[Marxism] Animal Farm

[Jay Andrew Allen]

On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 8:56 AM, Walter Lippmann <walterlx at earthlink.net>wrote:

> Orwell called his novel 1984, and there are plenty of indications to
> suggest that he was only off by 20 years.
>
>
In AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH, Neil Postman noted that Orwell and Huxley
offered competing visions of future dystopias lacking in freedom. In the
case of America, Postman argued, Huxley was proving more prophetic. Read it
below, and consider that Dr. Postman wrote this *before* the advance of the
consumer Internet.

http://www.serendipity.li/jsmill/post_1.html

We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't,
thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of
liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at
least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another
- slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous
Huxley's *Brave New World.* Contrary to common belief even among the
educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns
that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in
Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their
autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their
oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

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.

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.


-- 
Jay Andrew Allen
http://www.jayandrewallen.net/ - Articles
http://www.jayandrewallen.net/blog/ - Out-Loud Brainwaves

"Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks
differently." - Rosa Luxemburg