"Brave New World" vs "1984"

[Florestan]

Judging from the experience of the past 50 years, I think 1984 is outdated. The hard totalitarianism of the brutally repressive Communist tyrannies, which were the closest to the Orwellian nightmare, has failed. But the Brave New World's soft totalitarianism of leisure and irresponsibility based on obliterating any form of cultural tradition and memory has many more chances to arise. In some respects, it is already here. The omnipresence of mindless and over-sexualized entertainment, the consumerist society with its scientifically tested marketing techniques, the transformation of man into a mere wheel in the giant social  mechanism --- all these and many more are daily realities.

So I'd say Huxley wins over Orwell by a wide margin.

[oabmarcus]

I agree. I mean, a lot of BNW stuff has already happened. Look at China for instance. You have a dictatorship that brainwashes its people by spreading mass propaganda and misinformation. Enticing its citizens with promises of high living standards in exchange for liberties like freedom of speech or political participation...
In America, our government is pretty much captured by the huge corporations, which Huxley again predicted in his interview with Mike Wallace. America is more hierachical as ever, with the Rich being filthy rich, and the poor with nothing but debt to pay off.

On the other hand, the next big thing should be making babies from tubes. Btw, i am still waiting for the free love part, where is it? Maybe it's there already, maybe i am a just an epsilon

[Todd]

Neither, of course.  Dystopian visions are as unlikely to come true as utopian ones. 

[oabmarcus]

Neither, of course.  Dystopian visions are as unlikely to come true as utopian ones.

no one expects him to predict everything with 100% accuracy, but aspects of BNW have certainly come true. Our addiction to drugs? China's emergence as a super power? can't you see it?

[Todd]

no one expects him to predict everything with 100% accuracy, but aspects of BNW have certainly come true.

I'll go ahead and stand by my original posts.  Fictional dystopias are not real.

[lisa needs braces]

Fictional dystopias are not real.

Duh.

[oabmarcus]

was the question by OP "Is Brave New World" real? I don't think he was asking that.

[Todd]

was the question by OP "Is Brave New World" real? I don't think he was asking that.

Correct, he was not, and once again I will refer you to my original post.  Contrary to what some think, the world does not really reflect either of the two fictional dystopias mentioned.

[drogulus]

     We're not going to use mass production techniques to produce humans in different models like cars. Nor do I think that Britain is about to be overcome by "Ingsoc". Orwell's book was originally to be titled 1948, which gives you an idea that the author was concerned with the present.

[oabmarcus]

     We're not going to use mass production techniques to produce humans in different models like cars.

yeah, but i don't think that's a such bad idea.

[Josquin des Prez]

     We're not going to use mass production techniques to produce humans in different models like cars.

ORLY?

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Industrial_Society_and_Its_Future
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Unnamed_Essay_%281971%29

Nor do I think that Britain is about to be overcome by "Ingsoc". Orwell's book was originally to be titled 1948, which gives you an idea that the author was concerned with the present.

Yes, the dystopian future of 1984 was an hyperbolic critique of the present. All the more amusing then that Britain seems to be using the novel as an handbook:



Yes, the picture is actually real. They don't even seem to get the irony.

[Florestan]

Correct, he was not, and once again I will refer you to my original post.  Contrary to what some think, the world does not really reflect either of the two fictional dystopias mentioned.

I beg to differ. Even 1984 is present in some corners.

Take, for instance, the last strongholds of hard-line Communism: Cuba and North Korea .

-Brutal repression of any opposition, by physical and psychological terror: checked.
-Relentless propaganda about war and mobilisation: checked.
-Relentless propaganda about class enemies within: checked.
-Pharaonic cult of the supreme leader: checked.
-Permanent surveillance and monitoring of citizens: checked.
-Newspeak: checked.
-Thought police: checked.
-Censorship and strict control of books, media and internet: checked.

(Some of the above features are present in China too).

As for Brave New World, its essentials are already here, as well, only this time in the so-called free world..

