# 1984 vs. Brave New World



## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

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## Guest (Jan 4, 2013)

I teach both of these to my AP English seniors. I vote for _1984_, but both are amazing works and shockingly prophetic!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I vote "Brave New World." After all, we're already in "1984," and the other comes next.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

They made a movie of _1984_ but the novel was way, way more powerful.


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

"Brave New World" by far. It describes almost entirely the path that our society has taken.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

. They are not comparable at all... as Huxley said. "Nineteen Eighty Four" is a dystopia based on the concept of people being ruled by the fear to the punishment. It's a typical stalinistic-hitlerian regime. On the other hand, in "Brave New World", technology has evolved enough as to manipulate people in such a way that they love what they do, even if it is a very unpleasant job. There's no need for punishment, since nobody is even aware of the awful world in which they are living.
As a novel, then, Huxley's is by far the most imaginative and visionary, imagining in the 1920's things that are common today (of course, inspired by the "air" of the epoch in which he was living).
On the other hand, Orwell's is also a masterpiece, it is a reference for someone interested in the techniques used by Hitler and Stalin in their dictatorships, techniques which are still used by populist regimes today.
Good to see that you are reading these books at your age.


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## Guest (Jan 4, 2013)

Renaissance said:


> "Brave New World" by far. It describes almost entirely the path that our society has taken.


So does _1984_! We're living the worst of both worlds.


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

Kontrapunctus said:


> So does _1984_! We're living the worst of both worlds.


1984 is too obvious, but you are somehow right. It is a combination of both, but more of Huxley's. Anyone can recognize an oppressive system, but not anyone can realize the danger of the illusion of liberty. This last one is so dangerous that fools most of us even if don't truly see all the implications. We are told that our western world is better, and they serve us as example the eastern world and its oppressive system. In this way...we are an easy target.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

I read those books over a half century ago. I still remember the dismay BNW led me into. It has a much more subtle story line than does 1984. The world AH created is a kind of warped utopia, which contributes to its effectiveness . 1984 is more of a brutally up-front horror story featuring Big Brother the Super State. I think they are quite different books, written for different readerships.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I have read Brave New World but not 1984 so I can't really vote. I did read Animal Farm though.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> I have read Brave New World but not 1984 so I can't really vote. I did read Animal Farm though.


lol, replace pigs by humans, farm by city and society and you will have the other novel.


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

I read BNW last year and am at present reading 1984 for about the 4th or 5th time
They are both prophetic works, it all depends on where you are
There are aspects of both works at play in the present day UK
Both brilliant reads, which should be a part of everyone's education into life


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

aleazk said:


> ...in "Brave New World", technology has evolved enough as to manipulate people in such a way that they love what they do, even if it is a very unpleasant job. There's no need for punishment, since nobody is even aware of the awful world in which they are living.


If everybody is happy, then why is it an "awful world"? Seems to me that our own society defines its success purely in those terms!

Societies in other ages had different aims, which we find unimaginable today.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Put 1984 and Brave New World in to a bowl and mix thoroughly. Add some Clockwork Orange to season. Next ingredient?


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I've read 1984, but only a clip from Brave New World. Both looked disturbing, but I don't know if I can judge which is most disturbing or better since I didn't read the complete Brave New World.


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## Guest (Jan 5, 2013)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> I've read 1984, but only a clip from Brave New World. Both looked disturbing, but I don't know if I can judge which is most disturbing or better since I didn't read the complete Brave New World.


For me, _1984_ is one of the most disturbing books ever written. My classes always have interesting discussions if "The Party" can be destroyed or not...most say no. It's basically destruction-proof and seemingly has no weaknesses.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

KenOC said:


> If everybody is happy, then why is it an "awful world"? Seems to me that our own society defines its success purely in those terms!
> 
> Societies in other ages had different aims, which we find unimaginable today.


I'm aware of the apparent contradiction in my post, in fact, what you say was one of Huxley's more interesting points. If everybody is "happy", although through artificial mechanisms like genetic manipulation and drugs, how can we say that their world is really awful?. From our viewpoint is certainly awful, no liberties, no books, condemned to the same labour, etc. But if they are happy, what's the importance of that?. It's a philosophical problem about the degree of objectivity of our perceptions. 
Apparently, Huxley considered this future as a "bad" thing, since he recommended, in numerous interviews and books, that we should avoid this future.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

What about the Hunger Games series? I found the recent movie very disturbing, and I imagine the books are too.


