialist, write socialist things, and risk his life fighting for socialists?

Would things turn out the same if Snowball kicked Napoleon out instead?

>>3747258
and it's such a success

>>3748321
ouch

> not knowing our world is already 1984

Oh, op. Wiki Utah data center
Also lemme

... this
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/

>>3748353
yes, because Airstrip One was 'such a success'... I'm not sure the point you are trying to make; the fact that North Korea is a quagmire of poverty, hate, defiance, misery, rampant nationalism mixed with violent oppression of those who question, constant war rhetoric and propaganda makes it both a non-successful state, in that it doesn't take care of its people, and a successful one, in that it sure knows how to control them.

>>3746765
... So what you are saying is that we cannot criticize one thing, by comparing it to another, because they are, by definition, not the exact same thing?
If no: How much like Airstrip One must a state be?
(I take no side in the debate over America v. Orwell but your logic is a nightmare)

>>3746415
I think that's an understandable and rational response to the first introduction of the notion of a police state on that level, to that degree. It's not hard to make connections with the real world and either of the two often compared books.

Did Orwell actually believe in any political system?

>>3746231
our world is much more fucked up than this, you ignorant fool

>>3749494
please elaborate

>>3749501
read a fukin book, you have interwebz for fucks sake

>>3749525

Who says it isn't already?

>Please tell me that our world won't turn out like this

>implying its not already like this

you cant even plan terrorist attacks anymore without the fbi arresting you

>>3746231

I love that cover

>>3749482
"Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it."

Sure, it could happen. It hasn't though, not in the west.

I love how much people misunderstand this book.

>>3749571
This

>>3749571
I beg to differ, my dear faggot.

In the thumbnail, I thought it said "Introduction by Herbert Hoover". I pissed my boxer briefs thinking that such a marvelous thing was real.

I always thought that Brave New World was a better dystopian future. The biggest reason I also find BNW tangible is this quote -
"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us."
Just my two cents, though.

A CHALLENGER APPEARS

Srly guis. Read this shit. You'll recognize lines and ideas that Orwell emulated very easily. There's a line about a "clock striking 17" and even a rant about the beauty of 2 * 2 = 4.

I don't know if I can say this book is a prophetic as 1984 or BNW, but it need to be mentioned way more. It was written in 1920 which amazes me because it feels very timeless which can be very difficult to pull off with a futuristic scifi novel.

What I love about We is that the main character is not an inherently rebellious underdog at first--he's a hardcore believer in the One State. The one thing I think We captures really well is how the protagonist essentially replaces religion with faith in human reason and how doing so makes him a borderline autistic drone.

>>3751746

Goddamn fucking picture I forgot to cunting post.

>>3751746
>It was written in 1920

>On 4 December 1948, he sent the final manuscript to the publisher Secker and Warburg and Nineteen Eighty-Four was published on 8 June 1949.

>>3751454
Good quote. Too bad the book its from is technophobic bollocks.

>>3751767
>technophobic bollocks

Perhaps you should re-read it.

>>3751766

Publish =/= time of writing

It was written from 1920-1921.

First fucking sentence via wikipedia: We (Russian: Мы) is a dystopian novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin completed in 1921.

>>3746510
This.

>>3749560
Unless you use pressure cookers.
inb4 false flag

>>3751803
>>3751766

Oh wow, I just corrected you on when We was published because I misread your misreading of what I originally wrote--I was talking about We. Fuck it. It's bedtime.

>>3751844
To be fair, anon misread your original post pretty hard.

>>3746260

but when you look at it this way 1984 and Brave New World are really about two separate kinds of danger that aren't necessarily mutually exclusive

1984 is about the danger of others desires while Brave New World is about the danger of our own desires

Just because Huxley's vision of the future seems more likely at this point in time it doesn't make the danger that Orwell describes any less realistic or threatening

>>3746231
we're already there, man.
that's the truly frightening thing about this book, realizing it's what the world is turning out to be. before long there won't be anywhere you'll be without the government being able to see you and monitor you.

I myself think Fahrenheit 451 is a bit closer to describing the state of the world (Or at least, the United States) today, though I do admit that 1984 is rather terrifying.

>>3746231
>won't
you mean did ?

>cameras in tvs
>surveillance cameras all over the UK

etc
etc
etc

I heard that flat screen tv's don't actually turn off, just stop playing, and you can't turn off wall mounted tv's without reaching between the walls. And of course they constantly spew propaganda. Telescreens are here.

>>3752599


OH FUCK YOU,

Why did you bump this shit?