-Multimedia entertainment and mass culture aimed at keeping citizens tranquil and content: checked.
-Over-sexualized society and low age for sexual life inception: checked.
-Pyramidal over-organization of society, politics, finance and industry: checked.
-Political propaganda based on manipulation by television: checked.
-Permanent, scientifically studied and designed advertising and marketing aimed at keeping the pace of conumerism: checked.

Some BNW features are not yet fully realized, but the march towards their implementation is ongoing and already yields results:

-Obliterating the religion, culture and civilization of the past, which is currently demonized as bigotted, ethnocentric and imperialist, and scorned as a relic irrelevant to modern times.
-World government without any democratic checks and balances, the closest of which, at European scale, is currently EU.

What is conspicuously missing is the industrial manufacturing of babies with different physical and intellectual abilities, and this might be the hardest nut to crack.

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

 

[Daidalos]

What is conspicuously missing is the industrial manufacturing of babies with different physical and intellectual abilities, and this might be the hardest nut to crack.

I think that particular prediction is going to be fulfilled, sooner or later. The more we learn about human genetics, and the more traits we can associate with a particular genetic pattern, tailor-made children seem to be an inevitability.

Mind you, I think we should actually embrace that development, in principle. To be able to eradicate genetic diseases, for instance, would be a tremendous boon to society, and if we could correct other vestiges of our evolutionary past through genetic engineering, that would also be something we should give serious consideration to. Naturally, there are issues with this (if we disregard the technical aspects for a second), chief amongst them income disparity. We could see the rich making their kids smarter and stronger, while the poor would have no such options. However, that is no reason to completely forswear the technology of human genetic engineering. That would only be regressive, and you can be sure that everyone will not abide by such a restriction.

Regarding the actual topic, I'm ashamed to say that of the two books I've only read 1984. I shall seek to rectify that mistake as soon as possible.

[Florestan]

I think that particular prediction is going to be fulfilled, sooner or later. The more we learn about human genetics, and the more traits we can associate with a particular genetic pattern, tailor-made children seem to be an inevitability.

Mind you, I think we should actually embrace that development, in principle. To be able to eradicate genetic diseases, for instance, would be a tremendous boon to society, and if we could correct other vestiges of our evolutionary past through genetic engineering, that would also be something we should give serious consideration to. Naturally, there are issues with this (if we disregard the technical aspects for a second), chief amongst them income disparity. We could see the rich making their kids smarter and stronger, while the poor would have no such options. However, that is no reason to completely forswear the technology of human genetic engineering. That would only be regressive, and you can be sure that everyone will not abide by such a restriction.

Large-scale, socially accepted and encouraged genetic engineering would spell the end of human liberty forever.

You say that eradicating genetic diseases would be a progress. But once that step is taken, there is no guarantee that genetic engineering will not move forward towards goals that you wouldn't support now, such as "rich making their kids smarter and stronger, while the poor would have no such options". On the contrary, this is exactly what will happen.

Each and every small step in introducing new technologies was initially presented as a "progressive", "take it or leave it" individual choice. Yet those technologies altered so fundamentally the entire social environment and values that soon the people were left with no choice but following in the steps of the "progressive" minds. Consider the advent of automobile and the fate of the horses and carriages. At first, the automobile was presented as optional, but soon its technological development made it more and more performant and mass advertising made it more and more desirable, until the only option left was not between automobile and horse, but between this or that automobile model. Of course, the automobile was much more faster and reliable than the horse, but for every gain there is a corresponding loss, and this iron law applies here as well. The technological nature of the automobile made more and more regulations necessary: gone were the days when everyone regardless of age or social status could mount on a horse and ride wherever he wanted to, on whatever route he wanted to. The automobile must be driven only on certain lanes build and maintained by corporations or governments; only by certain people whom the government tested and certified as apt for, and knowledgeable about, driving; an automobile cannot be fed with free grass growing on the road, like a horse, but must be filled at special places, where the driver must pay a price to corporations or governments; the driver of an automobile must conform to countless restrictions and driving signs and signals; a.s.o. And even those regulations and driving codes, more and more complex as the automobile evolved, cannot prevent automobile accidents to be among the top causes of mortality.

