/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2067925]

1984 and Brave New World. Here we go again.

So these two books are quite popular but i wanted to know how people actually take them in context now. Not as good books (which they are) but as looking glasses at the world of tomorrow (which is now). I don't think they were exactly meant for this as they were written more so about the society of the day but here is my question:

Huxley saw that society would be doomed by the things we love, and would ultimately be dumb down and consumed by all of it's freedom of responsibility and freedom to buy. They would become complacent and lack critical thinking to question those who rule over them.

Orwell saw a Stalinist-style controlled state that is under constant surveillance, require full government support, and ect. He did not rule out what Huxley talked about either since he had the lowest class in the book be all beer mongers and dumb fed fools.

Huxley's vision of the society and how we would function turned out to be more on the ball then Orwell in that many are dominated by consumerism and globalization instead of worrying about who got elected that there is no need for surveillance and constant control. Are we still headed in Huxley's direction, or is there still room for Orwellian vision to spring up?

[Anonymous No.2067928]

Yes we saw this picture too. The answer is Huxley's. You can thank Israel.

[Ludwig !9CUY39dDYo No.2067931]

>2011
>thinking 1984 is any more than a children's book

[Anonymous No.2067959]

>>2067931

ketchup is supposed to be refrigerated

[Anonymous No.2067960]

>>2067931
confirmed for wannabe elitist hipstard. ooh, look how edgy, plopping a turd down on one of the five books he's ever read just because he knows everyone else has read it. go rape yourself with a rusty shovel you cumslurping piece of shit.

[Anonymous No.2067963]

>>2067931

>Del Monte Ketchup
>2011

I seriously aaah fuckit I can't be arsed.

[Anonymous No.2067965]

>>2067931

[Anonymous No.2067969]

1984 is coming true, at least for Britain.

There was an article I read a few weeks ago about a new surveillance software to be used for Britains millions of CCTV cameras that alerts the authorities to abnormal behaviour and is able to track a person as they move around, jumping from camera to camera. And you'll never guess the name of the guy who designed it...Dr Orwell. I lol'd when I read it but then I serious'd...this is concerning. 25% of all CCTV cameras in the world are in Britain. Police have the power to stop and search people in the street for no reason. 1984 is very applicable to modern day Britain. And the scarier thing is that a lot of people are of the attitude that "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" which only means there will be no opposition to the tightening of current laws.

As for Brave New World, yes consumerism is getting out of hand. It is easy to see how things are dumbing down in the media - from news reporting to general TV shows.

People are complacent, but they DO question those above them. They just ask the wrong questions and we get retards preaching about how we never went to the moon and how 9/11 was an inside job...they don't question the things that actually matter, and are actually suspicious (conspiratards, don't start please...), of which we have a few such laws.

We're headed in both directions at once. Both authors took a certain aspect of our society and wrote about it's extremities. Our society is heading towards a combined extremity of both.

[Ludwig !9CUY39dDYo No.2067977]

>>2067963
>>2067959
>>2067960
>>2067965

[Anonymous No.2068018]

>>2067969
>25% of all CCTV cameras in the world are in Britain.
I stopped reading here.

[Anonymous No.2068028]

>>2068018
Why? Most of it is my opinion anyway, that is the only statistic I used.

Anyway, turns out I was wrong - it's 20%.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23390407-uk-has-1-of-worlds-population-but-20-of-its-cctv
-cameras.do

And some other links for you:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205607/Shock-figures-reveal-Britain-CCTV-camera-14-people--
China.html


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12224075

[Anonymous No.2068035]

>>2068028
Britain has enormous population density - particularly in London, a city of over 10 million people. London's been no stranger to terrorism over the last 30 years, from Irish bombers to Iranian hostage takers and Al Qaeda. I don't give a fuck about CCTV. It's been invaluable in arresting the rioters.
As for stop and search I don't give a fuck either (btw it's never for 'no reason', at least, not theoretically).
Also >if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear
Why is this incorrect?

[VeiL !!LpJFJwZq2Js No.2068048]

>>2068035
People should always have the right to have something to hide.

A right to privacy, pronounced PRI-VUH-SEE

[Anonymous No.2068050]

>>2067959
its in one, dumbass.

>>2067969
It's still far closer to brave new world. You distract the apathetic uncaring populace with degenerate garbage, and then they don't give two shits about the totalitarian policies of their government.

>>2068035
Precisely what i mean, no privacy or freedom but who cares because guvment will watch over us!

[Anonymous No.2068054]

>>2068035
Not even in this debate but the reason people hold issue with the attitude of "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" is because it goes against a person's rights to be forcibly searched on the whim of a police officer. Restricting the rights of the people in order to protect the people is not acceptable to many of us.

>Any society that would give up a little liberty for a little security shall deserve neither and lose both.

[Anonymous No.2068148]

PROVERBS FOR PARANOIDS:

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

[Anonymous No.2068178]

>>2068050
>No privacy or freedom
What the fuck are you talking about? I have plenty of privacy. For a start, unlike in the USA, my company can't fucking spy on me (unlike, I read in Bill Bryson's 'Notes from a Big Country', in the USA) and I can't be abducted and subjected to brainwashing a la MKULTRA.
This libertarian hyerbole is just fucking retarded. I like not being blown up on the tube, and if there is a video record of my passage across public areas then so be it, why should I be worried? Give me a logical reason, please, not just a fucking slogan.

