Social Did Huxley and Orwell get it right as far as the future goes?

[superpunch]

"Black people can drink water now thus the creeping totalitarianism is invalid"
Okay.

"I can't build a gate around my house without a permit and say racist shit on twitter.. this is LITERALLY HITLER!"

 

[Billy no mates]

But they still have sex from what i remember?

Yes but as large parts of the female population have deliberately been rendered infertile it's largely been shorn of risk,consequence and meaning .

 

[SanchoMF]

"I can't build a gate around my house without a permit and say racist shit on twitter.. this is LITERALLY HITLER!"

You can man, just do it.

 

[superpunch]

You can man, just do it.

I don't get it.. you want a safe space to say things free from social backlash? In between the "omg fascists!" and "i need a safe space", you're literally turning into conservative snowflakes. Dude, it's not turning into 1984, the Democrats aren't taking away your rights like Hitler, and no, you can't force private companies to give you a safe space. I hate this snowflake shit on the left, and I don't like it on the right either.

 

[Mark Hunts FIST]

Minus is the vaporizer, 1984 is prophetic.

 

[ICHEERTHEBULL]

 

[Papi Chulo]

People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. - Huxley.

You see that already.

Some people love their mask mandates and being told they have to wear a piece of cloth over their face or get fines.

 

[Sano]

This shit is too obvious. You're not interested in a real conversation TS, clearly. It's about all conservative victimhood.

 

[superpunch]

Of course it's not new but it's much more prevalent now than it was only a few years ago. I mean even the President of the United States had his social media accounts closed. You can't pretend that wasn't a political move. It's no secret that Biden has hired Google and Facebook executives into his cabinet. Social media has brought censorship and propaganda to a whole new level and it's getting worse.

lol dude i remember when you couldn't say "i don't think there any WMDs" without losing your job, losing friends, or getting boycotted. that wasn't that long ago.

This whining like cancelling is something new is ridiculous because 1) it was always conservatives cancelling in the past, and 2) the stuff conservatives cancelled people for was stuff like black people dating white people, and saying there aren't any WMDs. It's so hollow. You guys were always the worst at this shit, you invented cancel culture, and now you scream "LITERALLY HITLER!!"

 

[Cuauhtemoc]

I've tried reading 1984, and Brave New World, a number of times but i found both hard going. I've seen the film based on 1984 a few times, and i've listened to audiobooks of both novels over the years. So i'm no expert on either.
I'm hoping there are people here who are much more familiar with them.

I have read that both were asked in interviews what they thought was in store for Western society. Apparently both said that democracy/freedom wouldn't last very long at all. That it would be replaced with Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism.

I'm no history expert so my question is, how long has democracy been around? I always think of it as a mid-twentieth century thing? However, has it made appearances occasionally throughout human history at all?
Was the Greek Empire a democracy? If it was, was it quite different to what he call democracy these days?
Hasn't the human race lived in political systems or under royalty most of the time, and basically struggled in a shitty existence?

The Greek city states and many other ancient cities had a kind of democracy where adult male land owning citizens could vote and choose policy and representatives. Each state had particular rules. The city of Rome allowed only landowners who were also willing to serve in the militia to vote and some tribes had a higher weight in voting.
Sparta had 2 kings but the population could vote on a variety of things, the details change depending on the era.
Athens innovated and allowed every adult male citizen to vote in order to include their poor but very important sailors.
Their system was somewhat similar to the early US, AKA, democracy for the rich and then to white males/Athenians mostly, slavery is okay. Main difference being a lack of modern checks and balances, although it had some and they had a constitution but you could do wild stuff like voting to expel citizens and there was little judicial oversight.
After Alexander the Great and his father conquered the greeks and half the world they became kings and their successors in Egypt, Syria, etc became kings too. Although locally cities still had elections and such their foreign policy was managed by the kings and the kings could always go on and ruin their democracy and put a Tyrant in power. Tyrant back in the day meant a populist autocratic ruler, not necessarily a cruel one.