The same will happen with genetical engineering as well. The first small step will be uising it to correct or even eradicate genetical deficiencies or diseases. And who would oppose such a noble and good use, especially when it will be optional, "take it or leave it"? But once the first thousand "progressive" people will benefit from it, thousand and thousands more would want to submit to it, because why should they lag behind voluntarily? And so the wave will extend until all, or almost all people would have been genetically engineered one way or another. Now, why not take the next step, just as noble, good and optional as the first, namely to genetically engineer embryos to produce smarter and handsomer kids? But since every society needs not only smart people to command, but also less smart ones to obey, why not producing the latter too? And so on and on and on until Huxley's vision will come true as certainly as two plus two make four, and man can kiss his freedom good-bye forever, assuming that there will still be something left on the face of Earth ressembling a human being.

[Daidalos]

Large-scale, socially accepted and encouraged genetic engineering would spell the end of human liberty forever.

You say that eradicating genetic diseases would be a progress. But once that step is taken, there is no guarantee that genetic engineering will not move forward towards goals that you wouldn't support now, such as "rich making their kids smarter and stronger, while the poor would have no such options". On the contrary, this is exactly what will happen.

Each and every small step in introducing new technologies was initially presented as a "progressive", "take it or leave it" individual choice. Yet those technologies altered so fundamentally the entire social environment and values that soon the people were left with no choice but following in the steps of the "progressive" minds. Consider the advent of automobile and the fate of the horses and carriages. At first, the automobile was presented as optional, but soon its technological development made it more and more performant and mass advertising made it more and more desirable, until the only option left was not between automobile and horse, but between this or that automobile model. Of course, the automobile was much more faster and reliable than the horse, but for every gain there is a corresponding loss, and this iron law applies here as well. The technological nature of the automobile made more and more regulations necessary: gone were the days when everyone regardless of age or social status could mount on a horse and ride wherever he wanted to, on whatever route he wanted to. The automobile must be driven only on certain lanes build and maintained by corporations or governments; only by certain people whom the government tested and certified as apt for, and knowledgeable about, driving; an automobile cannot be fed with free grass growing on the road, like a horse, but must be filled at special places, where the driver must pay a price to corporations or governments; the driver of an automobile must conform to countless restrictions and driving signs and signals; a.s.o. And even those regulations and driving codes, more and more complex as the automobile evolved, cannot prevent automobile accidents to be among the top causes of mortality.

The same will happen with genetical engineering as well. The first small step will be uising it to correct or even eradicate genetical deficiencies or diseases. And who would oppose such a noble and good use, especially when it will be optional, "take it or leave it"? But once the first thousand "progressive" people will benefit from it, thousand and thousands more would want to submit to it, because why should they lag behind voluntarily? And so the wave will extend until all, or almost all people would have been genetically engineered one way or another. Now, why not take the next step, just as noble, good and optional as the first, namely to genetically engineer embryos to produce smarter and handsomer kids? But since every society needs not only smart people to command, but also less smart ones to obey, why not producing the latter too? And so on and on and on until Huxley's vision will come true as certainly as two plus two make four, and man can kiss his freedom good-bye forever, assuming that there will still be something left on the face of Earth ressembling a human being.

Naturally, the fabric of society is going to change, I don't see any way around that. I don't think it will necessarily be for the worse however. I think that people who are nostalgic about the past tend to forget the misery that modern technologies have mitigated or eliminated entirely. Consider life dependency, infant mortality, infectious diseases; I think it is a happy delusion to think of our primitive past as something better than what we have today, while enjoying contemporary luxuries.

Society has always shifted and accommodated itself to new technologies, and genetic engineering will be no different. There is a possibility for both great benefit and harm, but I don't think it would do us any good to try to stem that tide of technological advance. Consider, we ban human genetic engineering in one country, even several countries; I bet we'll find other less scrupulous nations that will not enforce such bans. Would it be better if human genetic engineering was banned in Europe, if it was still allowed in China?

