Has a more prophetic book ever been written?
Huxley really blew 1984 out of the water.
Has a more prophetic book ever been written? Huxley really blew 1984 out of the water.
Has a more prophetic book ever been written?
Huxley really blew 1984 out of the water.
the bible
technically yes
uhh...our response IQfysisters?
>Reviewing something you haven’t even finished
She’d fit right in on IQfy
what's with people liking 1984 always being complete morons, how can you understand it and have an Amazon account at the same time?
Giving up is always an option, anon. Not saying it's the best option.
>Huxley is a dry, dull writer
>Orwell is not
kek
BNW isn't like we, you're thinking of 1984 which was very much a poorly written 'we' with a bit more fleshing out on the internal structures
It's a dystopia because everyone is miserable without their precious soma. What makes us human is that we have the capacity to choose things that do not give us immediate pleasure. Intelligence isn't meant to be happy..
>What makes us human
That is your opinion. Some of not most people are happy with having a job that fits their skills, a partner, and free time to just enjoy life. If you desire now than that, and the powers that be know, you will be ascended. The vast majority of people in Huxley's "dystopia" is happy.
*if not most
*more than that
It's not my opinion. You have animals, which are responsive to external stimuli in an immediate fashion. They deal with signs, or symbols, but have no language. Their decisions are either pre-programmed, or chosen based on what has previously given them pleasure. Think of Skinner's pigeons - the birds were programmed to press a button, but they had no deeper understanding of why the button did what it did.
Humans have the capacity to break free from this programming because we have language, which allows us to think abstractly. We may be fooled into responding to stimuli that give us pleasure, but we can also think about the stimuli and ponder why it's there. If they are happy in such an environment, they are not human.
How does it feel knowing she's read more books than 90% of IQfy users?
Huxley's emotionality is actually very pronounced, its just also very masculine. Dystopia nowadays tends to focus on injustice via some sort of physical deprivation and poverty, BNW has none of that. The World State citizens are wealthy to the point of extravagant waste, sexually liberated, and have every avenue of entertainment open to them. If every family has a chicken in the pot and soma in their blood then what can be wrong? Huxley has to create a baseline of empty emotionality and then superimpose the individual struggles on top of that, and he succeeds. You have the Alpha who is somehow constrained by society because he wants to be novel, the one true taboo. You have another Alpha who feels a deep inadequacy, expressed sexually but all encompassing yes. Look at the Savage who is given true freedom by Mustafa Mond but cannot experience life because unlike the Divine Creator our World Leader did not give him a Helper.
In comparison although I like Orwell you don't have any of his real quality on display in 1984, I'm convinced its the literary equivalent of a Taylor Swift song about one of her exes. He was upset over what happened in Catalonia and created a warning shot about where socialism could have gone.
I will gave May her due and agree that the beginning of BNW really wants you to have a mechanical fascination. It doesn't start off with character work per se, but rather a detailed and lengthy exposition dump. Did we need to know how the castes were made? Did we need to know the bottles and the sleep hypnosis and the fantastical elements that made Huxley's dark visions possible? Not really, a modern dystopia might preclude that to start off with our heroes or perhaps show some deeply personal evil. 1984 starts off with our protagonist on a bright cold May morning, BNW starts off with some ham and egger performing casual crimes against humanity. I do not think May lacks joi de vivre or the ability to understand brutalism, so I can only lament that they didn't get far enough to actually get anything from the work.
>woman
Opinion disregarded
Too optimistic.
psycho-somatics in tandem with the digital panopticon will enslave the planet
everything you have ever said and will say will be held against you, and you will take the happy pill
Good, far better dystopia premise than the stupid of Orwell. Still shit from a literary standpoint (just like Orwell). Other than their supposed "impact", I can't see why people on this board consider these badly written books worth reading.
name other novels that explore the predicament of modern authoritarian politics better
Picrel amounts to a far deeper and better executed exploration of power and language than what Georgie ever thought about writing in his life. I'll concede the Huxley idea is more original and accurate but the book itself is still YA-level, overtly explicit formula fiction just like the rest of the dystopias. There's a reason why the book market for teenagers is continuously filled with dystopias: it is a simple, monologic and superficial writing, that exhausts itself in a surface level reading. Entertaining at best. I make an exception for Clockwork Orange, that is usually paired up in here despite being a more than decent piece of narrative.