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## Guest (Jan 5, 2013)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> What about the Hunger Games series? I found the recent movie very disturbing, and I imagine the books are too.


I've only read the first one. The writing is very amateurish (contains numerous errors), and while the premise is certainly disturbing, I don't find it as overwhelmingly soul-crushing as _1984_.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> What about the Hunger Games series? I found the recent movie very disturbing, and I imagine the books are too.


Oh you mean Battle Royale? It is exactly the same and _much_ better written and the lady who wrote Hunger Games should be given a gaol sentence on accounts of plagiarism and terrible writing ability.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Anthony Burgess' "A Clockwork Orange" ought to be on this list, imho.


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## Guest (Jan 5, 2013)

Sorry, neither. I did read the Huxley, and saw the movie of 1984, but I tend to steer clear of visions of dystopia as they are too depressing_._


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

I quite like dystopian novels


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

aleazk said:


> Apparently, Huxley considered this future as a "bad" thing, since he recommended, in numerous interviews and books, that we should avoid this future.


Well, sometimes there's no accounting for what an Alpha thinks! Me, I'm happy to be a Gamma because I don't have to worry about such things.


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## Orpheus (Jul 15, 2012)

aleazk said:


> I'm aware of the apparent contradiction in my post, in fact, what you say was one of Huxley's more interesting points. If everybody is "happy", although through artificial mechanisms like genetic manipulation and drugs, how can we say that their world is really awful?. From our viewpoint is certainly awful, no liberties, no books, condemned to the same labour, etc. But if they are happy, what's the importance of that?. It's a philosophical problem about the degree of objectivity of our perceptions.
> Apparently, Huxley considered this future as a "bad" thing, since he recommended, in numerous interviews and books, that we should avoid this future.


It's essentially about the ultimate triumph and worldwide dominion of Utilitarianism, taken to its logical conclusion and inexorably, systematically implemented by means of technology and a highly developed administrative system. The first point, therefore, that I think we need to take from any discussion of this novel is that it probably was for Huxley intended mainly as a satire againt Utilitarianism, in its modern, technology-enabled iteration. (The philosophy itself has been around for a few centuries now, but it is modern scientific and technological progress that makes many of its more distant goals seem achievable.) The second is that anyone who has trouble seeing why we ought to be concerned about the prospect of such a world coming to pass (which it already has to some extent; the "West" has certainly moved further towards it than we were in Huxley's day, hence the novel's reputation for being prophetic) has already imbibed and internalised the core precepts of Utilitarianism rather too uncritically, in my view.

This would not be altogether surprising, as it's a seductive philosophy, with plenty of superficial appeal, and has probably never had more influence on popular thought and hence populIST public policy than at the present time. It's not easy to argue against those comfortable, oft-repeated platitudes that insist, [essentially] "The most important thing in life is happiness!" and following naturally from this, "So the best thing we can do is to try to ensure happiness for everyone!". Those who have taken this rather simplistic view of human nature as their life's defining philosophy are moreover by definition not likely to be open to any reasoning that might challenge it - for accepting the challenge might take them out of that same comfort zone they _already_ regard as the _sine qua non_ of their existence. (Turkeys can hardly be expected to vote for Christmas, can they?)

I'm not, therefore, going to bash my head into a metaphorical brick wall by arguing against utilitarianism as such; but what I am going to suggest is that if we have little trouble in seeing that the conditions in which the characters of the novel exist would not be acceptable for US, why on earth should we wish them on anyone else? This line of reasoning has trouble standing up to even a utilitarian scrutiny.

To say that their unawareness of alternative possibilites makes their stupefication and lack of real choices acceptable, whereas it could not be for us, who know better, is not much of an argument. If they have the same innate capacity for understanding and experiencing as we, their condition is clearly degrading to them, and if they do not, the Human race _itself_ has been degraded from that full potential which (almost) every one of us now posesses. Either way, if it is necessary to live as something less than what is now considered human in order to attain the kind of guaranteed "happiness" that the novel postulates, it must surely be seriously questioned whether this is an adequate conception of human need and its fulfilment in the first place.

Of course, it could be argued that humans themselves are presently too complicated, perhaps even dysfunctional, and their needs and expectations need to be radically delimited and simplified in order to construct a system that can ensure their consistent fulfilment: but in this case humans must be remodelled to fit a system (as indeed has happened in Brave New World), and that system can therefore keep little remaining pretence of being in place to truly serve them.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Orpheus, I pretty much agree with what you wrote. The society described in BNW is only one of several (none of them very attractive to us) that might result when values are centered around maximizing the sum total of human happiness.