Instead of foolishly trying to stop something which might be impossible to stop, we should think of ways to implement advances to the benefit of all involved. I don't claim that there are any easy solutions to this; in the "free" market, I'm certain the rich will make great use of human genetic engineering, and we will have an even wider gulf between rich and poor. Not to say that state-based, public, alternatives are necessarily better; in the hands of a government driven by a pathological ideology, I'm sure genetic engineering will be abused. But, this is going to happen anyway. Any measure you undertake to stop the science from developing would necessarily have to be draconian and totalitarian as well. And I suspect such measures cannot be wideranging enough to encompass ALL nations on our Earth; to accomplish that, you would need a dictatorial world government, and we find ourselves in a curious circle.

No, I think we should charge ahead, but with caution. There are social issues that complicate universally beneficial applications of technology, but that is unavoidable. So, I am very much in favour of developing the science and technology of genetic engineering for humans, but also for serious debate regarding its implementation. Society and even the essence of humanity might change, but it would surely be worse if democratic nations refused to partake at all in the development of human genetic engineering, and let dictatorships or corporations (not much of a difference, one might quip) handle it all on their own. Surely, that would be worse.

Alternatively, I'd ask you how you propose we could prevent this from happening? Without resorting to tyranny and infringing upon the liberties of others in the process, that is.

[Florestan]

I think that people who are nostalgic about the past tend to forget the misery that modern technologies have mitigated or eliminated entirely.

I don't see modern technology as inherently bad (nor as inherently good, for that matter). Technology is a tool, a very powerful tool, and as such it can be used for good purposes just as for bad ones. More on that below.

Consider life dependency, infant mortality, infectious diseases;

Sure. Life today is certainly, on average, longer and healthier than it was 300 years ago and far from me to say it's a bad thing. But I wonder if death, pain and diseases are not the price we have to pay for our freedom. In Brave New World Huxley envisioned a society from which pain, disease and agonizing death have been eliminated with the help of science and technology --- but where not the least amount of personal liberty is to be found. Every man, from craddle to the grave (actually, from test-tube to the crematory) has his life strictly programmed. Every man is happy, no one is sick, no one dies an agonizing death, actually no one even remembers what pain, disease and agony means --- and no one is free.

I think it is a happy delusion to think of our primitive past as something better than what we have today, while enjoying contemporary luxuries.

Well, as I wrote before, for every gain there is a loss. Three hundred years ago people died earlier, didn't have vacation trips all over the world and didn't exchange opinions on internet fora. OTOH, they breathed a cleaner air, they had much more time to spend with their families and friends and could even live all their life, this time truly from craddle to the grave, without ever encountering a government official.

Good and bad were just as intermingled in the past as they are now. The past should neither be idealized nor demonized. They had good things that we lost and conversely, we have good things they couldn't even dream of.

Society has always shifted and accommodated itself to new technologies, and genetic engineering will be no different. There is a possibility for both great benefit and harm, but I don't think it would do us any good to try to stem that tide of technological advance. Consider, we ban human genetic engineering in one country, even several countries; I bet we'll find other less scrupulous nations that will not enforce such bans. Would it be better if human genetic engineering was banned in Europe, if it was still allowed in China?

Instead of foolishly trying to stop something which might be impossible to stop, we should think of ways to implement advances to the benefit of all involved. I don't claim that there are any easy solutions to this; in the "free" market, I'm certain the rich will make great use of human genetic engineering, and we will have an even wider gulf between rich and poor. Not to say that state-based, public, alternatives are necessarily better; in the hands of a government driven by a pathological ideology, I'm sure genetic engineering will be abused. But, this is going to happen anyway. Any measure you undertake to stop the science from developing would necessarily have to be draconian and totalitarian as well. And I suspect such measures cannot be wideranging enough to encompass ALL nations on our Earth; to accomplish that, you would need a dictatorial world government, and we find ourselves in a curious circle.