Thanks, I like the theme of language and its utilization/manipulation within politics, so I'll check it out. This topic and memory-holing are the best parts of 1984 as well imo, even if you think Orwell did a worse job on it.
i dont get why people say this book is a reality. modern life isnt exactly a pleasure fest. if anything conditions for the average person just seem to be getting worse, money is getting tighter all the time. people are having less sex than ever. censorship is increasing.
>less money
In the western middle classes sure, not for others. Westerners just cry because they can't handle global competition.
>less sex
Maybe for you
>more censorship
On social media platforms yes, did you forget there is ways of communication beyond facebook and snapchat anon?
I'm a white 27 year old man from the EU. Life is nice if you stop being a b***h.
pay docked
(OP)
>Huxley really blew 1984 out of the water.
How? BNW foretold a hedonistic world, which anyone that actually though about would see coming. There arent any eugenics or baby factories or people bread into specific professions.
Sans the comic villain government organization, much of 1984 is already part of daily life (even a lot of the comic villain government parts). In some cases its even worse. The government doesnt need a surveillance tv because people willingly carry the same thing around with them every day. Double speak, wrong think, and the dumbing down of language are literally all things that are happening. People consume thing then wait to consume the next thing and flip flop their opinions based on what the media tells them to believe all the time.
Imagine being this blue pilled.
I'd argue we more closely resemble Fahrenheit 451. Everyone is wearing earbuds, constantly connected to social media, and reading is so rare that people constantly tell me how smart I am just for opening a book on my breaks (I like the ego boost, but it feels undeserved). I'm just waiting for the day they hook up one of those Boston Dynamic dogs with a scent detector and sedative-filled syringe teeth.
I never understood why people call this a dystopia. It's not. Here's why (hoping spoiler tags work, otherwise, don't read on if you haven't read it yet):
The protagonist is a "beta", but he breaks out of the "simulation" by seeing through the things and causing a stir by not conforming. In the end, he is ascended by a physicist belonging to a group that controls the society described in the book. Everyone in that society is happy. Those who are not, are ascended.
How is this a dystopia?
Your brain has been melted by internet pornography, incel
Because humanity has essentially reached an eternal stand-still. I find them akin to the Anti-Spiral from Gurren Lagaan. They merely exist and carry out basic functions of survival, but have shed away all purpose and ambition for the sake of safe perpetuity.
You were born in the anglosphere and/or autistic (99% overlap)
Yeah a lot of people don't get this. Very clever.
He stole the entire book from Zamjatin.
pynchon predicted NGE
The Camp of the Saints predicted the refugee crisis and media reaction.
The Protocols of the Elders of Scion either predicted the rise of israelites in politics, mass media and entertainment or gave them ideas on how to control the world.
the problem with pretty much all dystopian novels is their depiction of the regime as competent. how well did prohibition of alcohol work in the US? how about the war on drugs? they can’t even keep drugs, cellphones, and other contraband out of the hands of prisoners who are literally locked up in high security prisons. the myth of government competence is one of the worst delusions of the statist.
>Huxley really blew 1984 out of the water.
Explain what you mean by this.
>Bro like, drugs and sex and class hierarchies are so prophetic
>What do you mean all of those things have been going on since biblical times and caused entire cities to fall?
Sometimes I feel bad for Cuxleygays. Total midwit contrarians. Their book will never be seen on the same footing as 1984, will never permeate the culture, discussion and language like 1984, will never protect entire nation’s sovereignty like 1984. Their entire existence is based on comparing the work to 1984.