Those values are peculiar to our Western society today. Although societies in earlier ages and different places had and have different values, we tend to dismiss them almost out of hand. Probably the two things that can best help us see our own society and values objectively are travel and a broad reading of history.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I've always wondered which situation is more pathetic. Totalitarianism, or a society in which books don't need to be banned because no one wants to read one anyway.


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2013)

starthrower said:


> I've always wondered which situation is more pathetic. Totalitarianism, or a society in which books don't need to be banned because no one wants to read one anyway.


"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." --Ray Bradbury. I have a poster in my classroom with that quote superimposed over a burning book.


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## Toddlertoddy (Sep 17, 2011)

Kontrapunctus said:


> I've only read the first one. The writing is very amateurish (contains numerous errors)


Seconding this. It's very accessible to everyone because of its writing.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Has Fahrenheit 451 been mentioned yet? I seem to recall quite liking that book, though being a bit confused about its writing style at times, since Bradbury took more poetic license with prose than I was used to reading in a book at the time.


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2013)

Toddlertoddy said:


> Seconding this. It's very accessible to everyone because of its writing.


College-educated adults are not the target demographic!  (Much less English teachers!)


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2013)

Orpheus said:


> It's not easy to argue against those comfortable, oft-repeated platitudes that insist, [essentially] "The most important thing in life is happiness!" and following naturally from this, "So the best thing we can do is to try to ensure happiness for everyone!".


Well, it may not be easy, but you [one] might start with defining 'happiness'.


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

_Brave New World_, with its focus on sequences of transitory pleasures, has always seemed to me more trenchant to today's society than the autocratic dystopianism of _Nineteen Eighty-Four_. This view, to be sure, is a product of my background. If I'd spent my formative years under the thumb of an authoritarian regime, I'd almost certainly have a different view.

I've noted one mention of the late Ray Bradbury's _Fahrenheit 451_. To this I'd like to add Yevgeny Zamyatin's _*We*_. At one time, it seemed to be considered co-equal to the _Magnum Opera_ of Huxley and Orwell. It doesn't appear to be discussed much, these days. I wonder if it's been excised from mainstream academe for some of the same reasons we don't find John Dos Passos in American Literature classrooms, any more.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> What about the Hunger Games series? I found the recent movie very disturbing, and I imagine the books are too.


A poor man's _Battle Royale_, to be honest. What's offensive is how they can make a story about kids killing each other so boring and tame.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

I am shocked to realize that I haven't read either... but on the other hand, I prefer idealistic literature to dystopias. But yeah, should read both, a classic is a classic, and I'm all about the classics.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells is a sort of far future Dystopian novel as well. The description of the Eloi who are beautiful, gentle, and somewhat lacking mentally having evolved naturally out of ruling classes who did not have to do anything for themselves, and their former servants, now essentially livestock farmers, the Morlocks, who are the underground and still very intelligent yet somewhat immoral descendants of the lower classes who did all the work and are now farming the Eloi for meat. 

To liken complacent upper and middle classes in 1st world countries to those who are on their way to becoming Eloi, definitely causes one's mind to want to rebel. Generating awareness about our possible future with such insight as early as the late 1890s, that was HG Wells. The thing is, computer technology might make us all Eloi, like the Matrix or something.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Wells is excellent in short stories i have one book of those among them ''The Time Travel'' i think i will read that while i breathe...


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Brave New World. Neil Postman explains why (from Amusing Ourselves to Death):



> 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 egoism. 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, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.


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## Guest (Jan 7, 2013)

GreenMamba said:


> Brave New World. Neil Postman explains why (from Amusing Ourselves to Death):


A great quote. And I like Postman.

However, both visions of the future are equally valid - at least, for different societies here and now.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

MacLeod said:


> However, both visions of the future are equally valid - at least, for different societies here and now.


Or both at the same time, for the same society? Hmmm...


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

For some reason I love dystopian novels. _Brave New World_ made a huge impression on me when I read it as a teenager, _1984_ less so.

Of others I like, the most purely horrible is _The Road_ by Cormac McCarthy, There are scenes from this bleak depcition of humanity on its bare bones that I will never be able to forget. And the prose is brilliant.

I have read _The Handmaid's tale _by Margaret Atwood numerous times and shuddered at its depiction of a corrupt and repressive theocracy.

_Oryx and Crake_ by the same author is a mixture of deep pessimism and riotous inventiveness.


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