No, I think we should charge ahead, but with caution. There are social issues that complicate universally beneficial applications of technology, but that is unavoidable. So, I am very much in favour of developing the science and technology of genetic engineering for humans, but also for serious debate regarding its implementation. Society and even the essence of humanity might change, but it would surely be worse if democratic nations refused to partake at all in the development of human genetic engineering, and let dictatorships or corporations (not much of a difference, one might quip) handle it all on their own. Surely, that would be worse.

Alternatively, I'd ask you how you propose we could prevent this from happening? Without resorting to tyranny and infringing upon the liberties of others in the process, that is.

Going back to my first paragraph: science and technology are powerful tools. A tool can be used for doing good as much as for doing harm. It all depends on who uses it under what circumstances.

Now, science and technology, by their very nature, are completely outside any democratic control. We can vote our political leaders in and out of power and we can have some degree of control over their actions (more and more fictitious as time goes by, but that is another story) but we can't vote scientists and engineers in and out of their labs and offices nor can we control in any way their actions. Actually, science and technology have become the one single source of power and prestige that is completely dettached of any control by those to whom they are supposed to serve. No one can stop dishonest or malevolent scientist and engineers from doing whatever they want. Not the society at large, for whom the technicalities and details of their work are just as alien as the other side of the moon; nor the governments, because actually science and technology, if anything, help them making people happier and healthier in materialist terms and it is well-known from all history that a happy and content people never question its social and political organization, much less thinks about changing it. Besides, if people become unrest and politically active, the self same science and technology helps governments to control, monitor and calm them down.

We have arrived at a moment when the fate of all humanity is indeed in the hands of a few corporations: the political ones, i.e. the governments; the financial and industrial ones; and, and that's a novelty in history, the scientific and technological corporations, which are no less interested in creating and maintaining the statu-quo than the other ones, to which they are actually closely tied. Now, of all these corporations, only the political ones are still under the control of the society at large, albeit in a more and more evanescent degree. But the trend is inexorably towards replacing social control of political corporations with the control of the other corporations, or even towards merging them altogether.

That being said, I'm pessimistic about the outlook. You mention "serious debates". Fine, but who will be debating? John or Jane Doe, the Everyman whose fate is at stake --- or political leaders, scientists, engineers, lobby-makers and other experts, to whom genetical engineering, in whatever form it will be practiced, will be highly beneficial?

IMO, for the so-called civilized nations, who are already living under a "dictatorship of experts"  the future is dark. There is still hope for the other nations, those where the scientific and technological "progress" is far less advanced. But I wonder if the technologically advanced, genetically engineered societies of the future will allow less "developed", non-engineered regions to survive.

So my answer to your question is: excluding any notion of God's providence, nothing can be done to prevent it from happening.

[Todd]

I beg to differ.

You need to take your science fiction a little less seriously.

[Florestan]

You need to take your science fiction a little less seriously.

It's not SF that I take seriously, but the reality itself.

[DavidW]

I think that they are both cautionary tales and not reality.  In fact, I'm pretty much sick of how the media is quick to use the phrases "big brother" and "Orwellian", as if all commentary on authoritarianism begins and ends with 1984.  It would be nearly impossible to monitor everyone to the extent that is done in 1984.  All governments have some aspect that mirrors the corrupt all watching one in 1984, that doesn't make the book prophetic, just a warning. 

Now turning to Brave New World, I live in a place where I pass by three different abstinence bill boards every day, this a place where puritanism rules.  Of course people are having sex outside of wedlock, but that's not really over-sexualized.  The time of free love ended decades ago.  And the obliteration of culture and religion is not happening at all.  Maybe things are different in Europe, but where I live, everyone but me goes to church and is passing those traditions and beliefs to their children.  Living in the middle of the US it's hard to see the decadence and collapse of civilization that some warn about.

[Todd]

It's not SF that I take seriously, but the reality itself.

Ah, yes, reality.  Got it.