I think you're just ignorant. Here's some reading you can do:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Legion_of_Decency
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism

Reasons your speech would be "cancelled" in the recent past:
- depicting miscegenation
- kissing for more than 3 seconds
- showing 2 people in the same bed

Nope, cancelling is just a new thing. Except it's not. You have more freedom of speech both privately and legally than you have ever had before. And the stuff that does get you cancelled is generally hate speech instead of showing a black person dating a white person.

But that affected mostly film makers, not your average citizen. Nowadays you can lose your job for posting a joke on twitter if it offends a protected group.

 

[SanchoMF]

I don't get it.. you want a safe space to say things free from social backlash? In between the "omg fascists!" and "i need a safe space", you're literally turning into conservative snowflakes. Dude, it's not turning into 1984, the Democrats aren't taking away your rights like Hitler, and no, you can't force private companies to give you a safe space. I hate this snowflake shit on the left, and I don't like it on the right either.

No, I want people have the freedom of expression and freedom of speech : If you wanna build a fence and throw insults at minorities I'd call you a fuckwit but it's your right to do so. Still, I'd call you a fuckwit which you probably are.
Nobody is forcing any private companies to do anything, apart from pressuring them into admitting their political bias which has been very difficult for the companies to admit.
Your democrats are a very diverse group of career-swindlers and political clientelists but in general I'd say they're really into limiting freedoms and rights, even constitutional ones.
The only people that this day and age want to limit speech (have a look at your Northern neighbour's example of criminalising speech), expression or rights are left-leaning or left because they're offended by anything that doesn't sit right with their very immature conception of world. If there are some sour losers on the right, let 'em have it but the wide generalisation of absolute dimwits trying to limit people's freedoms are on the left with nearly all of them voting Dems.
Cool stuff.

 

[Cariñito]

I've tried reading 1984, and Brave New World, a number of times but i found both hard going. I've seen the film based on 1984 a few times, and i've listened to audiobooks of both novels over the years. So i'm no expert on either.
I'm hoping there are people here who are much more familiar with them.

I have read that both were asked in interviews what they thought was in store for Western society. Apparently both said that democracy/freedom wouldn't last very long at all. That it would be replaced with Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism.

I'm no history expert so my question is, how long has democracy been around? I always think of it as a mid-twentieth century thing? However, has it made appearances occasionally throughout human history at all?
Was the Greek Empire a democracy? If it was, was it quite different to what he call democracy these days?
Hasn't the human race lived in political systems or under royalty most of the time, and basically struggled in a shitty existence?


https://www.learning-mind.com/mental-slavery-orwell-huxley/
Excerpts from the link.

'In 1984, we see a gloomy world of the Party’s ruthless dictatorship that keeps everyone in fear. Orwell’s society doesn’t only suppress the freedom of speech – it suppresses the freedom of thought and the individuality itself.

Methods of terror such as absurd war propaganda and total surveillance kill the tiniest seed of critical thought in people’s minds. Those who are still capable of some extent of critical thinking are persecuted and eventually destroyed by the Thought Police.

No one is safe – in this totalitarian society, people report their neighbors and co-workers for unorthodox behavior to the authorities as easily as children report their own parents.'

'Brave New World describes a society that is similar to ours in so many ways. It is built on mindless consumerism and superficial desires for endless fun and casual sex.

There is no concept of family, relationship, or love – ‘everyone belongs to everyone else’, meaning that there are no commitments or attachments between people.

Not only are family and emotional bonds non-existent, but the very idea of such connections between human beings is considered inappropriate and shameful.

Here, the freedom of thought is abolished in a different way than in 1984 – by feeding people with the illusion of global happiness and abundance. There is a variety of foods to eat, goods to buy, and fun things to fill your free time with.

Who could possibly be unhappy in such a society?'

From what i've read recently, a lot of people seem to think that Huxley's vision of the future is more likely to become a reality.

