tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1360553244712647465.post5842468144178060901..comments2022-03-24T03:52:53.760+01:00Comments on The Otherlander's Blog: Classics of Science FictionUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1360553244712647465.post-88802009835460693792017-04-05T14:57:13.704+02:002017-04-05T14:57:13.704+02:00"We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the ye..."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<br />capacities to think." - "Amusing Ourselves to Death", Neal Postman, 1985<br /><br />I first read "Brave New World" when I was 17; it was part of my effort to read all the classics that I had missed due to my unusual education. My total time in an American high school numbered in months. So, I read "1984" and "Brave New World" back-to-back. And it fixed my ideas about these two books. For me, these texts are all about detailing methods of control: how a state can take over the lives of its citizens to make them instruments in its own designs. In "1984" we see the methods of control through total surveillance, manipulation of negative emotions, hijacking the human sexual drives to the will of the state, constant fear, and complete emotional isolation. The government of "Brave New World" have the same ends, by use very different means. It's briefly mentioned by Mustafa Mond that the history of the World State was pretty dark; that at one time the World State behaved similiarly to Oceania, but that they then figured it out and changed methods. And the method is pleasure. Pleasure can be just as debilitating as pain. Both settings are trapped in an eternal present; evolution has been frozen by completely control of the populace. <br /><br />But I love how Huxely shows us that pleasure can also be weaponized. And he makes some great arguments on the subject. When Neal Postman took up the torch in 1985 to show us that "Brave New World" was the future that we should be worried about more than "1984". Neal Postman's book still stays relevant today, and I would recommend it to any one who has an interest in media and it's effect on society. <br /><br />I also know what you mean by the theme of "Outsider". My father was a Native American, born and raised on the reservation, and he always felt at odds with American society. He was constantly at war with the "white man" and it splashed over into my life and thinking. I also grew up as an "Outsider" and have always identified with the same kind of characters in novels. <br /><br />NB: you can find a complete copy of "Amusing Ourselves to Death" from 2005 with Preface from Andrew Postman here as a PDF: https://mafhom.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/amusing-ourselves-to-death.pdf <br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01824518617767892056noreply@blogger.com