[Anonymous No.2068188]

>>2068178
Also I started that post before finishing it after dinner so please forgive the error in the second line.

[Anonymous No.2068195]

>>2068178
Because there is an assumption that you may be a potential criminal. Because you are being spied upon - is a free citizen spied on? Because the approved norms can be changed at any time, and you can be apprehended for behaving abnormally.

CCTV won't stop you being blown up on the tube. It will only show who (perhaps) did it AFTER the event. And as for robbing a store...HOODIES.

[Anonymous No.2068214]

>>2068195
>Because there is an assumption that you may be a potential criminal.
That's a pretty reasonable assumption when observing millions of people.
>CCTV won't stop you being blown up on the tube. It will only show who (perhaps) did it AFTER the event.
It's pretty useful for checking how many bags of fertiliser and weedkiller Abdul's been shopping for across the capital.
>And as for robbing a store...HOODIES.
And yet the rioters got caught. BY CCTV.
One example: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8696932/London-riots-ballerina-17-year-old-caught-on-CC
TV.html
>Because you are being spied upon - is a free citizen spied on?
Depends what you mean by 'spied upon'. I don't see the compilation of CCTV as a means to identify and prosecute criminals (and defend the genuinely innocent) as some kind of terrible atrocity.

[Anonymous No.2068224]

>>2068214
>It's pretty useful for checking how many bags of fertiliser and weedkiller Abdul's been shopping for across the capital.

So what? Is this illegal?

There's your main problem. Assuming criminality due to behaviour outside the norms. Just what defines the norm? Isn't it possible to change the approved norm at any time? This is the concerning part.

[Anonymous No.2068249]

the problem with reading books like 1984 etc. and pointing out vaguely similar shit going on in the real world is that anyone of any political ideology can do it. I've heard the 'lol orwell was right' bullshit from the left the right the middle and the independent, and all of them give pretty good arguments... because these novels, taken allegorically, are just vague enough that they can be taken to be an attack on anything.

dystopian fiction is fucking worthless if you want to actually learn about real-world political issues. get off your ass and actually engage with it, don't act like some enlightened genius because you've read Orwell. not that he's a bad writer, jus saying, you know.

[Anonymous No.2068270]

>>2068224
>So what? Is this illegal?
No, but it's symptomatic of bomb construction. That's how a lot of terrorist plotters get shopped: buying loads of bomb making materials.
>Just what defines the norm? Isn't it possible to change the approved norm at any time? This is the concerning part.
Only if you're an exceptionally naive individual. No matter how much this dismays your ideological sensibilities, there's no doubt British security measures have saved hundreds of lives. That is fine by me.

[Anonymous No.2068277]

>>2068270
I guess you're right. In this case, the only thing to be afraid of is the continual expansion of this surveillance infrastructure and what future governments/other powers will do with it.

[Anonymous No.2068297]

>>2068277
I wouldn't be so worried. Well, not in the UK anyway, I'm of the opinion that most politicians are actually genuinely freedom-loving individuals (the sort of ideological freedom reminiscent of the US constitution rather than, say, freedom from shitty markets and poverty), even if they don't half make some strange decisions.

[Anonymous No.2068305]

>>2068297
Well it does concern me that a startling percentage of our population want the death penalty back again, not just for murder but for rape and "high treason" also in some cases, and a lot of them like to get vexed by daily mail stories about how criminals are able to get out of trouble because police don't have enough powers to deal with them.

It's as though we're willingly walking into authoritarianism. I'm glad to have been born on the verge of my world changing this way and not after the changes have already happened.

[Anonymous No.2068363]

>>2068224
Bloke with the allotment next to mine is called Abdul, or Aftab or something like that. Should I be worried about all the bags of fert he's got? I thought he was just growing weed.

[Anonymous No.2068375]

I agree with you that Huxely was dead on in his assumption that the masses would be manipulated with "toys" and "distraction" but in the realm of Gov't Orwell is still very relevant since you can draw parallels between his depiction of a continual never-ending war and the conflict the US is involved in. Also in the manipulation and censorship of information which has gotten increasingly worse since 9/11

[Anonymous No.2068967]

>>2068178
>why should I be worried?
Because what is just is not what is legal.
Because a tyrannical government who engages in massive spying campaigns to protect against a negligible and basically non-existant threat which is CAUSED BY THE FACT THEY LEAVE BORDERS COMPLETELY POROUS is always going to expand their powers.
And further, OTHER individuals have access to these spy records, secret organizations, etc.

>>2068297
>most politicians are actually genuinely freedom-loving individuals
LOLLOLOLO
Most politicians HATE britain and the british people and would see you replaced with pakis and indians and niggers!

>>2068305
Yes there is a continual stream of propaganda that the cops are wonderful good guys who are trying to do their job but hampered by feel good needless "regulation" which stops them from utterly ignoring any rights you might have.

[Anonymous No.2068983]

>>2067925
>>2067928
>Huxley saw that society would be doomed by the things we love, and would ultimately be dumb down and consumed by all of it's freedom of responsibility and freedom to buy. They would become complacent and lack critical thinking to question those who rule over them.

NO NO NO. Just no. Really no. Categorically no. That is not what happens in Brave New World. That is not what happens, at all.

[Anonymous No.2068987]

>>2068983
Although to backtrack on 'categorically no'... Huxley may well have been critiquing many of these things. But the idea that 'an excess of freedom' is what happens in Brave New World, or that it resembles the contemorary world, is... just no.