1984 Appreciation Thread

[FKAri]

China does remind me a bit of 1984. Though, I find the more insidious take on the dystopian future in Brave New World more prophetic. We are all so concerned about finding novel ways to entertain ourselves. Get a dopamine fix as passively and conveniently as possible. Avoid confrontation and challenge. It's overtaking our natural inclinations to more productive pursuits: To build, to help, to improve, and to solve problems. We're OK to leave that to the few who can then control the placated masses.

[bladefd]

Please do not contribute in this thread.

Did your pea-brain think I support telescreens spying on people?

No, the poster said some things expressed in the book, such as telescreens, are silly. That led me to conclude that he thinks they are unrealistic so I asked him to clarify what he meant by silly. I believe that a world like 1984 is very much possible, including telescreens and many of the other technologies defined in the story. They are not silly but very much realistic and something to fear happening.

[Akrazotile]

Did your pea-brain think I support telescreens spying on people?

No, the poster said some things expressed in the book, such as telescreens, are silly. That led me to conclude that he thinks they are unrealistic so I asked him to clarify what he meant by silly. I believe that a world like 1984 is very much possible, including telescreens and many of the other technologies defined in the story. They are not silly but very much realistic and something to fear happening.

I was not inferring any opinions from your post. I was asking you not to share thoughts in general about this subject, as I know they will make me cringe.

[dunksby]

Perfect.

Brave New World was written and published in exactly one of these eras as well - during the Great Depression in 1931 and 1932. And of course, similar dystopian ideas are explored.

Share some of your favorite passages from Brave New World.

It's a passage celebrating the power of language and articulation:
[QUOTE]One day (John calculated later that it must have been soon after his twelfth birthday) he came home and found a book that he had never seen before Iying on the floor in the bedroom. It was a thick book and looked very old. The binding had been eaten by mice; some of its pages were loose and crumpled. He picked it up, looked at the title-page: the book was called The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

Linda was lying on the bed, sipping that horrible stinking mescal out of a cup. "Pop

[Ben Simmons 25]

December 23, 1913

Yeah, the federal reserve came into existence in its current incarnation in 1913... but it was the same people. The wheels had been set into motion a long time before 1913, people were pushing the idea of central banking almost immediately upon the country's founding... certainly within 5 years of the formation of the country... as such, it is irrelevant that t.w.w.o.o. was published in 1900. It's definitely a commentary on monetary policy and giving the power to the public to control the money supply instead of bankers/elites.

[bladefd]

I was not inferring any opinions from your post. I was asking you not to share thoughts in general about this subject, as I know they will make me cringe.

Please clarify. What do you expect me to say that will make you cringe?

[RidonKs]

It's a common refrain that 1984 was wrong and Brave New World was right. That in fact, we cherish our masters, and resistance to them is preferable to resistance of ourselves. It's a neat dichotomy. These days, in some parts of the world, the only master to resist is ourselves. But that seems to put the cart before the horse. Surely we must overcome whoever made us who we are before we take on whoever we became. Interesting that the former came after the latter... a little less interesting but still relevant that, as Starface said, it wasn't written as well.

Presumably, if you're still searching for answers, it's because you haven't faced your oppressor. Everything is so open and available, you'd have to be psychotic
to be outwardly questioning possibilities when you had the solution all along. Answerable people are introverts.

[Prometheus]

It's a common refrain that 1984 was wrong and Brave New World was right. That in fact, we cherish our masters, and resistance to them is preferable to resistance of ourselves. It's a neat dichotomy. These days, in some parts of the world, the only master to resist is ourselves. But that seems to put the cart before the horse. Surely we must overcome whoever made us who we are before we take on whoever we became. Interesting that the former came after the latter... a little less interesting but still relevant that, as Starface said, it wasn't written as well.

Presumably, if you're still searching for answers, it's because you haven't faced your oppressor. Everything is so open and available, you'd have to be psychotic
to be outwardly questioning possibilities when you had the solution all along. Answerable people are introverts.

Starface said 1984 was more well-written. It appears you had it backwards, but your phrasing is vague, maybe that's not what you meant.

Your second paragraph is very vague, and I wish I knew just what you meant. I think it could be interpreted in a lot of different ways, which I find kind of frustrating.

[RidonKs]

Starface said 1984 was more well-written. It appears you had it backwards, but your phrasing is vague, maybe that's not what you meant.

Your second paragraph is very vague, and I wish I knew just what you meant. I think it could be interpreted in a lot of different ways, which I find kind of frustrating.

Meant -it- in reference to Brave New World.

I get that criticism a lot. I think my point was simple but not well stated: the priority is to overcome political adversity, the enemy of which is the unconstrained totalitarian state. But a small loud minority takes it to hyperbole and, in their advocacy for political reform/revolution, insists it would be a panacea for all our psychological ails too. It wouldn't be, it's just a necessary condition on the way to addressing those deeper roots with better precision.

People who understand this point tend to practice their own form of therapy and mental health seeking quietly and don't turn their solutions into a political issue, because politics first has to focus on shelter, nutrition, communication, access to resources, etc. Losing that battle takes us back to barbarism. The problem that, with our comfort finally settled, we might just sleep easy and enjoy it, or lash out when we eventually find that sort of langour unsettling, is something real that can't be properly investigated and understood and overcome until we reach a critical point of ease.

Cynics and/or realists and/or deeply penetrative psychological and cultural analysts may believe such a critical point is a fantasy, and that competition and inequality will always skew the distribution by concentrating acquisition and access in a few hands. They may even say parity is impossible because it's not what we want: we don't want comfort, we want status, and we specifically want signposts that demonstrate we've attained it, for which purpose what better could serve than absurd wealth? They would further posit that such blatant inequality is exactly what's necessary to raise a paternalistic and condescending aristocracy that is a precondition to their theories of great men. And to them, I can say very little at all.

[egokiller]

China does remind me a bit of 1984.

Unfortunately China is not the only thing that reminds you of 1984.