Douglas Murray in an interview said look at China. People can have a decent life as long as they don't criticize the regime. They can enjoy the latest technology, work hard and become rich, just turn a blind eye to certain things, don't protest, and end up with a 'good' life.
He was comparing life in China with what people had to put up with living in the old Soviet Union.

People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. - Huxley.

There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it. - Huxley.
The legalization of Cannabis, the call by some to legalize all drugs in the 21st century.

The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him, the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. - Huxley.

The following seems most apt at the moment in America concerning the idea of reprogramming conservatives being floated around.
The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human. - Huxley.

Two books about nothing. Just gibberish.
Bud Not Buddy was a good book

 

[superpunch]

But that affected mostly film makers, not your average citizen. Nowadays you can lose your job for posting a joke on twitter if it offends a protected group.

That's always been the case, that cancel culture effects the average person. It's just swung the other way around now, and now it's conservatives that are getting cancelled. Do you not remember the Iraq War??

 

[Koro_11]

Crazy how many members who responded here are no longer with us.

Anyway, yeah this is obviously the path we're on if the radical lefties have their way, they seem to take 1984 as an instruction manual.

These books should be mandatory reading for everyone. Yes some of you know them very well, but some are not at all familiar with them and should be.

They will not change the minds of the zealots who hate life and root for the collapse of our society, but can definitely be useful in opening the eyes of many centrists who need to be woken up.

I think if you're from a place like myself and lived in a communist dictatorship, this stuff is all common knowledge and you recognize it as soon as you start reading the book.

But I find a lot of my friends here in the west can't really appreciate just how bad and how quickly things can go sideways when these ideas are implemented. They tend to have a very naive and childlike view of government because for most of their countries existence they never had to deal with such a thing.

I'm hoping they never will, and the pendulum seems to be slowing down finally, but if a certain type of people can have their way you will be living in such a society before you know it, and you'll be asking yourself how you got there.

I think the simple answer is to value truth above all else, including your comfort, safety, and even your life.

 

[Belaya Smert]

I read Huxley when I was 13. The words were too big for me then.
Now the world seems too big for me.

 

[sickc0d3r]

I used to have a good life. Now it’s a “good” life. FML.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Something a lot of people get wrong about Nineteen Eighty-Four is thinking it's a prediction about the future. He was satirizing the present (Stalinism, especially). Russia is still oppressive and a horrible place to live but not as bad as it was under Stalin, and the West has gotten continually freer.

 

[aerius]

I think if you're from a place like myself and lived in a communist dictatorship, this stuff is all common knowledge and you recognize it as soon as you start reading the book.

But I find a lot of my friends here in the west can't really appreciate just how bad and how quickly things can go sideways when these ideas are implemented. They tend to have a very naive and childlike view of government because for most of their countries existence they never had to deal with such a thing.

I'm hoping they never will, and the pendulum seems to be slowing down finally, but if a certain type of people can have their way you will be living in such a society before you know it, and you'll be asking yourself how you got there.

I think the simple answer is to value truth above all else, including your comfort, safety, and even your life.

This has been my experience as well. My parents are from a country which had a secret police that disappeared many thousands of dissidents and I also have a lot of friends & acquaintances from Soviet & Warsaw Pact countries, most of them have been very quick to pick up on totalitarian trends in Western nations since they had first hand experience with the same thing before they left their home countries. A Soviet couple I'm friends with says that the way our North American media programs & controls the people is something the Soviets would've killed to have. They pointed out how lots of folks here claim they don't trust the media, yet they swallow up everything anyway, the media can put out the most retarded BS imaginable and most folks will still lap it up while claiming to be intelligent free thinkers.

 

[BFoe]

I think they both had aspects of 1984 and Brave New World that were right, but Huxley hit the nail on the head regarding one thing in particular.

Orwell saw information as being totally controlled and manipulated by the government. And while that does happen to a degree, it’s not like 1984 laid out.

Huxley envisioned a future where there was so much information that everything became trivial, and nothing was important anymore. That seems a lot more accurate.